review Nexus 6P

Nexus 6P review

PROS

• Looks the business
• Impressive camera, even in low-light
• Fast performance
• Not super expensive

CONS

• USB-C might annoy until more common
• HDR processing could be quicker

KEY FEATURES

• 5.7-inch, quad-HD display
• Snapdragon 810 processor
• 3GB RAM
• 32GB/64GB/128GB internal storage
• Android 6.0 Marshmallow
• USB-C
• 3,450 mAh battery with rapid charging
• Gorilla Glass 4
• Manufacturer: Google

NEXUS 6P – LONG TERM REVIEW

The Nexus 6P was the first phone I ever scored a perfect 5/5, and at the time I said it was the best Android phone you could buy. It’s about 7 months later now, and I’m still confident in saying this is one of the best phones out there. Yes, the Samsung Galaxy S7 and HTC 10 scored 5/5 and 4.5/5 respectively and are both great phones, but if you’re looking for something with a bigger screen I would still highly recommend Google and Huawei’s 6P.

The Snapdragon 810 and 3GB RAM is still a fine combination and it makes for a fast phone. While the Nexus 5X seems to have suffered some performance issues, the 6P is as smooth and quick as it was on day one.

There have been a couple of updates to the camera – it’s much faster now – and you’ve of course got Android N (which we’ll hear more about at Google I/O) coming at some point towards the end of the year.

My one quibble about the longevity of the Nexus 6P comes with its build. I’ve been using a silver model and it’s fine, but I have seen a couple of black models with much of the back paint coming off. This leaves an ugly finish, and not something you’d expect from a pricey phone.

That aside, everything else still gets the thumbs up. The screen is great, camera reliable and the battery will easily make it through the day. It struggles to go two days though, but then so do most phones of this size.

I noted in my original review that USB-C was something of an annoyance simply because it wasn’t widely adopted but I feel that issue has subsided somewhat. A lot of the 2016 flagships have USB-C – LG G5, Huawei P9 and HTC 10 – and it’s becoming more and more common in laptops too.

NEXUS 6P – LONG TERM VERDICT

I still love the Nexus 6P. It’s easily the best phone Google and Huawei have ever made and it seems to stand the test of time very well. Considering Google often has it on special offer, it can be even more of a bargain.

Read my original review below...

WHAT IS THE NEXUS 6P?

The Nexus 6P is the follow up to the poor Nexus 6 and the second pure Android device we’ve seen from Google this year after the mostly impressive Nexus 5X. It's made by Huawei, and it's fantastic.

It’s the first Nexus that doesn’t make any compromises and offers buyers a stunning metal design, high-end specs and an unadulterated version of Android. It's pricier than the 5X, but it's clear to see where the extra money has gone.

Armed with these perks the Nexus 6P impresses in every area and is, along with the Samsung Galaxy S7, the best high end Android smartphone you can buy right now.

NEXUS 6P – DESIGN

Apparently the ‘P’ in the 6P stands for ‘premium’. Premium is a word overused in reviews but, as much as I hate it, it’s the best way to describe the overall design of the Nexus 6P.

And, that shouldn’t really be a surprise. Even though Huawei’s own phones always fall down due to overbearing software, the Chinese firm has been excelling in design for a while now. This year’s Mate S being the best yet.

Just like the Mate S, the Nexus 6P has an all metal design, with heavily chamfered edges leading into a Gorilla Glass 4 coated display. The antenna bands are cleverly hidden, while the flat sides and ever so slightly curved back make it a thing of pleasure to hold.

Along the sides you’ve got a well placed standby button just above a nice, clicky volume rocker. That power button is slightly textured, so you can easily jump straight to it. This is a small touch, but the details are important.

Flip the phone over and the Nexus branding is stencilled in vertically with the circular fingerprint scanner sitting just above. Google is calling this Nexus Imprint – I’m not sure why it needs a name – and it’s up there with the iPhone 6S and Xperia Z5 in terms of speed.

I’m a big fan of the fingerprint reader being on the back. It’s the natural place my finger reaches for when I pick the phone up and it takes just a slight touch to zip past the lockscreen and plonk you right on the homescreen. Pair it with the super fast set-up process – it takes about 20-seconds, whereas the iPhone can take over a minute – and Marshmallow's baked in fingerprint scanner support and you’ve got a fantastic security package.

Now, if there’s one Nexus 6P design choice that’s caused a bit of a stir since the leaked images first hit the interwebs it’s the glass covered hump running across the top.

This houses the camera, flash plus a bevy of sensors. Others might disagree, but I like it. Unlike the smaller humps on the iPhone 6S or Galaxy S6, having it across the whole width means it doesn’t wobble when I use the phone on a table and the periscope-like design is nicely eye-catching.

It’s far from the ugly, eyesore some refer to it as, and if it makes the camera better then I’m even more for it. But, if you’re still against it, I would suggest grabbing the black model as it hides it better than the white or silver versions.

With a 5.7-inch screen, the Nexus 6P is a big phone. But, phones in general are getting bigger and it doesn’t feel anywhere near as cumbersome as the Nexus 6. It’s slimmer and lacks the monstrous width that ruined the 2014 Nexus.

Thanks to the almost non-existent side bezels the whole phone isn’t much bigger than the 5.4-inch screen toting Blackberry Priv and it’s slightly smaller than the 5.5-inch iPhone 6S Plus.

It could be smaller too, but Google and Huawei decided to have dual front-facing stereo speakers flank the display. Again, they made the right choice. Proper sounding speakers are always better than a few weedy holes on the back.

My only criticism about the Nexus 6P, and this is ridiculously minor, is I would prefer the headphone jack to be on the bottom, rather than on the top.

This is by far and away the best looking Nexus yet, and its use of metal, glass and eye-catching design choices put it right up there with Samsung’s Note 5 and Apple’s iPhone 6S when it comes to visual allure.

NEXUS 6P – DISPLAY

The Nexus 6P's 5.7-inch display features a Samsung AMOLED panel, with a pixel-dense quad-HD resolution and boy, is it good.

While the Nexus 6 suffered with poor viewing angles and whites that almost looked pink, the screen on the 6P is rich in accurate colours and has nicely inky blacks. As it’s AMOLED, whites can look a little muddy but really, come on, that’s a small sacrifice I can live with.

Colours have a vivid punch – blues, reds and oranges pop out, but they’re still accurately shown, while the green shades in Marshmallow’s stock wallpaper look exceptional. Some might say they’re too saturated, but I’d disagree, especially when you compare it to those truly over-saturated panels Samsung used a couple of years ago.

If you prefer things a little more toned down, Google has sneakily added an sRGB display mode deep inside the Settings menu. It cools the colours down a bit, but I prefer the original mode.

Viewing angles are fantastic, as is outdoor visibility. I’d like a slight hint more brightness though, and the screen's auto setting is a bit dodgy. It judders noticeably as it changes, but i've found this an issue on most Android phones.

Ambient Display is another bonus that comes from the AMOLED panel. Pick the phone up, or wave your hand over it, and a brief black and white view of the time or any current notifications will pop-up. It’s great – handy if the phones on your desk and it doesn’t use as much battery as lighting up the whole panel.

NEXUS 6P – CAMERA

Poor camera performance has been a constant issue on past Nexus devices. Slow focusing, even slower post-production, blurry results and unresponsive apps were all common. Thankfully, the camera experience on the Nexus 6P is really good. It might not quite match the Note 5 for sheer all-round pictures, but it certainly makes a strong go at it.

The Nexus 6P comes loaded with a 12MP sensor, complete with laser auto-focus – as opposed to the phase detection method preferred by Sony – and larger 1.55µm pixels that let in more light than your average megapixels. That last point is important, because the Nexus 6P doesn’t have OIS (optical image stabilisation)

A double-click on the standby button takes you straight into the new camera UI, it’s been spruced up a bit and it’s very fast – both in opening and focussing – but it does lack the suite of manual settings LG and Samsung users have gotten used to. A third-party app – Camera FV-5, is one of the better ones – sorts this problem out though.

 

The Nexus 6P accurately captures colour, but you can see the large amount of details here and below

 

The shot below was taken in a darker environment but detail still shines through

The camera also does a good job at not overblowing skies

The laser assisted focus system locks onto targets quickly, and it does a good job at finding the right point in macro shots. Sometimes in lower-light situations it can take a bit longer, but I’ve yet to find a phone that doesn’t.

Picture quality is fantastic, right up there with the Samsung Galaxy S7, iPhone 6S  and LG G4. It might posses less megapixels than the Sony Xperia Z5, but the the faster interface means I tend to get better shots with the Nexus 6P.

Colours are accurate, the sensor doesn’t overexposure and detail is off the charts. The auto HDR mode also does a great job, though processing of HDR snaps takes marginally longer and there’s a bit of background action going on after you’re done.

I’m impressed with the daylight results, but the low-light performance is even more surprising. Yes, the lack of OIS does mean you have to try a bit harder to keep the phone still, but pictures look ace. The night sky is dark, bright spots don’t ruin the whole image and more times than not I get a really good shot using the 6P in low light.

 Low-light shots look fantastic

4K video, predictably, looks sharp – again you need to keep extra still to compensate for the lack of OIS – and 240fps slow-mo footage (the Nexus 5X can only capture 120fps) is just as smooth as the iPhone.

The fantastic package is rounded off with one of the finest selfie cameras on the market. The 8MP sensor produces crisp, well-lit snaps in all sorts of conditions.

The Nexus 6P easily has the best camera ever seen on a Google phone, and it doesn’t fall too far behind the high-end competition. Maybe OIS would have improved the set-up even more and the HDR mode is a little slow, but they’re my only complaints.

NEXUS 6P – SOFTWARE

Nexus devices were never really meant to consumer products. They were there to showcase developers the latest version of Android, and all the new fancy things it can do. That vision has changed slightly, I see a lot of Nexus 5’s around the place, but they’re still the best place to experience Android how Google intended it.

The Nexus 6P runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. We’ve got a full review of it linked below, but the TL;DR version is that it’s the most complete version of the operating system yet.

Thanks to Doze, standby times – those hours in the day when your phone is just sitting idle on a desk – are much improved and the updated permissions system adds much needed privacy controls to Android.

Google’s fantastic Siri and Cortana rival Now has been improved too, with Now on Tap scanning your screen for interesting news and information when you hold down the home button. It’s not perfect yet, but I think it could be the next big Android feature.

There are loads of other tweaks and changes littered across Marshmallow, all of which make it the most user-friendly version to date. It also downright beats iOS when it comes to looks, something I wouldn’t have been saying a few years ago.

Marshmallow, however, is no longer than latest version of Android. Google has now announced Android N, which could be version 6.1 or 7.0. It's only in a developer preview at the moment, but should start hitting Nexus device later in the year.

The biggest addition is split-screen multitasking, but there are improvements to Doze and a rejigged notification panel.

NEXUS 6P – PERFORMANCE AND SOUND

After using the Nexus 6P for just a few hours I noticed something – it doesn’t have any of those moments of slowdown and stand-stills that even the most powerful of Android phones have always suffered.

The slight pause when you tap on an app icon or the judder after a keyboard press has been completely killed. It didn’t, in any way, ruin those other phones, in fact it was something I just got used to, but it’s noticeable now it’s gone.

Running the Nexus 6P is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 CPU paired with 3GB RAM. It’s a common combo for 2015 flagships, but it excels here. It's not as fast the 2016 flagship CPU, the 820, but it's speedy still.

I’ve experienced none of the overheating problems that previously plagued the 810 chip – the only time the Nexus 6P gets warm to the touch is either when it's fast charging or installing a whole load of apps – and it’s an absolute performance beast.

Lag is nowhere to be seen, which makes for smooth gaming whether you’re wasting a couple of minutes with Monument Valley and getting deep into a round of Asphalt 8.

In some ways, it feels just as fast as the iPhone 6S Plus. I’m not talking about in terms of specs or benchmarks, but in real life day-to-day actual use. It’s like Google and Huawei have managed to perfectly optimise the software experience with the chipset.

I didn't notice any disparity in performance between it and the Note 5 or OnePlus 2, despite the fact the Nexus 6P features 3GB, not 4GB of RAM. Jumping between apps, even beefy games, doesn’t cause any problems and keeps your current state saved for a surprisingly long amount of time.

For those interested, the Nexus 6P picks up a score 4,245 on GeekBench’s Multi-core test. Meaning it’ll sit just below the iPhone 6S Plus (4417) and a lot lower than the S6 Edge + (5,014). I wouldn’t read too much into it, real world use is on easily on par with those devices.

The sound pumped out by the dual front-facing speakers is fantastic, for a phone anyway, though they don’t quite reach the quality set by Motorola’s Moto X Style. They’re on par with HTC’s Boomsound though, dishing out detailed noise even when cranked up. It makes such a difference whether you’re watching YouTube, listening to Spotify or just waking up to an alarm in the morning.

NFC support is here, important for Android Pay, as is Bluetooth 4.2 and Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac. Call quality on Three’s UK network is excellent and the mics do a good job of blocking out ambient noise.

NEXUS 6P - BATTERY LIFE AND USB-C

The 3,450 battery tucked inside the Nexus 6P isn’t going to redefine how long phones can last for, but it’ll easily go the day and well into the next with general use.

Unplugging at around 7am, the phone can make it through the working day. By 6pm I’m at about 60%, and by midnight it’s sitting at 40%. Thanks to Marshmallow’s Doze feature, standby time is fantastic and overnight the phone only loses a couple of percent. It can then carry on the until the afternoon.

An hour of streaming Fargo on Netflix ate through 7% – which is very good – while a 30 minute Hitman Sniper session took it from 34% to 27%.

For a thin device, with such a high-res display, the battery life is what I would expect.

It was pretty much confirmed by Google during the unveiling of Marshmallow, but the Nexus 6P is one of the first phones to ditch the microUSB charging standard for the new USB-C port. Samsung decided against adding this to the Galaxy S7, but did the LG G5 does use it.

This is both great, and slightly annoying. It’s great because USB-C is the connection of the future. In a few years it’ll charge your phone, laptop and hopefully everything else. It’s also reversible, like Apple’s Lightning cable, which is a godsend when you’re fumbling around trying to plug your phone in at night.

But, it renders my entire drawer of microUSB cables useless and replacement USB-C ones are still a little pricey. If I forget my cable, the chances of something having a spare are very slim.

Google has also decided the included plug is USB-C to USC-C, and while I appreciate you get both a USB-C to USB-C and regular USB-A to USB-C cable, the latter is pretty small and probably best used as back-up. Left on your desk at work, perhaps.

As Marshmallow has proper USB-C support, fast charging is supported on the Nexus 6P. Though only if you use the included charger and plug. I can juice up fully in just under an hour, and it reaches 60% in about 30-minutes.

You won’t get any of the faster USB speeds if you plug it into your computer, as the port itself is still USB 2.0. In reality, this doesn’t make much difference. I don’t think i’ve transferred anything from my computer to my phone – or vice-versa – in a number of years so speeds aren’t an issue.

SHOULD YOU BUY THE NEXUS 6P?

If you want a large Android phone, you want the Nexus 6P. It’s the best phone both Google and Huawei have ever made, and it’s pretty much the best Android device I have ever used. If you want something smaller though, the Samsung Galaxy S7 is a great choice.

Whereas other Nexus devices have compromised in certain areas, this one doesn’t. The screen, battery, processor, camera, build quality are all as good as, if not better, than the competition.

Would I like wireless charging? Yes, but no metal phones currently have this. Would I like a microSD card? Yep, but again no Google Nexus device has ever had one and I don't think they ever will.

There’s also the price to take into consideration. The 32GB base model starts off at £449 an extra £50 bumps it up to 64GB and for £579 you get 128GB. That’s £210 cheaper than the corresponding iPhone 6S Plus. It’s great value, no doubt about it.

So, that’s all the boxes ticked. Well done Google and Huawei, you’ve made the best phone of 2015.

VERDICT

The first no compromise Nexus is a beautiful, fast and worthy canvas for Android Marshmallow.

                                                                                                    Abdellah SLAOUI

review iPhone 6S

iPhone 6S review

PROS

• Great look and feel
• 3D Touch adds interesting new dimension
• Subtle but useful camera improvements
• Outstanding performance
• Clever front-facing camera flash

CONS

• Battery will deter power users
• No wireless charging
• Others charge faster

KEY FEATURES

• 4.7-inch, 326ppi LCD
• 7.1mm thick
• 143g
• 1.8GHz Dual-Core
• 2GB RAM
• 16/64/128GB storage
• 12-megapixel iSight camera
• 5-megapixel Facetime HD camera
• Manufacturer: Apple

  IPHONE 6S LONG-TERM REVIEW

  Summer is always a strange time to buy an iPhone. You’ve got much newer phones out like the HTC 10, Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5 – there’s even a new phone from Apple, the iPhone SE. And most people know there’s probably going to be an iPhone 7 coming in a few short months.
  But the iPhone 6S is still a great phone and one that I’m happy to recommend. It’s the middle iPhone size-wise, and in my mind feels the most comfortable to hold. The SE is limited by its small size, while the iPhone 6S Plus is often ungainly. The 4.7-inch display, which sits above a 720p resolution, is soundly beaten on paper by the Android rivals but it’s compact and still looks good.
  Buying an iPhone now also means you’ll get all the goodies that will come with the next version of iOS, which is most likely going to be called iOS 10. Expect to see this announced at Apple’s WWDC which takes place in June, with a release later this year.
  Even though it’s been on the market for well over six months, the iPhone 6S has aged well. The A9 CPU and 2GB RAM is still a potent combination that feels as snappy as it did last September. The phone still easily handles all the games and apps I throw at it.
  Battery life hasn’t seen a dramatic downturn either. So far, the 6S keeps up with my workload fine. I normally hit 5% by around 10pm on a normal work day, and that’s without using the Low Power mode – that’s around 12 to 14 hours a day.
  3D Touch, a headline feature at launch, has slowly been improving without really setting the world alight. More apps use it now, but it’s still limited and lacks a real function. Hopefully the iPhone 7 will take it to the next level. I like ‘3D Touching’ app icons to bring up shortcuts, but beyond that I don’t use it that much.
  The truth is that there are better phones out there, but if you’re a staunch iOS user and you simply can’t wait for the iPhone 7 then the 6S is still a great choice. It looks good, performs well, still has one of the best cameras on the market and you know you’ll get iOS 10 as soon as Apple lets it out the door.

  WHAT IS THE IPHONE 6S?

  For all its “fast moving innovation” the tech industry is a predictable thing sometimes. Every other year Apple puts an ‘S’ on the end of its last phone, buffs it up with a few tarty new features and delivers it to splendid applause.
  That’s a horrific simplification, of course, but the general point stands. The iPhone 6S is that phone this year, and it adds some clever new ‘taptic’ features, camera improvements and a radically faster processor to last year’s iPhone 6.
  You can get it in Rose Gold now if you fancy a change. But whatever your feelings on the matter, rest assured this another excellent phone from Apple.

  IPHONE 6S – DESIGN & FEATURES

  All ‘S’ phones look like their forbears and the iPhone 6S is no different. Even the screen is the same. It’s not the very best there is – Samsung’s OLEDs are in a different league in this respect – but it’s excellent for an LCD.
  Contrast is great and colours are natural. Some might argue its 326 pixels per inch (ppi) isn’t sharp enough, but that argument doesn’t hold water with me. It’s plenty sharp enough.
  Before I move onto the interesting stuff, however, it bears repeating what a successful design this is. Not only does the iPhone 6S look great, it’s naturally comfortable. Everything just fits.
  
  
  Having lived with the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ recently, it’s a pleasure to return to a phone that’s comfortable to use in one hand, and which has volume buttons I don’t jog accidentally in my pocket.
  Beyond the flashy new features and new Rose Gold option, Apple gets the basics right. That matters.But what is flashy and new? After all, if something isn’t new enough, then it’s rubbish, right? The undoubted highlight is 3D Touch. Like Force Touch, which Apple introduced on the Apple Watch, 3D Touch detects how hard you press on the screen, opening up new interactions for app developers to explore.
  There are effectively three levels of pressure – the regular tap, a slightly harder press and one further level beyond it. Each one, depending on the context, will trigger a different action.
  But the pressure is “analogue” in nature – 3D Touch doesn’t just detect three levels of pressure, but all the points between. This opens up some interesting potential, particularly in games, which I’ll expand on in a moment.
  
  
  Sadly, making room for the new Taptic Engine that helps power 3D Touch means a small, 5% reduction in battery capacity. Apple says that improved power efficiencies in iOS 9 and the new Low Power Mode ensure the iPhone 6S’s battery life is similar to the iPhone 6.
  Other serious changes concern the cameras. Apple has increased the resolution of the iSight Camera (rear) and Facetime HD camera (front) to 12-megapixels and 5-megapixels. That’s 50% and over 300% more pixels respectively – not small numbers considering the 6S uses the same size sensors.
  This means sharper, more detailed photos – read more about that in the iPhone 6S camera section. It also means the iPhone 6S can record 4K video at 30fps, which will be great for that 4K TV you (probably) don’t own.
  Finally, we have a new processor – the A9. While there’s plenty still to learn about the inner workings of the new dual-core chip, a core speed bump from 1.4GHz to 1.8GHz heralds some serious performance improvements.

  IPHONE 6S – 3D TOUCH AND THE TAPTIC ENGINE

  First, though, 3D Touch. This is, without question, the defining feature of the iPhone 6S. As explained above, 3D Touch lets the iPhone detect different levels of pressure and trigger new actions depending on how hard you press.
  It’s the kind of feature that demands exploration and experimentation from users and developers alike. At first, you’ll explore the home screen – pressing harder on icons to see what happens. Sometimes it’s nothing, which is frustrating, but sometimes you’ll be presented with shortcuts to specific actions.
  For example, “3D Touch” on the Camera app icon – I can’t help feel “Force Touch” is a better verb – and you’ll get shortcuts to take selfie or shoot a video.
  
  
  Try it on the Maps app and you can quickly share your location or get directions directly home. The Music app will launch the Beats1 radio station; the Calendar app will create a new event; the Wallet app will show you your last transaction. You get the idea.
  All these little shortcuts are useful, but it’s inside apps where 3D Touch shows real dividends. My favourite feature is pressing down on the keyboard to drag the cursor around accurately. It’s a simple thing, but it makes correcting mistakes and basic editing simple and effortless. You see, basics.
  
  
  The other key strand of 3D Touch is what Apple calls ‘Peek’ and ‘Pop’. In short, press hard to ‘Peek’ at the contents of an item (e.g. an email, message or hyperlink) and press harder still to ‘Pop’ that into full screen. Relaxing the pressure, meanwhile, sends you back to where you came.
  It that sounds naff and pointless to you, I assure you it isn’t. Mail and Messages are the best examples of how useful Peek and Pop is. Peeking into a message previews its contents without marking it as read, which shortens the irritating flow of checking a message, leaving it and then marking it as unread again to look at later.
  (I know that’s what ‘flagging’ is for but how often do you flag emails and just forget them? I do it all the time.)
  
  
  Peeking and then sliding the window upwards reveals further actions, such as sending a standard reply or forwarding it to someone else. It’s great for checking a link to see if it’s genuinely useful, or you can slide it up and select ‘Open in new Tab’.
  Even in its infancy, 3D Touch is a great and convincing addition to the iPhone. It’ll only grow in potency as developers explore and discover new ways to use it, and they certainly will. The enduring strength of the iPhone is how developers seize upon new features and make them their own.
  All of this is enhanced by the new Taptic Engine – a redesigned motor and software stack that delivers subtler, smarter taptic events.
  
  
  I like it even more than 3D Touch itself. The way the Taptic Engine delivers short, precise and gentle ‘blips’ adds a new dimension to notifications. You’ll quickly learn the pattern and character of these vibrations, so you can instantly discern what kind of alert you’re getting without looking. You can customise them to an extent, too.
  It’s a far cry from the iPhone 5 and 5S, which rumbled fiercely with all the subtlety of a small, yappy dog. Once you’ve used the iPhone 6S and experienced the difference, you’ll wonder how you ever put with that racket. It’s great.
  The only disappointing aspect of 3D Touch are Live Photos. Although nominally a part of the Camera app, it's a barefaced tech demo for the 3D Touch feature. Basically, when enabled Live Photos record a short snippet of video along with a photo. Pressing on the photo activates the 'Live' version, but quickly grew bored of the feature and turned it off.

  iPhone 6S: Camera

On paper alone, there are legitimate reasons for disappointment with the iPhone 6S camera. While the bump from 8-megapixels to 12-megapixels is very welcome, Apple hasn’t upgraded the lens. Its f/2.2 aperture doesn’t sound that impressive sat next to the f/1.8 of the Galaxy S6 range, or the f/1.7 of the LG G4 – lower is better in this case.

This is important because a ‘wider’ aperture lets in more light onto the sensor. More light leads to better low light performance and superior ‘depth of field’ – where the background is blurred behind your subject.

The latter quality, often referred to as ‘bokeh’ – choose your own pronunciation of that one – is the desirable effect that gives photos that professional sheen. When veteran TrustedReviews contributor Andrew Williams describes something as “bokehlicious” you can be assured he approves.

But wars aren’t fought on paper and neither are camera… erm, wars. Yes, it would be nice if Apple gave the iPhone a faster lens – my money is on the iPhone 7 for that one – but the iPhone 6S doesn’t seriously suffer for it.

It would be nicer still if the iPhone 6S had optical image stabilisation (OIS) as its ability to counter shaky hand motions would help low light performance even more, but that’s reserved for the larger iPhone 6S Plus for size reasons. This is arguably a greater loss than a faster lens, but you’ll only miss it when shooting in very low light, or for video.

Bottom line: The iPhone 6S is still right up there with – and sometimes leading – the best, though it’s a hotly contested (and disputed) field these days.

This first shot shows some of the improvements in the iPhone 6S. First, there’s more detail. I’ve actually cropped into this shot to reframe it, yet it still looks great thanks to the excellent detail in the bud and petals.

Above is the Galaxy S6’s effort – also cropped. It’s a good shot and the S6’s faster lens and shorter focus distance creates a lovely bokeh effect that isolates the flower beautifully. However, Samsung’s preference for extra sharpening creates a couple of small problems – some odd fringing around the edges and some smudged detail in the flower petals.

In comparison, the iPhone 6S controls noise a little better and retains the contours of the petal as a result. It’s all fine margins, but it’s a good start.

In part, this reflects Apple and Samsung’s differing approaches to photography. Neither is inherently better or worse than the other, but the iPhone tends towards natural, softer and more ‘lifelike’ shots. Conversely, Samsung favours a sharper, punchier and more bombastic approach – an approach that can produce stunning results, I might add.

You can see this again in the following HDR composition. HDR is an especially useful technique that combines different ‘exposures’ of the same shot. This helps resolve extremes of light and dark that a single shot can’t. Both have Auto HDR, which means they’ll choose the best time to use it automatically.

In the iPhone 6S example, it takes an even approach. The foreground isn’t outstandingly bright, but it’s clear, and the sky and distant building look exactly as they should.

The Galaxy S6, meanwhile, supercharges the foreground but blows out the sky. I should point out that, in the interests of fairness, I chose the same exposure point for both shots.

This isn’t to illustrate why the iPhone 6S is better than the S6, though. Both approaches can be brilliant and flawed in different scenarios, and there’s no inherently ‘right’ way to expose this scene.

But it reinforces how the iPhone 6S remains an outstanding cameraphone. It renders colours faithfully with nice, smooth gradations that bring out the subtleties of shots, and it has excellent native dynamic range.

The vegetable stand above shows this nicely where the pumpkins (centre of shot) transition from red to orange. The S6 captures richer colours, though, particularly reds, and its punchier contrast arguably edges this example.

It’s also much better in low light, which is the iPhone 6S’s primary weakness. The 6S is better than the iPhone 6, as the below shots demonstrate, but it can’t hope to match phones that have optical image stabilisation.

The iPhone 6 produces a usable(ish) shot for social media, but it’s blotchy and struggles to control refractions from the bright lights.

The noise in the dark sky of the 6S shot is much finer and controlled, and the lights don’t cause such serious problems. It’s a decent effort, but there are better.

Despite some odd shards of light, the Galaxy S6 is the clear winner here. There’s more contrast and detail in the water and sky, while the buildings in the background are far clearer. This is the difference optical image stabilisation makes.

Needless to say, the differences between the iPhone 6S and iPhone 5S are more extreme. We’ll explore this in a future update to our iPhone 6S vs iPhone 5S comparison, but the words “no contest” spring to mind.

Beyond pure image quality, there are noticeable improvements in performance, too. The iPhone 6S focusses faster than the iPhone 6 for one as it spends less time hunting back and forth. Choosing between the iPhone and Galaxy S6 is impossible, though; they’re both lightning fast.

IPHONE 6S – FACETIME HD CAMERA

Apple has lavished the iPhone 6S with a serious front camera upgrade this time around. It’s up from 1.2-megapixels to 5-megapixels, a pixel increase that has more in common with the inflation rate of your average banana republic.

Apple’s also developed a method for using the screen as a flash for the front facing camera – a neater option than the HTC Desire EYE’s dedicated front flash. As Nigel Atherton, Editor of Amateur Photographer explained to me; this is clever because a large area flash like this should be softer and more flattering.

But this puts me in awkward position because I abhor taking selfies. But if forced at gunpoint to take some selfies, I’d be happy enough to use the iPhone 6S.

The ‘screen flash’ is handy in dingy indoor lighting, the primary locale for the selfie. Like the dual-tone LED flash at the rear, the screen uses a flesh tone to avoid turning you too ghostly. It’s effective, too, aside from the odd white spot on my nose. Is “shiny nose” a thing?

Incidentally, Apple’s resisted the trend for strapping wide angle lenses on the front of phones. This makes it tricky to take ‘groufies’ without one of those stick-o-ma-bobs (umbrella's, I think?), but affords just enough space to show how awesome your holiday destination is while you gurn furiously in the foreground.

It’s beyond the scope of this review to say whether this is the ‘best selfie cam’ or not, but it has to be up there thanks to the flash system.

iPhone 6S: 4K, Software and Performance

IPHONE 6S – VIDEO & 4K

The iPhone 6S’s video capabilities are very good. It’s only held back, again, by the lack of optical image stabilisation, which is handy for suppressing shaky hands.

There are two video modes and six settings in total: 720p at 30fps, 1080p at 30fps, 1080p at 60fps, 4K at 30fps and the two slo-mo modes, 720p at 120fps and 240fps.

The 240fps mode introduced on the iPhone 6 is especially fun – tech journos call it the “cat’s pajamas”, because that’s how we talk.

The 60fps 1080p mode is interesting since it delivers smoother motion, though be warned it’s unusable in low light. As is 4K for that matter. The default mode is 1080p at 30fps, which is perfect for most conditions.

Moreover, while it’s easy to dismiss the addition of 4K as “pointless”, don’t be too hasty. For one, downscaling 4K footage to 1080p will result in sharper footing than native 1080p. The adventurous can even use 4K’s extra pixels to reframe and ‘zoom’ into their footage at 1080p without losing detail – 4K is effectively four times 1080p, after all.

In the right hands you don’t need to transmit or watch in 4K for it to be useful.

Inexplicably, though, you can’t change the standard video and slo-mo options from within the Camera app. You have to delve into the Photos & Camera section of the Settings app to change the defaults every time, a decision so inexplicably stupid it defies belief.

It’s odd because the iPhone’s Camera app is impeccably designed otherwise – I tried using the Moto G (2015) camera app the other day and it was like being parachuted into a world full of stupid in comparison. Seriously, Motorola, sort that out.

IPHONE 6S – SOFTWARE & APPS

We have a well-appointed iOS 9 review by Max Parker that covers the numerous ins and outs of the Apple’s latest software update. As usual, it’s a healthy mix of good stuff – deep Spotlight search integration and improved Siri-ness – and other stuff that could stand to be better – i.e. notifications.

Actually, notifications are much improved in iOS 9, even if Android still does them better. They’re organised by day instead of by app now, and while you can’t dismiss the whole lot in one go, you can dismiss a whole day at a time. It makes it easier to review and then dismiss, which is good.

Beyond the 3D Touch features, which I’ve already discussed, one of my favourite changes is to the Battery section of the Settings app.

It’s split into ‘Last 24 Hours’ and ‘Last 6 Days’ views. But what makes the feature is how tapping on the list reveals how much screen time and background time each app uses. It’s a brilliant way to single out rogue apps sucking down more than their fair share, which I’ll get into more in the battery life section.

iOS 9, unsurprisingly, runs like an absolute dream on the iPhone 6S. Admittedly I’ve been testing on a fresh install – a good idea if you can face it – rather than recalling an old backup. All the same, iOS 9 and the iPhone 6S are as sprightly as a particularly lively sheepdog.

IPHONE 6S – PERFORMANCE

The iPhone 6S is hell-a-fast, which is apparently not as fast as “stupidfast” but is nonetheless pretty nippy. The new chip tops rivals in most benchmarks and is a good 50 to 60% faster than the A8 – a serious jump.

Apple’s upgraded A9 SoC (System on a Chip) houses a shiny new PowerVR GPU and two CPU cores clocked at 1.8GHz each, up from 1.4GHz, and there’s 2GB of RAM.

Yes, you read that correctly, the iPhone finally has two whole gigabytes of RAM. Without becoming too glib, it was about time. While I’m typically wary of the massed throngs complaining about such details, on this occasion they had point. Things were getting a bit silly.

Not because iOS didn’t run smoothly on 1GB, but because the Safari web browser couldn’t hold more than a few tabs at a time without reloading them. With the iPhone 6S, I’ve managed to switch between as many as 10 simultaneously loaded tabs without any reloads.

You could probably load a few more, but by that point I was satisfied. They’ll still reload if you leave the app and come back some time later, but in the time you’re active within Safari it handles the workload well. Praise be.

iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 owners will notice unlocking from Touch ID is faster, too, especially when the screen is already off. It’s only a small point, but each fraction makes the whole experience feel smoother and slicker.

There’s an enviable amount of graphics grunt on tap, too – not that any game I’ve found makes full use of it yet.

iPhone 6S: Battery Life

“Battery life could be a problem,” was my first thought when I started my iPhone 6S review, and with good reason. Wonderful though 3D Touch and the Taptic Engine are, Apple had to reduce the battery capacity from 1,810mAh to 1,715mAh to fit them in. It made the 6S slightly thicker and heavier, too, though not enough that anyone should care.

The iPhone 6 didn't have a stellar reputation for battery life, and while some of those complaints are overblown, they’re not without foundation. Certainly, the ‘Plus’ variant is the phone to go for if you suffer range “range anxiety”.

Through my week using the the iPhone 6S, I consistently managed 15 to 17 hours per day. Switching off Bluetooth and disabling the Facebook app’s background refresh made a big difference, though I always left Wi-Fi on.

For whatever reason, the Facebook app uses more background time than other app. Before the change Facebook was responsible for close to 25% of the phone’s battery drain, despite being on screen for just 20 minutes or so. iOS 9’s improved battery monitoring was a godsend here.

Navigation puts a big strain on the battery, though, particularly in built-up areas. One 15-minute walk with directions drained 7% from the battery. Streaming video over Wi-Fi burns through around 12% of battery per hour, depending on the quality and how bright your screen is.

The new Low Power won’t extend your life indefinitely, but it’s useful and effective enough. iOS prompts you to turn it on when your battery hits 20% and it turns off all background activity, while also throttling down the CPU and GPU.

The iPhone is already frugal when idle, but Low Power extends that further still – I once got five hours of very light use after passing 20%, which is handy if you’re staying out late. And you can turn Low Power on earlier if you know you have a long day ahead – the iPhone 6S runs fine when it’s on.

Ultimately, while some management is needed from time to time, I never felt like I would run out before I got home, and it would only concern me if I was on a “night out” and got home late. In those cases, a few simple precautions will avert problems.

Power users who stream video all day, use navigation lots or play games often should look at the 6S Plus, but the 6S’s battery life is fine for the majority of people.

IPHONE 6S – SOUND & CALL QUALITY

There are no changes here. The iPhone 6S still has a single mono speaker. It’s a pretty decent one, though. It’s loud enough to enjoy in a quiet environment and delivers crisp, clear dialogue in videos or on speakerphone. It just won’t put a dent in the portable Bluetooth speaker market anytime soon, or ever.

Call quality, meanwhile, is excellent. This is doubly true if you’re on a network that supports Wi-Fi Calling or Voice over LTE (VoLTE). Both use these superior networks to deliver crisper, infinitely clearer call quality, though UK adoption remains patchy at best so far.

OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER

Now seems a good time to mention a few things the iPhone 6S lacks, particularly in comparison to rivals. While the 6S gains 3D Touch, the Galaxy S6 has wireless charging. It’s a feature that’s made its way to many a mid-range phone, too, such as the Lumia 830.

Once Apple could have claimed it didn’t charge fast enough, but that argument doesn’t wash anymore. It works a treat on the S6 and there are IKEA lamps with it built-in. When IKEA is doing it you know people are ready. I won’t bet against it being an iPhone 7 feature.

The iPhone 6S also lacks fast charging, a near universal feature for any Android phone featuring any of Qualcomm’s top-end processors. It lets phone charge in as little as an hour and a half, sometimes less. It’s damned handy in a pinch.

This isn’t a huge problem for the iPhone 6S, though. It has smaller battery after all, and I timed a full charge at one hour and 50 minutes – hardly slow. The iPhone 6S Plus and it’s bigger battery, however, could be a different matter.

SHOULD I BUY THE IPHONE 6S?

Yeah, probably. While a small corner of the internet secretly hopes Apple will drop a clanger – or convinces themselves it already has – this time round it hasn’t. The better question is who should buy it?

iPhone 5S owners who don’t want to “upsize” should sign on the dotted line. You could wait for the iPhone 7 if you’re feeling patient, but the 6S is a great upgrade. 3D Touch is fantastic and the S6 is so, very, very fast.

The same applies to any older iPhone owners who can stomach the price, of course, but don’t rule out any of the excellent cheap Android phones on the market. The Motorola Moto G (2015) is a good place to start, but there are many good options in our best cheap phones round-up.

Potential Android switchers should take a long hard look at the 6S Plus, though, on the assumption you’re already using a ‘big’ phone. That said, if what you really want is something human hand-sized then the iPhone 6S crushes all comers.

VERDICT

Could this be the best ‘S’ phone Apple’s ever released? Maybe. Does it matter? Not especially. This is a great phone, simple as that.

                                                                                                       Abdellah SLAOUI