Apple iPhone 6 Plus: Australian Hands-On

The iPhone has gone big today, and we’re loving it.

The iPhone 6 Plus is powered by the 1.4GHz dual core Apple A8 processor, which (according to Apple), consumes 25 per cent less battery while still cranking out more grunt.

You get a 5.5-inch Retina HD LED screen which packs in 1920×1080 pixels (that’s 401 pixels per inch). The screen is gorgeous, and it’s also super-bright and the contrast is off the chain. The screen glass (not the screen itself, mind) is edge-to-edge and curved beautifully, which encourages you to use nifty swipe gestures built into iOS 8.

iOS 8 is really trying to take advantage of this larger screen size by prompting you to go big with your fonts and icons on set-up, and educating you on how you can make things look bigger and better after you start using the device.

The larger screen size also allows you to take advantage of a new landscape viewing mode that looks awesome on the larger iPhone 6 Plus.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m not a huge fan of phablets because of my tiny hands and their inability to slip to the other side of a screen to activate certain apps or menus. I was worried I’d have to sacrifice a big, beautiful screen experience because of this physical impairment, but Apple’s made it easy for those of us with tinier glove sizes to use.

Tapping the home button twice (tapping, not pressing), drags the icons (and the interface of Apple’s own apps down) so that you can use it one-handed. Other phones like Samsung’s Galaxy and Sony’s Xperia range previously compressed your apps into a smaller screen space, but it couldn’t be activated at will and bastardised the whole experience. This is actually surprisingly fluid and solidifies the decision to get a phablet for those who had previously hesitated.

The camera also takes some pretty great images on the upgraded sensor. Here’s a few shots from a wander around Circular Quay in Sydney.

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The only weird thing to note about the camera is that the lens itself now juts out from the otherwise svelte phone body. It’s a sapphire lens hood which will prevent it from being scratched, and it’s encircled in stainless steel to keep everything safe.

We’re loving this new big screen iPhone. It’s been a long time coming, and we can’t wait to get deeper into it.


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