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
System Performance
One of the more popular and pervasive beliefs in this industry is that specs increasingly don’t matter. In a lot of ways, this review isn’t really the right place to address whether or not this matters, but the short answer is that things like SoC performance matter quite a bit. Outside of the display, the SoC and RF subsystems are one of the biggest power consumers in a phone today and unlike the display or RF systems the CPU and GPU can cause short spikes of enormous power consumption. At this point, we’ve seen SoCs this year that consume anywhere between 6 to over 12 watts when faced with a full load situation. The important part here is that when an SoC uses that much power, it needs to be delivering enough performance to justify the power consumption. In order to test aspects of the phone like the SoC we use our standard suite of benchmarks, which are designed to test various real-world scenarios to get an idea of what peak performance looks like.
In the standard web browser benchmarks, the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are clearly in the lead. The difference in some cases is significant, but given that the benchmarks that we’re running here are all enormous optimization targets it's still a reasonable comparison point. In the interest of trying to avoid optimization targets I decided to look at some new JavaScript benchmarks that aren’t regularly used right now. One interesting benchmark is Ember Performance, which is a JavaScript app framework that is used in a number of popular websites and applications. This isn’t as popular as AngularJS at the moment, but in the absence of a good mobile benchmark EmberJS should be a reasonably good proxy.
In this benchmark, we can see that there’s a pretty enormous performance uplift that results when you compare the iPhone 6s' to anything else out there on the market. Weirdly enough, on average it looks like Samsung’s S-Browser ends up slower here than Chrome, but it’s likely that this is just because S-Browser is using an older build of Chromium which negates the advantages of platform-specific optimizations that Samsung is integrating into S-Browser.
Looking at Basemark OS II, once again Apple is basically taking the lead across the board. The differences aren’t necessarily as enormous as they are in single-threaded browser benchmarks, but the iPhone 6s’ retain a significant overall performance lead over the next best mobile devices.
Overall, in benchmarks where CPU performance is a significant influence the iPhone 6s is pretty much at the very top of the stack. Of course, Apple has also had about 6-8 months of time since the launch of SoCs like the Snapdragon 810 and Exynos 7420 so this is at least partially to be expected. The real surprise and/or disappointment would be if future Exynos and Snapdragon SoCs continue to lag behind the A9 in CPU performance.
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RealityMonster - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
SIGH.The screen isn't 'low res'. The pixels on most Android phones are superfluous. They burn power and you can't see them at normal viewing distances anyway. The extra pixels aren't doing you any good. They're harder on the battery AND the GPU.
The SOC benchmarks are 100% consistent with every other benchmark I've ever seen anywhere. Per clock, the A9 is just the best SOC that exists right now. They really do have incredibly good chip designers working at Apple--Apple bought up a bunch of companies that mattered years ago and everyone was confused until they started cranking out stuff like this. I challenge you to create a real-world test where the A9 doesn't outperform its counterparts. Do you have any evidence to show that the SOC are somehow invalid?
The camera resolution is one of the least important things about the camera, and I wish everyone would stop banging on about the number of megapixels in phone cameras because it really just makes you look like you don't know what you're talking about. You know what other camera has a 12MP sensor? My Nikon D3s. If you try to tell me that a higher resolution sensor in a phone somewhere would take better pictures than my D3s, even if we somehow leveled the playing field in terms of lenses, you'll be laughed out of the room.
2GB of RAM is not the same sort of limitation under iOSs as it is under Android. The nature of virtual machines and garbage collection under Android means that you need a lot more wiggle room for the OS to function optimally.
I can't speak to how 'must have' faster LTE is (it's not, to me). My phone application sits in a folder on my second screen. It's so unimportant, it shares the folder with TimeHop. While it's a fair criticism that some people may care about that sort of thing, the 'phone' function of my iPhone is honestly almost an afterthought.
No micro SD is common across smartphones, and I would consider having it something that you would grade other phones UP for as a nice option, rather than grading any phone without it down. The cost of extra storage is a fair cop; 16GB devices shouldn't even exist anymore, especially if you're going to make each photo take up twice as much space by default, and let the device record 4k video. The proprietary connector is a BETTER connector, but has no real bearing on anything. You get a cable with the phone, they're cheap to buy if you need more. It's the lamest of complaints.
If you want an iOS 9 review, that's something else. This is a review of the iPhone 6s(+). The limitations of the software aren't meaningful when discussion the build of the hardware.
toukale - Monday, November 2, 2015 - link
Why would anyone be shocked at this point. And with the iPad Pro around the corner, Apple have cemented themselves at the best mobile design house on the planet. I never though I would be writing those words a few years ago.Chaser - Monday, November 2, 2015 - link
I know what you mean. I recently had the opportunity to purchase a new tablet. Phone wise I have been an Android man for years. But tablet wise I did my research and the iPad Air 2 has no competition. It is a quick and easy go to device that a a tablet should be with unparalleled development. can't believe I am saying that today. Can't believe i bought one but for a tablet, I love it!jospoortvliet - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
I wouldn't go for an Apple tablet actually. I'd buy a much lighter Sony, I think. But the 6s - I really hope the Android ecosystem gets its act together next year so I can buy a successor to my m7.duploxxx - Monday, November 2, 2015 - link
love the final words. This phone does excel in every possible theoretical benchmark there is :) Uber usage of nand (sequential....), power consumption, graphics etc and mainly ............ price.But then you take the reality benches and final results of real measurable tools and then its all up and downs with other devices out there. Not to mention that optimized IOS sw ends when the apple device is +2y old. it becomes a forced sluggish replacement.
looking at those results, knowing the price of this device it does not come even close to being gold. it should be silver just by the fact of its high price tag. Reality shows that for example the One plus being "old device" with a good balanced pricetag and nice performance scores in most testing is a way better bargain then this piece of fruit. Yeah you can use it as a scale. Its just forcetouch requirement because of the lack of IOS buttons and features. after owning 2 apples, never again for me.
V900 - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
LOLOLOL!Of course.. When the tests and benchmarks put the new (AS WELL as last year's iPhone) above all other handsets, There's not much left for you to do, than just make up some arguments against iPhones.
Like that "optimized software ends after two years". Sure you can't use the newest features on your old phone.
But where Android handsets rarely see updates after a year, and usually get too slow and crufty for everyday use after two years, you see iPhones get updates for 3-5 years after release, and be perfectly fine and fast for their purpose.
My friends 10 year old son just got his 6 year old iPhone 3GS for his first phone. When was the last time you saw a 6 year old Android handset in use?
Heck, when was the last time you saw a 2-3 year old Android phone in use, that delivered a bearable performance?
Compare that with the tens and hundreds of 4-5 year old iPhone 4/5s that you see everyday still in use, and almost as zippy as when they came out? You get what you pay for.
darkich - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
"Heck, when was the last time you saw a 2-3 year old Android phone in use, that delivered a bearable performance?"Now that is such aa ridiculous load of BS right there.
How about you read the first paragraph of the review and then inform yourself on how old the HTC one M7 is.
I myself feel the same as the author, having a 2 year old Note 3.
Nothing released so far makes me want to invest in a new device since the Note 3 still serves me remarkably well.
Heck, it actually performs BETTER than it did when it was new!
There were some issues with the transition from kitkat to Lollipop, probably because of the application needing time to optimize for ART.
But now, everything is a breeze.
I bought a new battery 3 months ago, and even that part (battery endurance) is better now than it was when my phone was brand new!
What makes that that more impressive is the fact that I'm actually using 100% out of my phone, having over hundred apps on it and doing stuff you wouldn't believe we're possible on a pocketable device - using it as a pc replacement, even for video editing and 3D modelling.
If you want evidence, just let me know.
V900 - Tuesday, November 3, 2015 - link
Why would a higher price than a mid-grade One+ detract from the score?!?You do understand that most markets are divided into low end, middle and highend? Right?
Android phones exclusively rule the low end, most of the mid end, and little of the high end.
Since the iPhone is a premium product, regularly reviewed as the best on the market, naturally it has a higher price than a mid end One+ that doesn't deliver close to the premium experience an iPhone does.
Would you also insist a BMW has to have a score deducted, because it's more expensive than a Kia?!?
krumme - Monday, November 2, 2015 - link
What about weight??6s plus is between a note 5 and 8 inch tab s2 !
Its a brick. Nokia style.
And the little comment about contrast is imo not consistent with real world experience.
Wait untill apple gets oled and the tone will shift.
Uncritical review.
iSeptimus - Monday, November 2, 2015 - link
Been waiting for this review. Always interesting to see this sites in depth reviews, for any phone.Lot of butt hurt Android users in the comments already. Is it really so bad that it's a good phone?