Gadgetory

what's up guys lon here from Android Authority and it's pretty clear that large smartphones have grown in popularity over the years but how does Motorola's $400 flagship compared to Apple's latest this is the Moto X pure edition versus the Apple iPhone 6s plus so the easiest place to start with these two devices is the design now the one our drastic changes from last year's model and in the case of the iPhone it's pretty much the same design since this is an S year the Moto X pure edition looks a lot like the Moto X 2014 except it's a lot bigger due to the bump in screen size but it still has the same metal frame same button import placement and same curve along the corners and backside the signature motorola dimple is still there but it's now housed in a metallic strip along with the camera and flash and the dimples back to a much smaller more subtle size in the case of the iPhone 6s plus like I've already mentioned it's the same design as last year 6 plus but unlike previous models where Apple typically makes the phone thinner and lighter the iPhone 6s plus is actually slightly thicker and heavier and this is due to a couple of reasons these 6s plus is now made of a stronger 7000 series aluminum which makes it less likely to bend and there is now a pressure-sensitive layer underneath the display that allows the 6s plus to utilize what Apple calls 3d touch and this allows you to physically press harder on the display to activate certain actions but we'll get into all of that a little bit later in terms of size the Moto X is the thicker phone out of the 2 but in every other dimension like height and width it's surprisingly smaller than the 6s plus despite having a large display which makes it a little bit easier to use in one hand much of that has to do with the very thin bezels on the Moto X whereas the 6s pluses are quite a bit thicker on both the sides and top and bottom one area that the Moto X just simply can't be beat is in the color options and customization the remoter maker you can pick your own colors materials accent colors and even add custom engravings and greetings to make the phone truly your own with the iPhone things are much more simple you've got the standard space grey gold and silver but this your Apple decided to spice things up a bit by adding a new rose gold color into the mix if that's what you're into for the display you're looking at a 5.7 inch screen on the Moto X and a 5.5 inch screen on the 6s plus both are IPS LCD s but the Moto X has a higher resolution at 1440p over the 1080p of the 6s plus the Moto XS display is obviously sharper due to the high resolution and pixel density which is great for watching videos but the 6s pluses display is no slouch by any means both displays look fantastic in their own right but when comparing them side by side you will notice some differences the 6s Plus display gets significantly brighter and the colors are much more natural over the warmer more saturated color tones of the Moto X this is how the Moto X is set up by default and the saturated look can be appealing to the eye but if you find that it doesn't quite suit your taste you can easily change it in the settings when comparing the performance of an Android device to an iPhone it's always sort of a tricky thing to do because you have to look beyond what you see on the spec sheet with the Moto X you're looking at the Snapdragon 808 which is a hexa core processor and three gigs of ram over on the iPhone 6s plus you've got apples a nine chip and two gigs of ram a pretty significant bump up from the one gigabyte of ram on the last couple generations of iPhones you would think that with more cores and more RAM the Moto X would completely smoke the 6s plus but that couldn't be farther from the truth has always been known to make great performing devices with what appears to be lesser specs and while both devices perform extremely well in all aspects including multitasking and gaming the 6s plus performs considerably better in benchmarks like Geekbench with a little over double D single core score of the Moto X and a significantly higher multi-core score this doesn't mean that the Moto X is a slow phone by any means because it's one of these smoothest performing angel' devices on the market right now but you are going to get an overall more consistent experience on the 6s plus when it comes to things like gaming for storage the Moto X pure Edition starts at 16 gigs with 32 and 64 gigabyte options also available and on the 6s plus storage also starts at 16 gigabytes and jumps up to 64 and 128 gigabytes from there 16 gigabytes is not a lot of storage but on the Moto X you can probably get by perfectly fine with that amount of space because the storage is expandable via microSD whereas on the iPhone you don't have that option so if you decide to go with the 6s plus do yourself a favor and get the 64 gigabyte at the least when it comes to speaker quality the 6s plus just doesn't compare to the Moto X the Moto X has dual front-facing speakers that are not only loud but also sound extremely good which makes them awesome for videos and games the 6s plus the speaker isn't bad by any means as it does deliver some pretty decent audio but considering it's only one speaker mounted at the bottom of the phone you're not exactly getting the most impressive audio experience on a smart phone one piece of hardware that the iPhone has the leg up on over the Moto X is a fingerprint sensor mainly because the Moto X doesn't have one but also because it's a really good fingerprint sensor touch ID is faster than ever and it's almost too fast which sounds like a really weird thing to complain about but simply just pressing the home button will instantaneously unlock your device it unlocks so fast if you're trying to glance at your notifications or access the camera from the lockscreen you won't be able to there are however some workarounds to this with the trusty side mounted power button being the most obvious one or you can just do what I've been doing and pressing the home button with only a part of your finger on the button which will prevent it from reading your fingerprint and unlocking so quickly as far as battery life goes the Moto X is packing a 3000 milliamp hour battery and the 6s plus has a 27 50 milliamp hour cell battery life is pretty good on both and I'll get at least a full day on either one and sometimes a day and a half on the 6s plus where the Moto X has the advantage here is in charging with Motorola's turbo power charger the Moto X charges extremely fast which makes it very easy to fill up for top off and in my experience I've been able to go from 0 to full in roughly 75 minutes the 6s plus uses apples proprietary lightning cable and while you may not get any fast charging capabilities out of it the cable is reversible which sounds like a minor thing but it makes plugging it in that much more easy and convenient historically smart phone cameras have always been Motorola's biggest weakness and as for Apple that's always been one of their biggest strengths this year Motorola promised a much improved camera experience on the Moto X but Apple also make a few improvements themselves just like you would expect them to each and every year with the pure addition you're getting a 21 megapixel rear camera with dual tone LED flash and phase detection autofocus on the 6s plus there's a new 12 megapixel sensor and because this is the plus version of the iPhone there's optical image stabilization onboard this is a pretty significant bump up from the 8 megapixels on the last few generations of iPhones and this new sensor finally allows the iPhone to record video in 4k another new feature to the iPhones camera is what Apple likes to call live photos and it's nothing crazy or out of the ordinary but basically what it does is records one-and-a-half seconds before the photo is taken and one-and-a-half seconds after and you'll know it's doing this from the live indicator that shows up on the screen to see them you just 3d touch on the photo you took and the image will instantly come to life in the form of a short video but if you have this feature turned on you want to make sure you remember because most of my live photos is just me putting my phone away the front camera has also received a significant upgrade where they bump up to 5 megapixels over the one-point-two of last year's iPhone there's a 5 megapixel front facing shooter on the Moto X as well but the most interesting part about the Moto X is front camera is the front-facing flash that's supposed to help with lower light selfies the 6s plus doesn't have a front-facing flash but it has what Apple likes to call retina flash which is just a fancy way of saying that the screen lights up a bright white when you take a photo now the one is groundbreaking or revolutionary by any means but Apple so-called retina flash does work a little bit better at evenly illuminating your face and isn't as blindingly bright as the front-facing flash on the Moto X another difference between these two front cameras is that the Moto X is a wide-angle lens whereas the iPhone is not so you're going to have a much more difficult time trying to fit multiple subjects into the frame with the 6s plus due to its narrower field of view the Moto X has proven to have a pretty good camera this year but when compared to the images of the 6s plus there's a big disparity between the way these two cameras process images the Moto XS images are a lot more saturated and contrast II whereas the 6s Plus maintains a much more natural look and which one you like better is just a matter of personal taste but where the 6s Plus really outshines the Moto X is in dynamic range there's a lot more detail in darker areas like shadows and highlights aren't blown out like they are on the Moto X the same goes for low-light shots the photos aren't bad on the Moto X and is a huge improvement over last model but again the highlights are typically blown out and there's quite a bit of noise reduction and over brightening of the images which results in a much softer and noisier photo for not having optical image stabilization it's a decent performer in low-light but definitely pales in comparison to the much sharper cleaner looking images of the 6s plus as with any Android vs. iPhone comparison you're looking at two completely different software experiences and ecosystems with the Moto X you have a pretty near stock Android experience with android 5.1.1 which helps keep things running smoothly and should provide for some speedy updates now I say near stock because there's a lot of really useful features baked in by Motorola like moto voice which you can customize with your own key phrase to call on your Moto X at any time even when the phone is asleep then there's moto display moto actions and moto assist that allows for a variety of different things like subtly peeking at your notifications twisting your wrist launching to the camera or automatically quieting your phone during the hours that you need it to with the 6s plus you're looking at iOS 9 and if you're coming from previous iPhones there won't be too many surprises here and you'll instantly feel right at home aesthetically it still looks pretty much the same as the last couple major releases of iOS and it's still the same grid of icons as it's always been which isn't a bad thing if you prefer an experience that's pretty straight forward the most notable change with the iPhone this year is the addition of 3d touch and with 3d touch you can do things that Apple likes to call peek and pop now 3d touch is not the same thing as a long press you can still long press like normal but with 3d touch you are physically applying pressure on the display and depending on how much pressure you apply this will allow you to access certain features and functions for example within the mail app if you press down on an email you can peek into it without fully opening up the email and if you decide it's something you want to take a look at you just press a little harder and it pops you right into the full email this can also be done with applications on the home screen so if you were to 3d touch on the camera app for example you can quickly take a photo record a video and even take a selfie most of Apple's own applications already support 3d touch and there's only a few third-party apps that support it right now but that number should grow as more developers update their applications even without a heavy amount of third-party support there's still a lot you can do with three like easily moving the cursor around by pressing down on the keyboard or jumping into the multitasker by pressing and sliding in from the side it's almost kind of fun to poke and prod just to see what works and doesn't work and from the looks of it it's a feature that's going to have a lot of longtime potential for Apple the Moto X pure Edition is easily one of the most affordable flagship smartphones currently on the market starting at $400 you can get yourself a fully customized Moto X and it's pretty amazing what Motorola was able to put together for half the cost of other flagships the 6s plus on the other hand will run you $750 for the 16 gigabyte version and pricing goes up from there based on storage the 6s plus definitely isn't cheap but you do have the option of financing or subsidizing with two-year contracts through carriers which you don't have with the Moto X since Motorola took a direct consumer approach you can't really go wrong with either one but if you're looking for a customizable smart phone a clean software experience and microSD card expansion all without breaking the bank then the Moto X is definitely a phone worth considering the iPhone 6s plus will offer everything you've come to expect from previous iPhones and adds a few key improvements like the camera and 3d touch so if you absolutely have to have an iPhone well the 6s plus is the best one money can buy as always thank you guys so much for watching this video if you did enjoy it and found it helpful please give it a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below if you haven't already and if you want to see more here from us at Android authority make sure to check out the links on the side and also make sure to check out the website as well for more in-depth coverage and Jordy 30.com because we are your source for all things Android you