The Apple iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Review
by Ryan Smith & Joshua Ho on November 2, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- SoCs
- iPhone 6s
- iPhone 6s Plus
WiFi Performance
While cellular data is often the center of smartphone connectivity, it’s often the case that people rely on WiFi instead of cellular data for the bulk of their data transfers. As a result WiFi is a pretty important part of the overall smartphone experience. In the case of the iPhone 6s, the major change from the iPhone 6 is that rather than single stream 802.11ac, the iPhone 6s now has dual spatial stream 802.11ac. This increases the maximum physical link rate to 867 Mbps. There’s been some confusion over what’s used for the WiFi chipset, and as far as I can tell this is definitely a Broadcom solution, which is identified as BCM4350 in the system judging by the device ID. This chipset is shared with the Macbook, which is probably helpful for driver development. In order to test how well this performs, we use iperf2 in UDP mode to attempt to determine maximum practical bandwidth. It’s worth noting here that the iperf2 ports on iOS are still amazingly buggy though, so these results are no guarantee as far as I can tell.
Interestingly enough, for whatever reason the iPhone 6s holds a minor lead over most of the other devices in this test. I’m not sure what’s causing this, but in practice I found that WiFi on the iPhone 6s worked without any noticeable issues. Reception is noticeably improved when compared to the iPhone 6 due to the addition of a second spatial stream which means that throughput at the same distance is higher.
GNSS
Accurate location is often critical to a number of popular applications for smartphones like any kind of navigation or mapping application, which is going to be an incredibly painful experience if the GNSS system in the phone has poor sensitivity to the signals used in the various GNSS systems available today. Although I have no hard evidence to go on, given the use of a Qualcomm modem in this phone I strongly suspect that this phone is using Qualcomm's IZat location services. I would normally run some cursory testing here with a GPS test application, but because iOS offers no way to clear assistance data and location services are disabled if there is no prior connection to download assistance data, there's no way to do the usual cold lock testing.
A warm lock in which connection was immediately established to begin downloading assistance data achieved lock within 15 seconds, and in general I've never had issues with location services in the iPhone 6s in my time using it.
Misc
Over the course of the review, there are a lot of various bits and pieces that I learn about a phone that might be of interest, but aren’t necessarily examined in intense depth because of either limitations in our testing or the issue of interest isn’t significant enough to examine closely. For example, the fuel gauge appears to be a TI design win as there are references to a BQ27540 chip. The A9 SoC also contains a dedicated AES accelerator for things like full disk encryption and FairPlay DRM. The display backlight appears to use the TI LM3539 driver, but other evidence within the system suggests that this isn’t the only backlight driver for the display.
On the audio side of things, although I haven’t been able to do deep investigations into audio quality it appears in the system that the audio codec used is Cirrus Logic’s CS42L71 which also appears to be responsible for microphone input. However, instead of using an amplified on the audio codec a dedicated amp is used for the speaker, which appears to be a Cirrus Logic CS35L21. Subjectively, the speaker sounds pretty similar to the iPhone 6, but at the high end of the volume range it feels like volume was increased while also increasing distortion. Turning down the volume to a comparable level makes both sound pretty much the same.
More reading of the system files reveals some noticeable codenames like Stockholm which appears to be related to NFC and payments in some way. The fingerprint sensor is referred to as Mesa, and the authentication/secure element appears to be Sand Dollar. The charger chip is referred to either as SN2400 or Tigris. Some sort of accessory detection chip is referred to as TriStar2 or CBTL1610. The ambient light sensor is referred to as CT821 but I can’t find anything on what this is at all.
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Mummiez - Saturday, December 26, 2015 - link
There is also a video on YouTube showing a dancing man wearing a horse mask. Even more amusingly, I must add.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffDPTKn7HiY
mike3332015 - Saturday, November 7, 2015 - link
if this gets the second highest award then can someone tell me what got the first highest award?TechnologyGuy - Saturday, November 7, 2015 - link
Good review but as many have pointed out, as is customary at Anand, very biased in favor of Apple products. Over-reaching statements are used throughout the article and the conclusions simply don't follow from the evidence. No doubt the 6s is one of the top smartphones on today's market but it lags in camera performance (Z5, S6, G4, P6 are all better) and the poor screen is simply unacceptable by today's standards (no, the dpi is high enough argument holds no water; at least for me I can tell at a first glance when compared to other phones). Software is of course more subjective and for normal usage, there is no clear winner between iOS and Android. Stability is non-argument as I have had far more issues on my iPhones than my Galaxy S6, not to mention having to fix my GF's phone after iOS 9 bricked it. Lack of customization in iOS (short of jailbreaking which is still limiting) is also a deal-breaker for those of us who care.So is it a good phone? Sure I'd agree. But it's far from the leaders in the market today and to claim such is simply false.
ciderrules - Saturday, November 7, 2015 - link
Yet another person upset at the cold, hard, fact that Apple is killing it with fantastic hardware.TechnologyGuy - Sunday, November 8, 2015 - link
Fantastic hardware? I guess you didn't even read my comment. The SoC is a very nice engineering achievement but it does nothing to alter my user experience as a power user. The features I personally require are simply subpar in today's flagship market (camera & screen as I have clearly pointed out).There is nothing to be upset about - Apple has come up with a very nice product that fits well into the top end of the market but there is no question it misses the mark in several areas, at least for users like myself. I am more disappointed in the biased nature of the review than the actual product.
ciderrules - Sunday, November 8, 2015 - link
Power user? iOS users are the true power users as they actually can choose from high-end software to do real work on their devices. Or do you think widgets or minor customization makes you a power user?Oh, and saying Anand is biased? Typical response from people who dislike Apple and are having trouble trying to accept they make the best smartphone.
TechnologyGuy - Monday, November 9, 2015 - link
Why would I accept that Apple makes the best smartphone when the company does not? Blind favoritism serves no purpose in the tech world. For that matter, I do not think any company makes the "best" products. Such a term is irrelevant and frankly counter productive. I expect Anand and its readers to be more discerning than that. Or perhaps I am wrong.I have owned and still own several Apple products. Are they definitively superior to their competitors? No, they are not, but they serve their purpose, as any adequate or premium technology product should.
I have no doubt that some developers have chosen the iOS ecosystem for specialized applications; however, those are not relevant to my needs. As I pointed out very clearly, I have very specific requirements which the iPhone 6s has not met. I am simply pointing out the biases in this review. If it meets your needs, great, then I guess you are one happy customer.
As a former computer/electrical engineer who specialized in signal processing, I need no one to tell me a what a power user is, nor would I be inclined to respond further unless there is some valid, well-constructed points to be discussed.
Samus - Saturday, November 7, 2015 - link
11MB cache on a mobile SOC? Damn!?zeeBomb - Sunday, November 8, 2015 - link
Damnnnn!Zoidberg - Saturday, November 7, 2015 - link
Even for AT this is laughable... no mention of the fact that Plus is 25% heavier with a smaller screen and battery than Edge+. Fanboys or sellouts?