Gadgetory

the S cycle is an interesting part of the iPhone buying experience each year Apple introduces new iPhones but only half of them are redesigns the other half are re-imaginings improved takes on tried-and-true existing hardware these takes are never the most exciting phones but they're always the ones worth buying I'm Hayatou Houston with PocketNow and normally my favorite s model comes backed by Elon Musk but after this week I might be willing to make an exception you guessed it this is our video review of the iPhone 6s from the outside the iPhone 6's looks completely identical to last year's iPhone 6 save for the new s call-out on the back it sports the same unibody frame this time upgraded to 7000 grade aluminum for a slightly grippier feel in hand and better resistance to bending and we still have those unsightly antenna bands there's also the same 4.7 inch IPS display with the same odd 1334 by 750 resolution coming in at 326 pixels per inch and the same big top and bottom bezel surrounding the screen giving way to only about a 65% screen to body ratio that's not terrible but with phones like the Moto X pure edition trimming bezels to reach upwards of 75% Apple probably could have either crammed in a bigger display or made a physically smaller device well they could have if it weren't for the new editions of the 3d touch and tap tech feedback engines inside we'll come back to those in just a second but they do make the iPhone 6s a tad thicker and heavier than last year's model though that's not necessarily a bad thing since the added weight makes the iPhone feel sturdier than before being an S model we weren't expecting any kind of major changes to the aesthetic design but we were counting on upgraded internals and Apple definitely delivered this year the new a9 chipset may only be dual-core on the surface but combined with a 6 core GPU it's one of the best performing SOC s you'll find and that show is in benchmarks and real-world performance alike the iPhone 6s flies through anything you throw at it and you can switch between more apps at once than ever thanks to the 2 gigabytes of RAM inside double what we've seen before the only thing standing in your way of truly taking advantage of the iPhones hardware is the 16 gigabytes of internal storage on the baseline model seriously before my first 24 hours with the phone were up I'd already burned through all but a gigabyte and a half of space an Apple still doesn't match your iCloud storage to your phone's capacity spend the extra money and just buy a 64 gigabyte phone trust us no matter what storage size you get though the iPhone 6s sports a new version of touch ID built into the home button and is stupid fast so fast that you can't even view your notifications without unlocking the phone I never thought that being too fast could be a problem and it almost is here but it makes using your phones so effortless that you forget you even have a security code until someone else tries to get in which if you ask me is a huge victory the button can also be used as a quick shortcut to all kinds of features from opening series of press and hold to launching Apple pay with a double-click on the lock screen to switching apps with a double-click anywhere else say what you will about physical home buttons but apples made it loud and clear that this is a quintessential part of the iPhone experience and it's not going anywhere another essential part of the iPhone 6s is 3d touch this is a whole new method of input powered by a physical sensor within the device the registers different levels of pressure applied to the screen it's hard to understand its practical use until you try it for yourself but once you do you realize that the potential here is tremendous if you 3d touch on a home screen icon a contextual menu will pop up like a right-click on a computer giving quick shortcuts to the different functions of that app 3d touch on a link in Safari to preview the corresponding webpage or on the subject line of an email to preview the body 3d touch on a live photo in your gallery to animate it then set it as a lockscreen wallpaper which you can then you guessed it 3d touch to animate again a lot of people have compared this feature to the long press we've had for years and pretty much every smartphone but I really can't stress that right click analogy enough this is something that almost no other phone can do and I'd really like to see it implemented more in the months ahead the iPhone 6s and its larger sibling the 6s plus are the first phones to ship with iOS 9 running out of the box we've been running the software in its beta form for a few months now but for everyone else this means an assortment of new features to add layers of both convenience and confusion the system font has seen a makeover and there's a new screen to the left of the main home screens in the style of Google now or HTC blinkfeed that displays new stories along with some of your frequent apps and contacts those frequent apps also show up in the spotlight search bar now and contacts have been omitted from the multitasking screen which now bears a card style design looking past the various design tweaks a lot of thoughtful changes have been made to the way you navigate the phone one of my favorites is the button that takes you back to the previous app when you're sidetracked by in-app links or notifications though I wish this button could be at the bottom of the screen instead of all the way in the top left corner speaking of notifications they're now organized on a timeline by default versus the per app sorting from before which makes it so much easier to clear out a whole day's worth of notifications all at once I really wish the clearing out those notifications also dismiss the badge icons on the home screen though a redundancy that's plagued iOS for years but maybe next year so as expected this is the best version of Apple's iOS yet also the best that it's ever been is the iPhone 6s is camera it's taken a bump up from 8 to 12 megapixels and it's learned a few new tricks on the software side too Apple was really excited to show off live photos which work together with 3d touch to create well basically a short video of course they don't look at it that way and you capture live photos the same way you would a static one but we've seen the same thing done on other phones before from other manufacturers so it's a fun addition to the iPhone and as mentioned before you can set these live photos as animated wallpapers but be careful taking too many of these if you skimp out and buy the 16 gigabyte model which again you shouldn't well i photos take of twice as much storage as a standard shot those standard shots look great by the way the iPhone has always taken top-notch photos and the new 12 megapixel sensor on the iPhone 6s is no exception photos are full of natural color and detail and the camera is really good at balancing exposure even in scenes with multiple light sources it's weird to say that the iPhone might not have the best camera out there for once Android OEMs really stepped up their game this year and phones like the note 5 and LG g4 give the 6s run for its money with great optics and a myriad of manual controls but when it comes to quick point-and-shoot captures the iPhone still sits on top with the most reliable camera in general oh and the jump in resolution also means 4k video for the first time on an iPhone even without OIS its smoother brighter and crisper than ever before and you know what I'll let you be the judge check it out the front-facing camera also saw a pretty major update this year it's been bumped up to 5 megapixels and the amount of added detail compared to last year's iPhone is pretty wild it's still not wide-angle like most of the competition but paired with a new software flash it's the most capable selfie shooter we've seen come out of Cupertino even though the iPhone 6s doesn't have as large of a battery as the 6s plus or even last year's iPhone 6 endurance is outstanding the phone always made it through a full day whether I was streaming YouTube or playing games and on lighter days when I was just scrolling through Twitter and handling emails I was able to squeeze nearly 2 days out of it I wish I could be just as positive about signal strength which was good but not great other phones from Samsung and Motorola this year outperformed the iPhone and reception and moreover I saw faster speeds on the others too so what's the verdict should you buy the iPhone 6s is it worth its top dollar cost of course it is between the solid design terrific camera silky smooth performance and selection of quality apps it's no wonder the iPhone is the most popular phone on the market it's not for everybody and if you value Ross specs open customization or hardware amenities like expandable storage or removal batteries then like always there are probably better options for you on the Android side of things but for the layman that doesn't want or need to spend hours tweaking their phone or for the app maniac that always has to have everything before anyone else the iPhone success is about as good as it gets just so long as you prefer a smaller form factor there's a whole lot more detail waiting for you in our full review of the iPhone 6s so be sure to find that and our matching 6s plus review at pocketnow.com you can also find us on social media pocket now and subscribe here on youtube if you haven't already until next time i'm hi answer human on twitter and IRL and as always thanks for watching