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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akdj - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
Who uses their smartphone to sit and look at the UI? Or. Thats right. You. Can't find any apps that'll work? I'm on my springboard for a second or three. Like you said, pull down, enter the first letter or two of the software/app I'm going to use and click, it's open!No more just looking at the 'floating (?) blobs that sit in rows (like Android)non a screen. Designed for teenagers, grandmas, commercial and military pilots. Military operations you're clueless about and 95% of the Fortune 500 companies have deployed iOS.
And unfortunately for you, if you're NOT an iOS user, I completely 'get it'. I've got both an iPhone 5s and Note 3. Love em both but the Note is a tool for a very specific job I so that uses the SPen to do some amazing stuff that wouldn't be as 'cool' as on graph paper. Other than that, I don't care the app you name, Id it's in parity with iOS, I GUARANTEED iOS runs circles around the Android port. As well the optomized tablet apps are overwhelmingly in favor of iOS, and the biggest challenge with the the Note in different apps I've noticed. They're apps designed for 4.3-4.7" displays and the developers aren't tsking the time to 're-do' their tab apps. They're just blown up leaving a load of white space, sparse UI and pretty lame performance as they're not yet 'coding' to take advantage of multiple core computing. Nearly EVERY app in either environment runs on a single core.
Mind blowing though you've spent that much time looking at 'blobs' and haven't figured out that IF you TOUCH the 'blob' something really REALLY Cool might just happen!
Go ahead. You won't break it
J
steven75 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Smaller phones tend to be cheaper? The rest cost the same? No, a single part like the display could be cheaper, but there are very real costs to miniaturization.Samsung phones not only look cheap because of the plastic, they feel cheap in hand as well. It's not the material--It's what Samsung does with it. Nokia for instance makes some plastic phones that look good and feel great. Samsung comes out with phones that look like band-aids and have fake leather stitching molded into them.
danbob999 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
There you go. Samsung phones are not cheap. You *think* they *feel* cheap. That's your opinion and not based on any fact. Whether a phone is cheap has nothing to do with look or feel.And yes, smaller phones ARE cheaper. The iPhone 6 Plus is more expensive to make. The A8 SoC and all other chips are not smaller in the iPhone 6 so there is no additional miniaturization. Only the display and the battery are smaller, and both are cheaper. iFixit teardowns have shown for years that Galaxy S-series are most expensive to make than iPhones.
mrochester - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Doesn't that mean Apple did a good thing? To make a product like the iPhone for less than it costs Samsung to make their Galaxy devices sounds like a big win to me.danbob999 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Of course it is a win for Apple and their shareholders. Not for their customers.Of course it is cheaper to put half the RAM, a small display and a small battery.
bigstrudel - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
RAM has power costs idiot. It's not worth it just so lazy people don't have to close tabs.You must've missed the part where they tested that 1800mah battery and it beat up on devices with 50% more juice.
danbob999 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I am not saying the iPhone is a bad device.But don't call cheap a phone with more expensive components juste because the shell is in plastic. That's all I am saying.
mrochester - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
I think the expression was relating to the device feeling cheap in the hand, not the actual BOM.danbob999 - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
@mrochesterIs this a tech site or a teenager fashion magazine? Why would anyone care about how cheap it feels in the hand as long as it is a good device?
A metal enclosure with no electronics in it may not feel cheap in the hand but it would be useless. What matters is inside.
Hemlocke - Tuesday, September 30, 2014 - link
Not true, even in the slightest. The thermal envelope on a material with superior heat-dissipating properties, like 6003 aluminum, versus that of a polycarbonate device, with a poor thermal envelope, is important.Having superior heat-dissipating properties means your components can operate at capacity longer, and they also last longer. All you need to do is look at throttling on the S5, compared to the HTC One M8, and you can see a huge difference in extended performance.