Apple announced the new iPhones back in September and they made it to India in October. While, the S upgrade to iPhones have not been major upgrades, this year’s iPhone 6S Plus comes with significant improvements, especially to the camera.
Apart from this, the new feature is the 3D Touch which adds new experience while using the display. Apple has also improved the camera on iPhone and now it comes with a 12MP iSight camera which is an improvement over the 8MP camera on the last year iPhones.
Here is our review of iPhone 6S Plus.
Design and Build:
If you look at the iPhone 6S Plus, you hardly notice any difference between 6S and 6S Plus although Apple has used better material and aircraft grade aluminium for the construction. The weight of the device is something you will notice as soon as you pick the device, it is heavier than iPhone 6 Plus although not really noticeable. But comparing it with Android flagships, it is bigger and heavier. Comparing the device with Note 5, you will find Note 5 has smaller dimensions and weight even though it has a bigger display.
With 192gms in weight iPhone 6S Plus is definitely not the easiest of devices to handle.
The edges are smooth and it gives a great feel when using the device. The premium build quality, fit and finish are all great aspects of the iPhone 6S Plus. We are hoping Apple would work on making the device a bit more compact in the coming iterations.
Display and 3D Touch:
The iPhone 6S Plus uses the same display as that of iPhone 6 Plus from last year. The device has a 5.5 inch Full HD (1920 X 1080p) panel which has great quality overall. The brightness levels are very good and so are the colors. They look natural and contrast levels are great for an LCD. The touch response is ultra smooth.
With the iPhone 6S Plus, you also have 3D Touch, a feature which brings added options to iPhone. The 3D Touch works with different pressure levels applied on the screen. Although the 3D Touch is limited to Apple apps and also a few third party apps like Facebook, it still works really well. For example, if you press the camera button normally, it will open the camera. But if you press the camera icon more harder, you get more options like taking a selfie directly or recording a slo-mo video without having to open the camera and then change the setting.
The 3D Touch also allows you to peek into an email without actually opening it and when writing an email, if you hard press the space key it converts to a touchpad. The options are endless and it is definitely a great step forward in terms of usability.
Software:
iPhone 6S Plus comes with the latest operating system from Apple, the iOS9. iOS9 isn’t significantly different from iOS8, so if you have already used iOS8 you wouldn’t see much of a change. There hasn’t been any change to the looks as well. iOS9 comes with refinements when compared to the previous version.
One useful feature is the ability to go back to the previous app from the currently using one if you navigated from it. For example, if you open a link from Twitter, it opens in Safari and inside Safari, you get an option to go back to Twitter which is pretty handy. Siri, the personal digital assistant has also improved in iOS9 with the ability to make contextual reminders.
Performance:
The iPhone 6S Plus is powered by Apple’s new A9 chip, which is a 1.8GHz dual-core 64-bit ARM processor. Apple has also doubled the RAM, so the iPhone 6S Plus is faster and fluid. Apple claims this new processor is almost twice as powerful as the chip available in iPhone 6. In real world, the performance is butter smooth with hardly any lag or issues.
But sadly Apple has gone with 16GB storage on the base version of iPhone 6S Plus which is not a great aspect especially when iPhones do not support micro SD card. Spending almost Rs 72000 for the iPhone 6S Plus base version and you end up with just 16GB of storage and with the new live photo option, you end up consuming all the storage if you are a shutterbug.
For security, the 6S Plus comes with Touch ID which is Apple’s fingerprint scanner and it is built into the home button. You can configure the fingerprint scanner from the settings and it works pretty well overall. The Touch ID also lets you use the iPhone 6S Plus with Apple Pay, so now you easily tap your phone on a touch-and-pay terminal to purchase good and services.
The call quality was very good and we never had issues with call drops or network issues. The speaker performance is also very good and it comes with noise-cancelling microphones to ensure clarity.
The gaming experience was great with the 5.5 inch display and the graphic quality was superb.
Camera:
The iPhone 6S Plus comes with 12MP rear camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS), true-tone flash, focus pixels, Live Photos, 4K video support and also a 5MP front-facing camera, front-screen flash. Apple has upgraded the camera from 8MP to 12MP in 6S Plus.
The Live photo mode is enabled by default and comes with additional video file which takes up additional storage. With 4k video support, it is not advisable to pick the 16GB variant of the device. The camera on 6S Plus is truly amazing with great clarity and colors. Sharpness and color reproduction seems accurate. But the low light performance wasn’t as impressive as that of LG G4 or Galaxy Note 5. There is also OIS for videos which makes it even better.
The 5MP camera for selfies also comes with great clarity and is at par with Android flagships. There is also additional front screen flash to take better selfies at low light conditions. Here are some of the samples taken with the device.
Battery Life:
iPhone 6S Plus comes with a 2,750mAh, non-removable Li-on battery. While the battery capacity is a tad lower than the predecessor, the overall performance is pretty good. When we tested the performance with 4G LTE network, it wasn’t impressive probably because of the unstable LTE in India.
In our day to day usage, you could get easily more than a day with moderate usage which we feel is decent for a phone with less than 3000mAh capacity. iOS9 also comes with battery saver mode which you can turn on if you want to save battery.
Verdict:
With 3D Touch, better cameras and improved software along with excellent build quality, the iPhone 6S Plus is a worthy upgrade over the predecessor and is definitely one of the best premium smartphones available today. Apple iPhone 6S Plus Price in India starts at Rs 72000 for the base 16GB variant. But with Android flagships getting cheaper (like OnePlus 2) is it really worth the money? If you are looking for a premium phone with great user experience, then definitely it is worth buying. But having said that we were not particularly impressed with the size and weight of the device, we feel Apple needs to work on a smaller bezel on their next generation iPhone.
I am planning to buy an iPhone, but confused with 6s or 6s plus. Many say 6s battery is little weak, but the screen size and specs are ideal for me. So what is your go on it. It is not that i can’t manage with 5.5, but i feel 4.7 is a good screen size.