iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are Apple's latest, greatest — and this year bigger and biggest — new phones. They held their annual event just last Tuesday and that means this Tuesday, tonight, those who scored advanced review units are free to share their weeklong thoughts with us. How's that new screen? How's that better battery? How's the internet speed? We'll have our reviews posted next week, but for now, here's the early consensus!
John Gruber, writing for Daring Fireball:
The most amazing thing about the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is how utterly un-amazing it now seems to see Apple pull off this level of year-over-year improvement year after year after year.
Jason Snell, writing for Macworld:
Make no mistake: The most important new thing about the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus is their size. While their processors run faster and their cameras focus more exactingly, the real story is that these are larger phones with larger screens. That's better for displaying photos and videos, of course, and often for just allowing more information to fit on the screen. But there's also a cost: The smaller your hands are, the harder these phones are to handle.
Jim Dalrymple, writing for The Loop:
There is no doubt in my mind that iPhone 6 Plus will be hugely successful, because clearly there are people out there that want a larger screen device. There are markets in the world where people like to use only one device and having a phone this large is a benefit.
Walt Mossberg, writing for Recode:
The iPhone 6 is a great upgrade for current iPhone owners, or for anyone, really. It manages to provide a much larger display in a phone that's still small enough to handle easily. It's my recommendation for the best smartphone you can buy.
Lauren Goode, writing for Recode:
Apple has designed a giant phone that offers a few key large-screen features without overwhelming the senses, and it has a pretty good camera, to boot. More importantly, it feels sleek, and carries the cachet of being a "big iPhone" — if that's what you're into.
David Pierce, writing for the Verge:
For a variety of reasons, from the camera to the app ecosystem to the hardware itself, the iPhone 6 is one of the best smartphones on the market. Maybe even the best. But it's still an iPhone. The same thing Apple's been making for seven years. A fantastically good iPhone, but an iPhone through and through.
Nilay Patel, writing for the Verge:
I'm going to buy an iPhone 6 Plus. I'm taken with it; it feels like an entirely new kind of device for Apple, and it has such a killer camera I can't say no. It's every bit as good a phone as the iPhone 6; I'm docking it a little because Apple has a few software glitches to clear up. But I'm confident that will happen.
Brad Molen, writing for Engadget:
This year's iPhones aren't groundbreaking, nor are they perfect. But they demonstrate something far more important to Apple's success in the long run: freshness. Apple ditched the tried-and-true square design (which I've always been fond of) for a more rounded, modern look; it added features that should've been there ages ago (NFC, anyone?); and it made the phones large enough to start competing in a hotly contested space. No doubt about it, the iPhone needed to grow in size and function, and it did just that. Fortunately, it made the leap before it was too late.
Lance Ulanoff, writing for Mashable:
There are other smartphones that do some of the things an iPhone 6 can do. Others, like the Samsung Galaxy S5 do more. It and the Amazon Fire Phone actually watch you and react to your gaze. Even so, none put it all together in quite the same way. I do miss the edges of the old iPhone design, but Apple's iPhone 6 is, for my $200, the most elegant and effective smartphone on the market.
Vincent Nguyen, writing for Slashgear:
The iPhone 6 Plus won't be short of fans, and indeed I love its multimedia abilities and how productive I can be with it, but unless you're an avid gamer, a determined mobile video pro, or insist on as much time away from the AC adapter as possible, the iPhone 6 feels like a more encompassing option.
Molly Wood, writing for the New York Times:
The slim new iPhones aren't a big-screen slam-dunk, but they work well, as we have come to expect from Apple. Ultimately, it's what's on the inside that keeps them just in front of their competitors.
Geoffrey A. Fowler, writing for the Wall Street Journal:
Apple's strength is choosing the technologies that really matter and taking them mainstream. The iPhone 6 sets up Apple to make good on the long-promised evolution of the smartphone into a wallet and a companion for a universe of personal devices and data, including the forthcoming Apple Watch. Apple added technologies, including one called near-field communication (NFC), that will let iPhone 6 owners make payments at over 220,000 U.S. stores starting in October. I was only able to test Apple Pay in a demo situation, but it was remarkably simple.
Joshua Topolsky, writing for Bloomberg:
With the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple has proven that not only can it make a bigger phone, but it can make a bigger phone better than anyone else in the marketplace. Between the slick software, killer hardware, and deep integration into Apple's amazing ecosystem, the iPhone is back in the spotlight. Let the performance begin.
Charles Arthur, writing for the Guardian:
A beautifully made phone that finally reaches the screen size that many have hankered for from an iPhone, without sacrificing quality. The iOS 8 software adds a lot of key functionality - and NFC allied to TouchID has huge potential for offline and online payments.
Stuart Miles, writing for Pocket Lint not once but twice:
In the iPhone 6, Apple has managed to make a phone that doesn't necessarily bring anything new to the smartphone arena - Apple Pay aside - but at the same time makes everything work so effortlessly. All the features you will find on the iPhone 6 can be found elsewhere in the Android or Windows Phone world, but not always in such a fluid and easy-to-use way.The iPhone 6 [Plus] is certainly one for the power users and certainly one for those looking for a big screen experience. But with a bigger battery and a bigger display comes a device that for many will be just too big overall.
Darrell Etherington, writing for TechCrunch, also twice:
The iPhone 6 is the best smartphone available. It offers improvements in almost every way that matters, and it delivers those in a striking new design that balances consumer demand for larger screens with a thin, light and durable case. It's Apple's most attractive phone, visually, and the 4.7-inch size is going to be more generally appealing than the iPhone 6 Plus' larger proportions.But the iPhone 6 Plus surprised me: I went into this review expecting to find it was a niche gadget, reserved for those seeking the absolute top-of-the-line, convenience be damned. Instead, I found myself getting strangely comfortable with a phone I still find difficult to use one-handed. In short, the 6 is my favorite current smartphone, but the 6 Plus is its closest competition.
Matthew Panzarino, writing for TechCrunch:
The iPhone 6 Plus is a great option for people who don't have or want an iPad — or simply don't want to carry it. Where the iPhone 6 is a great upgrade to the iPhone line, the iPhone 6 Plus is a fantastic 'computer'.
Check out the reviews and then come back here and let me know, did any of them change your mind about which new iPhone you want to get?
