Apple iPhone 6s review

Introduction

The latest iPhone rarely needs an introduction - it's always one of the most anticipated flagships each year and often sets the bar for the premium smartphone niche. Fans know Apple has put its heart in it
 and media's reviews, whether praising or not, usually don't matter and don't affect masses' decision.

Long reviews are often considered :TLDR, another reason why they don't really matter. So, this is an attempt to lay out some facts about the iPhone 6s and puts the scores in some perspective.

Design and build quality

The exterior of the iPhone 6s is identical to its predecessor's - an aluminum unibody and Ion-X 2.5D glass shielding the 4.7" Retina display. The phone is 14g heavier though due to the new ForceTouch technology beneath the screen.

Weight: 143g What's this?

Thickness: 7.1 mm What's this?

The good news is Apple used the new Series 7000 aluminum, which is tougher than the Series 6000 used to cast out the iPhone 6 shell and is less likely to bend in your pocket. The ion-strengthened glass with oleophobic coating is also a combo promising durability and smudge-free surface.
The bezels of the Retina screen are thick and not flagship worthy, but since Apple usually recycles the last year's design for the S series, this wasn't such a surprise. Fingers crossed for the iPhone 7 to finally improve on those.

Apple iPhone 6s

The iPhone 6s doesn't offer dual-SIM or memory expansion, nor you can switch batteries. Those are limitations present since the iPhone inception.
Handling the iPhone 6s is nothing short of pleasure. The aluminum provides for a good grip and premium feel, but the rounded edges, while improving the looks, compromise the grip and we'd recommend to handle the 6s with care or use a thin case or bumper.

Design and build quality score

3.5

Display

While the display may hide an entirely new (force) touch technology, it's still the same display in terms of size and resolution as on the iPhone 6: a 4.7" unit with a resolution of 750 x 1334 pixels (that's 326ppi). It's an LED-backlit IPS LCD screen with RGB matrix.
The Apple iPhone 6s display offers deeper blacks than the iPhone 6 but, unfortunately, it's not as bright at its maximum setting. The maximum brightness level achieved by the screen when displaying white is 536nits, which while not award winning is plenty to go by. The offered contrast ratio, is excellent - 1481:1, beating the iPhone 6 on this one.
The 6s demonstrated a solid performance in our sunlight legibility, which means hassle-free operations outdoors even in the brightest of days.

Resolution: 750x1334px What's this?

Size: 4.7" What's this?

The color rendition of the screen is generally accurate with a pretty low average deltaE of 3.6 (for the primary colors plus black and white), and it's the white and reds that show a somewhat higher deviation. The white is slightly on the cooler bluish side, but nothing major and certainly not noticeable without a reference.

Display score

4.0

Battery life

The iPhone 6s is powered by a non-removable Li-Po 1715 mAh battery, which is about 5% smaller than the one of the iPhone 6. iOS 9 introduced a Low-Power mode, which you can enable manually and should save your phone from dying faster once the charge drops below 20%.
There is no official fast charging support, though tests suggest the iPhones do recharge faster when plugged on an iPad 2A charger. We've tested the iPhone 6s with various 2A plugs, but only the iPad's one did the trick.
The total endurance rating of the iPhone 6s is 62 hours - an hour better than the iPhone 6. The rating of 62 hours is an estimation of how long the 6s would last if you use it for an hour each of calling, browsing and video playback a day.

Capacity: 1715mAh What's this?

Endurance rating: 62h What's this?

Such usage pattern may not be relevant to your own usage scenario, but we've established it so our battery results are comparable across devices. You can adjust the formula to better match your own usage pattern, by visiting our dedicated battery test results page.

Battery life score

2.5

Audio

The Apple iPhone 6s audio output is identical to that of its predecessor. When plugged into an active external amplifier, the Apple iPhone 6s posted excellent scores with the rather mediocre stereo crosstalk reading being the solitary exception.
Rather impressively, there's virtually no degradation when you plug in a pair of headphones. The spike in stereo crosstalk is so limited that in comparison, the iPhone 6s fares way better here than in the first test. Granted, there are phones out there that do even better, but that will only matter to the most extreme audiophiles.
In both cases, volume levels were above average although Apple used to be class leading here too and now it's just matching most competitors and falling behind the elite. Still, the overall output is very good and would please the majority of users.
The speaker on Apple iPhone 6s scored a Below Average mark in terms of loudness. This is a lesser result than the iPhone 6. On a positive note the speaker's sound quality has been slightly improved for a richer and crisper sound.

Audio score

3.5

Photo camera

The iPhone 6s brings the long overdue camera resolution upgrade - Apple finally updated the iPhone's main camera to a 12MP imager. The front camera has received an upgrade to 5MP as well. Both sensors retain the same F/2.2 aperture.
Live Photos is a new exclusive feature to the 6s lineup - the camera captures 1.5s video either side of the moment you hit the shutter and saves it as an animated photo. Then you can play those animations in the gallery.
The resolved detail is good, but it's not dramatically better than what the 8-megapixel iPhone 6 offered and post-processing is rather heavy-handed - as noticeable in the sharpening halos and the prominent noise. Automatic exposure is a bit too overeager, which at times results in overexposed shots.
The good news is the colors and contrast are simply great while the dynamic range is nothing short of impressive. Even with the Auto HDR turned off, the images came out great.
So, the pictures are beautiful and the iPhone 6s won't fail you, no matter the occasion, but the pixel peepers won't find those impressive at full resolution.
The images from the 5MP front selfie camera don't offer extraordinary high resolved detail, but the camera is a certain improvement over previous gen iPhones and the selfies should do just fine for the social networks.

12 MP main camera sample • 12 MP main camera sample • 12 MP main camera sample • 5MP selfie sample

Finally, the iPhone 6s, thanks to the bigger sensor, offers even bigger (auto HDR) panoramic images. Those still cover about 180-degrees, but now they can go up to 15,000 x 4,000 pixels or 60MP. The stitching is great, there are no artifacts, the dynamic range is amazing, and the color rendering is good, too. Those didn't turn out over exposed as the still images and generally are among the best panoramas we've seen.

Apple iPhone 6