Unless your home address is under a large rock in the middle of a desert, you’ve surely read or watched plenty of media coverage of Apple’s latest smartphone by now. However, I find myself reviewing the new iPhone 6 from the perspective of one who used the previous flagship phone, the iPhone 5s.
In all honesty, the iPhone 5s is still a perfectly good phone. I upgraded mine with the new iOS 8, shortly before moving to the new 6, and it ran the new OS quite well. The majority of the new features Apple offers are delivered via the software, not the phone hardware itself. The predictive text capability is a most welcome addition, for example. When I start typing a word, I’m immediately presented with several likely choices of what I’m trying to type. Tapping on one will immediately fill it in and let me move on to the next one. And while I’m not personally much of a health and fitness type, the new Health app does a good job of counting how many steps I walk each day and graphing them over time. Many other new apps will plug in and extend its functionality too. Wi-fi calling support also comes to iPhone 5s users with iOS 8, allowing making and taking phone calls despite having a poor or non-existent cellular signal — as long as a suitable wi-fi network is in range and connected. (This feature relies on your cellular carrier supporting it, but it rolled out on iOS 8 release day with my carrier, T-Mobile.)
So why the arguably premature upgrade to the iPhone 6? In my case, I had several main considerations. First and foremost, I look forward to Apple’s new payment service. This feature requires an iPhone 6 because of the need for a new NFC chip. The functionality isn’t enabled in iOS 8 just yet, but should be coming soon. It looks like practically all of my credit cards are with banks slated to participate in ApplePay, meaning I can potentially leave my wallet at home when shopping. Second, I find the larger screen of the iPhone 6 desirable. It brings the phone to the same approximate size I’ve gotten used to as the “standard size” for many popular Android based handsets sold in the last few years. It gives more usable horizontal space for text and graphics while reading, which equates to less need to scroll down as often to view an entire document. Personally, I find the larger (and more costly) iPhone 6+ to be a bit too much for my purposes. It practically requires using two hands to navigate the screens and type on it, and can be a tight fit in some pockets. Clearly, many people don’t mind those downsides, but I’m convinced many of them also want a phone that serves dual-duty as a substitute tablet. I already own an iPad Air and plan on continuing to use it as my e-book reader during my daily commute. And last but not least, the used market for an iPhone 5s is still strong right now. I was able to resell mine on eBay for around $325, and I still have a couple of cases to sell separately for a few more dollars. That takes a big chunk out of the cost of upgrading to the 6.
So far, I’d say the battery life is roughly the same as what I had with the 5s. That is, I can charge the phone up overnight and use it all day long. By the time I come home in the evening, the battery is typically down to a 20-30% charge, at which time it’s not a problem to plug it back in to recharge again. One of the biggest battery eaters is GPS location functionality. If I wasn’t such a big user of everything from finding my location on a Maps app to reading news/weather in apps that base results on location, I could turn that off and probably get more run-time than I do.
I do notice the iPhone 6 camera yields superior photos to the 5s. I wouldn’t say the difference is great, but the level of detail captured is better. The faster processor in the 6 also supports 60 fps video capture, as opposed to half the number of frames per second from the 5s. I’m not a big user of video recording from my phone, so I have to file this one under “nice to have, but not driving my purchase decision”.
Another notable “nice to have ,but not driving my purchase decision” item is the new graphics processor in the iPhone 6 and the accompanying “Metal” API. This combo allows game developers to make better looking, more graphically complex titles. As I still only do occasional, casual gaming with my cellphone, this just isn’t a big selling point for me. However, others place a very big importance on it, hoping to use the phone as a replacement for a dedicated hand-held gaming console (such as Nintendo’s PSP or Playstation’s Vita). Better to have and not want though, especially since we have kids!
To sum it up, I think the iPhone 6 is a worthy upgrade, even for current users of the iPhone 5 series. It may or may not be something you can cost-justify, but don’t just assume the trade-in price offered by some retailers is all your existing phone is worth. If you want one but aren’t in a rush, I’d suggest waiting for iOS 8.1 to come out. It’s rumored to fix several bluetooth compatibility problems with headsets and car stereos people are currently encountering with the iPhone 6 and 6+.
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