The iPhone 6 Plus Mini-Review: Apple's First Phablet
by Joshua Ho on September 30, 2014 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iOS
- iPhone 6 Plus
Display
While the iPhone 6 Plus’ display is largely similar to the iPhone 6’s display, there are still a few areas worth talking about. The first area is resolution, which is noticeably better on the iPhone 6 Plus on close examination. In general, there’s less aliasing that is visible on the display. While text rendering in general is even better, the improved resolution is most obvious in the rotation lock symbol, which is noticeably smoother and rounder. The use of the 2208x1242 resolution with downscaling should also have a similar effect to FSAA (Full Screen Anti-Aliasing), which will reduce the effects of aliasing on the display.
Outside of simple resolution testing, we also need to test all other aspects of the display. In order to do this, we turn to SpectraCal’s CalMAN 5 with a custom workflow. As always, we use a spectrophotometer to measure color to ensure accurate results. For this review, I won’t go over viewing angles as that’s covered in the iPhone 6 review.
Our first test is of peak luminance and contrast. At maximum, the contrast difference between the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is relatively small, and the difference in peak luminance is relatively small as well. I suspect that this means that Apple isn’t quite at the point where backlight luminous efficiency is rapidly falling off the way it seems to at 500+ PPI RGB LCD displays.
While I normally walk through each type of calibration test, there’s relatively little need in this case as the iPhone 6 Plus is close to the iPhone 6. There are some differences and the iPhone 6 is nearly perfect while the 6 Plus ends up being better than the 5s but not quite at the same level as the 6. I suspect this could be due to production variance, but these are different panels so without additional test units we can't say for certain. The iPhone 6 Plus display is quite close to the iPhone 6’s display in most regards, only larger; this is effectively as good as it gets for an LCD display.
Camera
Ultimately the change to the camera is the one difference that really sets the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus apart outside of the change in size. This one difference is optical image stabilization, or OIS. However, at first it's almost impossible to tell whether OIS is active. As someone who has used multiple cameras with OIS, this is a very odd sensation. Normally, OIS means that it's possible to see the effect of reverse accommodation in either the camera preview or while recording video, but I never saw these effects while recording video, whether in daytime or at night. In fact, I'm not even sure that video is ever optically stabilized, as seen in the videos below. I'm not sure why Apple chose to do this, as video recording is already cropped and would hide most of the odd effects that occur at the edges of the field of view when using OIS.
Putting aside OIS in video, it's obvious that the one area where OIS would be put to use is low light photography. Examining the EXIF data of low light photos, I was rather surprised to discover that in single shot mode (burst mode caps shutter speed to 1/15s) that the iPhone 6 Plus never exceeds 500 ISO. However, in order to keep pace with the iPhone 6's maximum of 2000 ISO and 1/15s exposure time, the iPhone 6 Plus drives exposure time as far as a quarter of a second, which is four times as long.
I really can't emphasize how incredible it is that Apple has pulled this off as it felt like something was wrong when I was testing low light photos as seen below. Normally, such a long exposure time entails noticeable trade-offs, but as far as I can tell motion blur is close to what I see on the iPhone 6 in low light. This seems to be the product of the multiple exposure combination that was mentioned in the keynote, and it really does work as advertised. While some benefit can be seen in the lightbox shot above, it's really in low light conditions like the photo below where we see significant benefits.
As you might expect, there's not much difference in daytime photos. I'm guessing that OIS is disabled above a certain shutter speed in order to reduce the distortion and blurriness that can come from OIS.
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KuyaMarkEduard - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
I cannot say any better word than this, but simply, AWESOME!TruthLoader - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
Did you really forget to mention one of Apple's new key features, introduced the first time with this new iPhone iteration, a capability prominently displayed by the newiPhone 6+ and best described by the words of Apple's CEO:
Dear iSheeps,
I am enlighted you guys already noticed our brandnew "iBend" feature. We have intentionally kept quiet to preserve the big surprise now unvieled on behalf of our beloved
iSheep. Let me share the following core principles, which were of particular importance throughout the design and development process:
1) Enhance our iSheep's ability to enjoy a panoramic perspective, to be able to make "Panoramas" without moving the iPhone or needing any third party software.
2) We wanted to compete with curved screen models form LG, Motorola and Samsung, mainly offered in their domestic markets.
3) This is our answer to the curved screen dsiplays offered by LG and Samsung, especially the new Samsung Galaxy Note Edge and the LG G Flex:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/3/6097297/samsung-g...
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/27/5036288/lg-g-fl...
4) It is our firm belief and intention to surprise Samsung and LG by showing that we are capable of having an edged display in our phones without actually having one, all for
the purpose of trashing their new curved display phones and offering you a new, well hidden, feature.
5) Last but not the least, we want to sell more replacement screens (remember, screen replacement prices were already provided before our new iPhone launch event took place
(in anticipation of it:), of course thats's a feature, feel free to exchange displays now:)).
I am sure some of you iTards might be aware of some articles stating that although our new phones cost about 200$ to 250$ to manufacture (now the old ones cost even less),
http://recode.net/2014/09/23/teardown-shows-apples...
http://news.investors.com/technology-click/092314-...
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/16347/20140926/i...
we are selling them at a huge premium, which means we make a lot of money and I get to enjoy a lot of additional bonifications (ideed, my 15th luxury home has an indoor pool filled
with 100$ bills, hence I'm able to take a bath without suffocating).
More money leads to more attractive innovations like this special iBend (Registered Trademark, Patend Pending) feature you guys will be blessed with, as usual.
Soon we will launch a new iDevice with an additional "S" in its name, it will offer a whole pletoria of new features you will be able tomake use of, like the possibility to to bend it back and forth to form an S shape. ("iS", Patend Pending)
I sincerely believe you iSheeps are happy with our new iBend 6 Plus, however please let me take the oportunity to thank you all for being such a giant hoard of ignorant,
blind and mindless suckers whose whole purpose in life consists of buying our new iDevice/iCrap (Registered Trademark, Patend Pending) for a very high premium while wasting
their valueless time waiting in the iQueue just to brag about which poor soul enriched me first.
Always remember and never forget, the only thing premium about apple is price, everything else pales in comparision.
We Own you.
Yours Sincerely
Tim Crook.
TruthLoader - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
I'm terribly sorry I did forget to correct some typos, nonetheless, here we go (corrected version):Did you really forget to mention one of Apple's new key features, introduced the first time with this new iPhone iteration, a capability prominently displayed by the new
iPhone 6+ and best described by the words of Apple's CEO:
Dear iSheep,
I am delighted you guys already noticed our brand-new "iBend" feature. We have intentionally kept quiet to preserve the big surprise now unveiled on behalf of our beloved
iSheep. Let me share the following core principles, which were of particular importance throughout the design and development process:
1) Enhance our iSheep's ability to enjoy a panoramic perspective, to be able to make "Panoramas" without moving the iPhone or needing any third party software.
2) We wanted to compete with curved screen models form LG, Motorola and Samsung, mainly offered in their domestic markets.
3) This is our answer to the curved screen displays offered by LG and Samsung, especially the new Samsung Galaxy Note Edge and the LG G Flex:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/3/6097297/samsung-g...
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/27/5036288/lg-g-fl...
4) It is our firm belief and intention to surprise Samsung and LG by showing that we are capable of having an edged display in our phones without actually having one, all for
the purpose of trashing their new curved display phones and offering you a new, well hidden, feature.
5) Last but not the least, we want to sell more replacement screens (remember, screen replacement prices were already provided before our new iPhone launch event took place
(in anticipation of it:), of course that's a feature, feel free to exchange displays now:)).
I am sure some of you iTards might be aware of some articles stating that although our new phones cost about 200$ to 250$ to manufacture (now the old ones cost even less),
http://recode.net/2014/09/23/teardown-shows-apples...
http://news.investors.com/technology-click/092314-...
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/16347/20140926/i...
we are selling them at a huge premium, which means we make a lot of money and I get to enjoy a lot of additional bonifications (indeed, my 15th luxury home has an indoor pool filled
with 100$ bills, hence I'm able to take a bath without suffocating).
More money leads to more attractive innovations like this special iBend (Registered Trademark, Patent Pending) feature you guys will be blessed with, as usual.
Soon we will launch a new iDevice with an additional "S" in its name, it will offer a whole plethora of new features you will be able to make use of, like the possibility to to bend it back and forth to form an S shape. ("iS", Patent Pending)
I sincerely believe you iSheep are happy with our new iBend 6 Plus, however please let me take the opportunity to thank you all for being such a giant hoard of ignorant,
blind and mindless suckers whose whole purpose in life consists of buying our new iDevice/iCrap (Registered Trademark, Patent Pending) for a very high premium while wasting
their valueless time waiting in the iQueue just to brag about which poor soul enriched me first.
Always remember and never forget, the only thing premium about apple is price, everything else pales in comparison.
We Own you.
Yours Sincerely
Tim Crook
KuyaMarkEduard - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
BWHAHAHAHAH! AWESOME TruthLoader...bonerpopr - Thursday, October 2, 2014 - link
This guy just latches on to the top comment to spew his anti-apple bile.Please disregard
svan1971 - Friday, October 3, 2014 - link
wow you done, now im on my way to buy an iphone 6, oh wait there sold out EVERYWHERE ! Guess 10 million people didn't read your rant. Guess Ill get the Android disposable phone of the month...maybe not.smalM - Saturday, October 4, 2014 - link
That were a lot of words just to say "I hate Apple"...Berenz - Thursday, October 9, 2014 - link
Meh, I don't get why people are so in one camp or another. Both camps are making fantastic phones and a consumer won't go wrong by buying either a leading or even a mid-range device.As for Apple bashing, I think it got old years even decades ago. The fact is that iPhone would be largely the same device it is now (albeit with a smaller screen size still) without Android being developed. The same can't be said for the other way around. Fandroid pick a handful of great features taken by Apple from Android or 3rd parties while ignoring the fact that Android is copied almost verbatim from iPhone thousands of features including the entire concept. Just look at where Android was before iPhone launched. It looked like BlackBerry. There is a reason Goodle were able to copy quickly including Eric Schmitt (Google CEO) being on the Apple board and Andy Rubin (Head of Android at Goodle) having worked on Apple's earlier devices including the Newton (5" screen, stylus input, wireless, email, etc all 20+ years before current phablets.
As for spec, well, the stats speak for themselves. iPhones smoke the competition in almost every aspect by a big margin. However, my bargain Moto G (2nd gen) is still super smooth and feels almost as responsive as my iPhone 6.
The screen res argument is one of the most flawed ones I've seen yet. The thing that's important in a screen a high-enough res to not be able to see pixels (which is around 330ppi). Any higher and all you do is slow GPU and drain battery. Look at the frame rate of any higher res device on speed tests - they just crawl.
Yes, iPhones cost a load more but then Apple are the only manufacturer making a profit on their phones apart from Samsung who have just announced a 60% drop in profits warning. At some point, innovation will slow if companies can't make a profit. Currently it's a race for market share and brand position but Samsung has seen that they have very little customer loyalty and their customers will happily move to Sony, LG, OnePlus, Moto or a host of Chinese competitors. This is great for consumers in the short term but I'm not so sure long term.
I'm curious about the NSA "hotlink" comment. I've never heard any substantiated source claiming Apple have collaborated with the NSA at any point. This is not the same for other organisations.
CR2 - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
There are great, really great Android products to choose from. In fact I may very well switch over and buy one on my next phone upgrade. It does not make Apple products somehow stuck as you say in 2011 technology. Apple is different than Android. Cadillac is different than Lincoln. There are a few, I admit important things that the Android products do that Apple doesn't, however the opposite is also true.The biggest difference might be the business philosophy of Apple versus Android manufacturers. You are correct that as a whole Apple is not always the first to introduce a feature. Of course in the case of fingerprint id, and a Total integrateds phone based payment system they were first.
The payment system highlights a fundamental difference in the 2 approaches to the market. Should the payment platform work it will over time have a big impact on how people pay for items and the security of that process. It is a much better collection and use of resources, with banks, credit card companies and the Android introduced NFC technology that combines for a perhaps better payment experience. (and you know that Apple has long known about NFC- but chose what might be a more powerful and profitable way to use it)
Don't discount profit as it the biggest difference in the phone debate. Like it or not Apple is making lots of money.
I find the venom that I often see on both sides laughable. And the envy that Apple generates because of the buzz for seemingly me to products is funny as well. On the flip side it really is a social question mark why Apple fans camp out, wait in line and spend countless time waiting when you can go online and get er done much easier! Perhaps it's a every 2 year party???
So enjoy the difference, it gives us choice, it makes both platforms drive each other to be better and both camps can enjoy the results. In other words don't hate, celebrate.
CR2
mpfjelsted - Thursday, October 16, 2014 - link
Why do seemingly intelligent people go and ruin their somewhat legitimate tirades by throwing in asinine hearsay?@AppleCrappleHater2, please tell me that you at least had a template that just needed some minor revision for this particular anti-Apple novella. I would hate to think you actually took time to write that in full just to post here. How disappointed you'll be to find out that it probably changed the minds of approximately zero people. Of course, that's the problem, isn't it? You don't have the self-control to make a legitimate point without throwing in the inflammatory (and in several cases above, erroneous) commentary that appears to be the trademark of every hyped-up lackey (both Android and Apple) here.
As someone who is generally supportive of the Android architecture, and the wide array of devices on the market that support it, I feel justified in my conclusion:
You're an embarrassment.