Apple has finally gone large with two super-sized smartphones at once, but does its first phablet, and biggest iPhone ever, demand 5.5 inches of your pocket?
The iPhone 6 Plus is the biggest iPhone Apple’s ever made, which is not a fact to trip over lightly. That midland between smartphone and tablet occupied most impressively by the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and LG G3 is a road that the Cupertino firm has shunned in the past for being clumsy to control. But not any more.
As the iPhone 6 Plus emerged from the Flint Center launch event as arguably the buzz handset, the way it can handle tasks differently to its smaller twin – a full-HD screen, that bigger battery and a tablet-style landscape mode – set it out as one to watch. We’ve had our hands all over it for the last couple of days, so here’s our early verdict.
iPhone 6 Plus: Size and build
There’s no way around it: the iPhone 6 Plus is big. Hella big. After years of being coy on whether size matters, this is a surprise smartphone monster from Apple. At 158.1mm long and 77.8mm wide, it’s in Galaxy Note territory and more a bag-occupier than a pocket partner. The 172g on its waistline make it heavier than most in its weight class, but the metal chassis reeks of quality rather than creaks of plastic, and at just 7.1mm deep, it’s not as cumbersome as you first think.
The single-piece structure is clever like that, tapering round its newfound curves to not just look slick but offer a reception boost, too. I’ve maintained, somewhat stubbornly, that the iPhone 4 to 5S “Block” era felt like a regression from the pocket-pleasing pre-3GS design, and for me at least order is restored. This is as elegant as an iPad Air but on a smaller scale.
However, the Cult of the Massive Phone is still a long-term membership that eludes me, having previously struggled with the mobile’s bigger brethren and taken solace in the welcome wake of Mini and Compact varieties( and, of course, the old iPhones) . Apple has always agreed till now and the 6 Plus feels like a commercial, rather than a creative, decision, tapping into untapped Eastern markets where big is best.
In testing at home we found ourselves not turning to our iPad much anymore, as the screen size of the 6 Plus could handle most needs; however, out in the field, its size found its way more often than not into bag, rather than pocket, which isn’t ideal for a primary device. But this is an entirely subjective case.
The iPhone 6 Plus at least tries its best to ease you in, first bringing the power button down to the side to aid one-handed usage – a change that’s on the iPhone 6, too, for consistency; with a bit of a wrist roll, it kind of works – then offering resizable text and finally with some clever software sidewalks.
Double-tapping the TouchID ring to shift the top app line down for easier access is a good idea on paper – so good it’s nabbed its own, marketing-speak name, “Reachability”. But the execution can sometimes feel like a slight workaround – all that empty space not being used seems almost cavalier.
Much better is harnessing familiarity with iPads to bridge the transition to the bigger screen with the tablet-style landscape mode, meaning the home screen and Apple apps can all be viewed horizontally, with flipped dock, making transitions into movies and games sleeker and in-app redesigns in turn to optimise the space.
The landscape keyboard, for instance, when browsing the internet or sending messages is a double-thumb delight, with shortcuts aplenty down each side. In some ways, the 6 Plus is like a My First Phablet, and you really miss the landscape mode when you venture back to the smaller iPhone 6.
The same white/gold, white/silver and black/“space grey” colourways are present and correct from the iPhone 5S, in a “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” kind of a way( hey, at least they didn’t add a blue option) . The usual selection of proprietary protected cases will bring the colour if you so wish, the silicon appealing more than the leather in the phone’s tight-fitting form.
