iPhone 6

[AstroTurf]

The G3 and S5 both have 16gb entry levels. What year are they living in?

the year of the SD card...

 

[Maverick Jester]

The battery life seems fine over here.

For now. Still good battery life, regardless.

So the screen is more efficient than the iPhone5 screen, and the 20nm process is also proving to be more efficient.

(I agree that the battery vs size trade-off should have gone the other way. I don't mind the camera jutting out really, but imagine how much more battery life they could have gotten.)

Which is par for the course, new technology and all, but when running in a higher performing mode than what is normally expected from iPhones, the newer process can only offer so much gain. And a bigger screen, despite being more efficient, will always draw more power when at higher brightness levels.

Also, the Anandtech team was not able to measure the SoC's power draw during activities and at rest, due to the device being sealed. It would have been interesting to see what the draw was, to better gauge the efficiency of the chipset.

That being said, I still would like to see a review in a year when iOS 8 is more mature, and the extensibility features are far more in use than current.

 

[Maverick Jester]

I think so, but also they take an approach of leaving out hardware as much as possible to conserve battery life. It's the main reason they still only have 1gb ram, and a dual core low-mhz processor. Rather than just adding a huge battery in and adding bulk. It's just the trade-off they chose.

I think it's also down the the way Apple's multitasking model works, which in itself is largely responsible for not having unnecessary CPU processing from taking place.

 

[cerebus]

the year of the SD card...

I'm making do with 16gb G2 without an SD card. It's cramped in there though.
Actually I'm not too happy about Apple's approach of stepping from 16gb -> 64gb. It seems unnecessarily punitive. Clearly it's not about cost. Thankfully the year of the SD card is also the year of the cloud storage for pics.

 

[Maverick Jester]

I'm making do with 16gb G2 without an SD card. It's cramped in there though.
Actually I'm not too happy about Apple's approach of stepping from 16gb -> 64gb. It seems unnecessarily punitive. Clearly it's not about cost.

I could not live with a device that gave me 16GB only. Damn, I dunno how you do it.

 

[AstroTurf]

I'm making do with 16gb G2 without an SD card. It's cramped in there though.
Actually I'm not too happy about Apple's approach of stepping from 16gb -> 64gb. It seems unnecessarily punitive. Clearly it's not about cost.

I got a class 10 SD card from esquire for about R200 (32GB).

So total 48GB space Great as I tend to install plenty apps and use burst mode/take 4x video (so I can crop to what I want) quite a bit.

 

[Jola]

The G3 and S5 both have 16gb entry levels. What year are they living in?

They have slots that take 64GB/128GB microSD cards, they don't need more than 16GB !

 

[Dave]

Im finding battery life to be excellent on my iPhone 6, significantly better than my 5s. It's the first iPhone I've used that I would be confident of using for 2 days without a charge.

This is from yesterday morning until now:

View attachment 154082

 

[ajules]

Im finding battery life to be excellent on my iPhone 6, significantly better than my 5s. It's the first iPhone I've used that I would be confident of using for 2 days without a charge.

This is from yesterday morning until now:

View attachment 154082

Great news.If it can get to the evening before a charge I would be very happy.

 

[Dave]

Great news.If it can get to the evening before a charge I would be very happy.

I've just plugged in the charger, battery hit 3%.

I got to 9 hours and 40 minutes use, 1 day and 11 hours standby.

 

[cerebus]

They have slots that take 64GB/128GB microSD cards, they don't need more than 16GB !

The reality is SD cards are a huge headache for Google; Apple made a correct decision not to allow compatibility with them. But as I said, Apple did a bit of a sneaky buggery move there by going 16gb -> 64gb and not making 32gb the base; it's like making economy class seats so much crappier than business class that you just cough up to avoid having to be on the bottom tier.

 

[Hush9300]

Main disadvantages:
Has unimpressive screen to body ratio (the Nexus 5 fits a 5-inch screen in this size of a body) Phones with smaller bodies don't have biometric fingerprint readers
No microSD slot They never did have
Pricey memory upgrades, 32GB version should be standard for such an expensive phoneMost OEM's have 16GB as entry level
No user-replaceable battery They never did have
Protruding camera lens makes the phone wobble if you don't have a case on Other flagships protrude as well
Camera is still merely 8MP four years in a row (granted, it's getting better every with every new generation) they should know better
No 4K video and video sound is still mono Point taken
Lacks the optical image stabilization of the iPhone 6 Plus Point taken
No enhanced resistance to liquids or dust Not sure what the point of this is unless you plan on swimming with your phone
NFC functionality limited to Apple Pay Point taken
Rather pricey for a flagship (without carrier subsidies) that misses some of the extras of the competition, such as stereo speakers, wireless charging, an infrared port, or FM radio What's the point of stereo speakers or a FM radio on a phone?

 

[cerebus]

Main disadvantages:

Phones with smaller bodies don't have biometric fingerprint readers

Spot on. Not to mention it's significantly thinner than most phones in that class.

No microSD slot They never did have

Yup. If you're going to gripe about this you really don't know what you're doing as a phone reviewer.

Most OEM's have 16GB as entry level

It's not an excuse for Apple to release a 16gb base level and then go to 64gb.

They never did have

Yup.

Other flagships protrude as well

Yea but you don't have to like it.

they should know better

They really really should.

Lacks the optical image stabilization of the iPhone 6 Plus Point taken

There isn't an issue with the digital image stabilization of the 6. It seems to work very well actually.

No enhanced resistance to liquids or dust Not sure what the point of this is unless you plan on swimming with your phone

It stood up to water immersion tests for 10seconds in one video I saw. They won't ever get a rating because they'd need to seal the ports up with a stupid flap like Samsung and Sony use. You can't waterproof a 3.5mm jack any other way.

NFC functionality limited to Apple Pay Point taken

At least it has Apple Pay to use NFC.

What's the point of stereo speakers or a FM radio on a phone?

The One M8 does some great things with stereo speakers.

 

[Maverick Jester]

Actually, the GSMArena criticisms are valid. They need to review the device in context of the entire market, not within the context of the iPhone existing in isolation. If it lacks the features that other devices have, it needs to be called out for that.

Oh, the camera statement- is more indicative that mobile lens vendors (Sony, I'm looking at you specifically) are not really advancing camera tech in a genuinely progressive manner.

Apple's cameras are outstanding because their software features are better than anyone else's, but the hardware is virtually similar to a few other devices. The sensor, for example, is the same one from the iPhone 5S, and largely similar to the one found on the 4.

Only two devices employ larger sensor sizes at the expense of resolution- Apple and HTC. I'm very sure that they would employ higher-resolution sensors that didn't sacrifice sensor size, if the technology was there.

 

[cerebus]

Actually, the GSMArena criticisms are valid. They need to review the device in context of the entire market, not within the context of the iPhone existing in isolation. If it lacks the features that other devices have, it needs to be called out for that.

It's unbalanced. There are good reasons they don't have some of those features. SD card slots present major logistical problems with fragmentation of the drive space and one senses that Google would gladly be rid of them, particularly in light of the KitKat changes they made to SD card handling. Removable batteries - well, really is it possible to keep the kind of design that Apple does and still allow you to pry off the back panel with a fingernail? Or allow you to add a third-party Chinese battery that can fry the internals of the phone? Never.going.to.happen. There are enough issues dealing with shoddy third-party chargers. Of course, if you're a reviewer who really loves those features, then you're going to feel like the iPhone is behind the competition for not offering them, and I suspect that's just what the case is with this reviewer.

Apple's cameras are outstanding because their software features are better than anyone else's, but the hardware is virtually similar to a few other devices. The sensor, for example, is the same one from the iPhone 5S, and largely similar to the one found on the 4.

It's still improved a bit from the 5s, particularly in low-light fidelity. That has to be sensor-related. But yeah, I also wonder if they aren't saving the next sensor upgrade for the 6s. That would be quite an Appley thing to do (along with 2gb ram models).

 

[Chevron]

Main disadvantages:
Has unimpressive screen to body ratio (the Nexus 5 fits a 5-inch screen in this size of a body) Phones with smaller bodies don't have biometric fingerprint readers
No microSD slot They never did have
Pricey memory upgrades, 32GB version should be standard for such an expensive phoneMost OEM's have 16GB as entry level
No user-replaceable battery They never did have
Protruding camera lens makes the phone wobble if you don't have a case on Other flagships protrude as well
Camera is still merely 8MP four years in a row (granted, it's getting better every with every new generation) they should know better
No 4K video and video sound is still mono Point taken
Lacks the optical image stabilization of the iPhone 6 Plus Point taken
No enhanced resistance to liquids or dust Not sure what the point of this is unless you plan on swimming with your phone
NFC functionality limited to Apple Pay Point taken
Rather pricey for a flagship (without carrier subsidies) that misses some of the extras of the competition, such as stereo speakers, wireless charging, an infrared port, or FM radio What's the point of stereo speakers or a FM radio on a phone?

The point of a radio on the phone is so that you can listen to the radio using your phone. It is a useful feature.

 

[Looney]

The point of a radio on the phone is so that you can listen to the radio using your phone. It is a useful feature.

Why would you want to listen to the crap that gets played on the radio if you can store all the music you want to listen to on your phone without the advertisements and general rubbish that they speak. I don't get it.

 

[Midnight_choir_drunk]

The point of a radio on the phone is so that you can listen to the radio using your phone. It is a useful feature.

Would be. I could never get anythoimg from static and the occasional word from my previous android phones nor on my G2.

 

[sand_man]

The point of a radio on the phone is so that you can listen to the radio using your phone. It is a useful feature.

Data usage aside why would you prefer a radio to an app IE Tuneinradio?

 

[cerebus]

The point of a radio on the phone is so that you can listen to the radio using your phone. It is a useful feature.

It is useful for some people, no doubt (but... podcasts ftw ). But it's been included in phones since before the iPhone was even invented - so were SD cards and removable batteries. It's not like now they suddenly are losing their cutting edge advantage because they aren't including it; it's a business decision not to support a certain feature probably because of the drawbacks. You might as well have a point in there about how it doesn't support Flash.