The iPhone 6 Review
by Joshua Ho, Brandon Chester, Chris Heinonen & Ryan Smith on September 30, 2014 8:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone 6
Cellular
As was previously announced, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus both have support for carrier aggregation and VoLTE. For those that are unfamiliar with the two technologies, carrier aggregation is a method of combining multiple pieces of spectrum for simultaneous use, so it would be possible to piece together one band of 10 MHz and another band of 10 MHz spectrum to achieve the same rate that one would get with a single band of 20 MHz LTE. VoLTE is the next generation of voice service that is delivered over LTE, thus eliminating the need for complicated circuit-switched fallback mechanisms to WCDMA or GSM that are currently required. This is all enabled by the move to Qualcomm's MDM9x25 Gobi modem, which is built on 28HPm and therefore brings lower power when compared to the MDM9x15 generation fabricated on 28LP.
GNSS
As the iPhone 6 has Qualcomm's Gobi MDM9x25 modem inside, it goes without saying that it also has IZat Gen 8B. While it isn't possible to force GPS-only location and location is disabled when airplane mode is on, with WiFi turned off and no SIM inserted in the phone a location lock occurs in around 11 seconds.
Misc
While we normally do a WiFi performance test, for some reason it is no longer possible to get a good iperf port for the iPhone 6. It's likely that we're looking at a single spatial stream solution, and given the track record of Broadcom design wins for the WiFi/BT combo chip it's likely that this is a BCM4339 solution. Apple continues to integrate noise cancellation in the earpiece, and at least two microphones are integrated into the phone. Subjectively the single downward-firing speaker reaches acceptable levels of volume although I haven't been able to get the necessary equipment to test peak volume.
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mrochester - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Because whether it feels cheap in the hand is part of whether it's a good device or not? Apple has proved you can make a top class smartphone and make it feel nice in the hand, so why should Samsung be given the green light for producing the stuff it does?rational_wannabe - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
@danbob999Are you some kind of hippie or do you just hate the superior product. If Apple started charging less it would dilute the brand, but that is something you know nothing about. Secondly it's enough that they have had to give in to market pressure and come out with the enormous iPhone 6 Plus but they now have to eat their margins in order to please plastic lovers like you?
rational_wannabe - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
Mean to say isn't it enough*danbob999 - Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - link
I do like superior product. That's why I prefer plastic. Metal has 0 advantage on a phone.akdj - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Other than throttling performance. Plastic insulates. Metal, aluminum...dissipates. That's why (again, if you read the article) if you read the article the A8's performance delta doesn't fall at all, it keeps chugging at max while the plastics govern the temperature by throttling their load. Sucks wh playing s game, analyzing a spread sheet or manipulating photos/motion or audioKidster3001 - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
To paraphrase your comment: "What Apple has been doing isn't working as well any more so they are changing their product design to better match what they think customers want." In other words, they're making smart business decisions.Charging less would dilute the brand? If you mean "Apple would no longer be a boutique product" then I agree with you. It would also increase their market share quite a bit. If iPhones cost $100 less Apple would have a LOT more customers. They don't really want that though. They want to be Boutique, Expensive and regarded as Fashionable.
akdj - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Boutique, Expensive and Fashionable don't often beat their sales (& every other adoption of ANY Electronic in history) each release. 10mil on the first weekend doesn't prive your theory in the least. Rather I think folks will pay a bit more (not that there's a difference. EVERY flagship costs are identical unless you're buying stock Android GB/GB comparison at launch. Last year the Note 3/iPhone 5s 32GB models were $299@ launch) with EVERY release!Poppycock
Kidster3001 - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
"Is this a tech site or a teenager fashion magazine?"That is, imho, the main difference between an Android fanboi and an Apple fanboi.
shm224 - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
@kidster3001: or Anandtech and Vanityfair.Omega215D - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
It's not only about tabs you apple faggot. GPU shares some of that RAM, programs and OS updates will only get more advance requiring more resources. Display, CPU/ GPU and cellular modems use up most of the energy with RAM being quite low. Can it add up? Sure but not that large of a jump.