I have been using the 6 plus for 4 weeks now, and it has not bent, not a bit. It survived hour long commutes in tight short pockets and came away unscathed. From personal experience, I can say the iPhone 6 plus will never bend but that doesn’t mean it can’t. In fact, this applies to several other phones out there, made of aluminium. Truth is, they won’t bend, unless you are careless.
And now for the next concern, how big is the iPhone 6 plus?
This is the first time Apple has come out of its comfort zone, but it looks like you might have to, too. The iPhone 6 Plus is big and it will be uncomfortable if you aren’t used to phablet-sized devices. With a 5.5? display, the device actually measures 6.22? vertically, which makes it too big for many. This is mainly because of the generous bezels around the display. Also, by design, the curved edges are outward and hence the phone becomes wider than usual, at 77.8mm.
DISPLAY
Ever since the iPhone 4, Apple has had great displays on its phones, the 6 Plus is no exception. The 5.5? display comes with a standard 16: 9 1920×1080 pixels resolution with a “Retina HD” pixel density of 401 ppi. This is comfortably above the 326 ppi “Retina” benchmark set by Apple, the ppi at which our eyes fail to resolve individual pixels. The industry has pushed forward ever since, we have quad HD displays now, but Apple knows that it is not just about resolution. The 6 Plus has something called Dual Domain pixels that radically increase the viewing angles. It’s also their thinnest yet, meaning the screen is most definitely bonded to the display, closer than ever. This makes for stunning viewing angles and great outdoor visibility, with the oleophobic coating making sure our fingerprints don’t come in the way of a superior experience.
Camera
The iPhone 6 and the 6 Plus have largely the same cameras, except for the inclusion of optical image stabilization on the latter. Perhaps, using up the little extra thickness on the 6 Plus, Apple has managed to pack a hardware solution for video stabilization. The iPhone 6 does come with software-based cinematic stabilization, so how much of a difference does the iPhone 6 Plus’ OIS unit bring?
Performance
Performance has never been a concern with new iPhones. The latest one always has the greatest processor inside, this time the A8. The new chip is supposedly 50x faster in CPU performance and 84x more powerful in GPU performance when compared to the “first” iPhone. But of course, Apple always wants bigger numbers to boast about, so what are the real ones? How does it compare to the iPhone 6, with different screen resolutions and all?
Software
The final version of iOS 8 debuted alongside new hardware, with an update ( 8.1) lined up a few weeks after. The latest version of iOS builds on the radically different iOS 7, which was a big departure from the tired old skueuomorphic UI. Design refinements aside, iOS 8 brings some really important OS features like extensibility, novel inter-play features like continuity, hand off and so on. We have a review of iOS 8 ready, in case you are interested in a complete lowdown of the operating system, but let’s focus on the 6 Plus here and see what Apple has done to adapt its software to the big screen.
Early on in the setup phase, Apple asks you whether you want a “standard” setup or a “zoomed” setup. The next page shows you two screenshots of icons arranged in the usual grid, one scaled to the native resolution ( standard) , and the other scaled to a lower resolution, with bigger icons and a tighter grid ( zoomed) . Choosing “Standard” makes the 6 plus utilize the full real estate of the screen, with smaller fonts and more items on a scrolling list. There is also the landscape mode enabled by default ( just for the 6 plus) which makes it look like a iPad mini, but with a 16: 9 screen. With landscape orientation comes the additional real estate in apps, which Apple wants developers to take advantage of, with a split screen two-column mode. This is evident in the phone settings.