I've had my iPhone Six Plus for about two weeks now, and while I've been travelling throughout that time, meaning that my usage pattern has been atypical, it's been attracting a lot of attention everywhere I've been. People want to look at it, talk about it, hold it (yes, the phone) and know whether it lives up to the hype and if really is that big. And some smartarses want to know if I've bent it yet (spoiler warning: I haven't).
So, even if I can't yet speak within the frame of reference of my normal day-to-day use, I have been travelling with it and working, so surely if it is all that unwieldy, that fact will have revealed itself by now. So here are my key takeaways, in brief (okay, so it didn't turn out that brief).
Battery Life
This was one of the big draws of the Six Plus for me. The bigger physical body of the phone leaves space for a bigger battery, and while some of that extra power is needed to drive the higher resolution display, it is a net improvement over the Six. Having been on a multiple charges a day routine, I can now go the whole day with Bluetooth running and still have up to fifty percent left by the evening, depending on usage. This is how smartphones should be.
Verdict: Great
Screen
This is, literally, the big one. It's nice, really nice, but it's not best feature of the phone right now. It looks amazing and having all this space on a device that fits in your pocket (and it does) is fantastic.
There are two big problems. The first one is psychological. I still use an iPhone 4s for work. I've never had problems with it before, but now it feels like driving a clown car. I have to hold it right up to my face, and the keyboard feels like garbage. I'm for the first time seriously considering consolidating my work and personal phones.
The other is one of ecosystem. Because of the big resolution jump, a lot of apps just haven't caught up yet. I'm typing this in Evernote, which has that crisp, correctly sized look. But when I switch over to Google Chrome or a host of other apps, it zooms the screen to compensate for the older app, and it looks horrible. Sure, this will be fixed in time, but it's not nice for an out-of-the-gate experience, and doesn't really sell the larger-screen phone from the get-go.
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| Nice-looking, correctly-sized Evernote |
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| Overzoomed Google |
Verdict: minor gripes, but fundamentally great.
Size
I hinted at this when talking about the screen. The phone feels big. People notice when you wap it out. At first. After about four days of use, it seemed normal; not uncomfortable to carry, not even noticeable in your pocket. It was a little clumsy to use one handed, but since I put a back case on it that provides more grip, it's much more comfortable (the sleek aluminium build is nice, but feels precariously slippery).
That said, it's not necessarily for everyone. I have freakishly extensible thumbs and hands big enough to grip the phone and reach most areas. Someone with smaller hands will probably find the Six more suitable.
Verdict: I love it, but your mileage may vary.
Camera
Awesome. Okay, so it's never going to be perfect in bad lighting, but apart from when I was taking photos at a concert (yeaahhhhh *rock fingers*), they've come out really sharp with very little effort. The Six Plus has Optical Image Stabilization for video, which is a nice plus (hah), but I'm not sure how often I'll find that coming into play. If you're buying a phone primarily for the camera, I'm sure there are better options out there, but this is the best iPhone for that, and a better all-round phone than most comparable ones.
Verdict: a solid improvement on an already decent phone camera.
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| I basically wanted a chance to use this picture. Shot hastily on the Six Plus |
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| Worse lighting conditions. Decent, but much lower quality picture. |
Keyboard
This was the biggest disappointment for me. I was hoping that the landscape keyboard with this big screen would have so much more to offer. As it is, it keeps the keys the same size, but adds a lot of buttons round the periphery. This is fine, in theory, but the layout is changed in some subtle and awkward ways. I feel like I could learn it and get some good use out of it, but I've found myself sticking with the portrait keyboard for the most part, which is really good.
The introduction of third party keyboards is interesting, but has some issues. I was itching to try SwiftKey, and was determined to stick with it through the learning curve. That part was fine, but there were stability issues and slow loading times to launch the keyboard, which pretty much screws the whole thing when it comes to very short-fire inputs such as such terms. Waiting that extra second for at those times is really jarring. I'll try this approach again in a few months.
Verdict: disappointing
Bending
This...isn't even a thing. Seriously. Some guy made a video where he really has to straaiiiin to bend it. It takes something like 90 pounds of force to bend these things - there are all sorts of things you can bend with that kind of force...
If your day-to-day activity involves risking that amount of force on your phone, get a rugged case for it, but, honestly, that kind of thing should be beyond regular operating parameters anyway.
Verdict: seriously?
The low-down: should you buy it?
If you're due for an upgrade and are after the larger and more powerful experience I've talked about, then sure, go for it! I absolutely love it. I've found myself able to use my phone for so much more (and seriously, typing on this thing is a huge step up). If you're less keen on those features, it's slightly harder. The Six is still a great phone, and that might be better (or you might find either too unwieldy for eat you want in a phone).
If you're in doubt, I exhort you to go and grab hold of some in an Apple Store and try them out. The overwhelming reaction has been that it's not as big as people were expecting (*cough*), so you might be surprised.
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