Apple iOS 10 preview

What's better than the latest iOS 9.3 update? A free shipping container of Krispy Kremes? A puppy that does the washing up? How about iOS 10?

With Apple's WWDC 2016 knees-up done and dusted, and a preview of iOS 10 one of the main attractions, we now know a heck of a lot more about the iPhone's next big platform update than we did. Let's dive in and see what's coming.

OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

That bloody Stocks app. No one we know has ever used it, but it still insists on clinging to our home screens like a stubborn wart, refusing to die or disappear.

Thankfully however, iOS 10 will finally let you hide Apple's own default apps, making for a more clutter-free user experince. You won't be able to completely "delete" them off your device - they need to be there for authentication purposes, apparently - but you won't have them stinking up your home screens any longer.

ENDLESS EMOJI

Apple’s previously staid Messenger app is getting its biggest overhaul in years – and the focus looks to be on making it more fun.

During the company’s WWDC presentation, emoji played a big part. Not only will they display in a bigger format than they currently do, but you’ll be able to swap out individual words for emoji with a couple of taps (iOS will recognise the word “taco” for instance, and let you swiftly replace it with the taco emoji).

The fun won’t stop with smileys. You’ll be able to send messages of congratulation that result in the recipients screen filling with balloons or clouds of confetti, or hide the contents of a message under “Invisible Ink” that needs to be wiped off the recipient’s touchscreen with a swipe. You’ll also be able to send hand-written notes and sketches, and preview videos and web links from inside the app.

On a related note, iOS 10 is giving the keyboard a brain boost by integrating Siri’s deep learning skills. That means QuickType autofills and corrections will be more relevant to the context, and you’ll get auto reply options that use information such as your location or calendar contents.

THE LOCK SCREEN GETS SOME LOVIN’

WWDC confirmed that iOS 10 will bring a few welcome changes to the lock screen too. You’ll now be able to use “raise to wake”, which means you’ll only need to pick up your iPhone or iPad to see the lock screen and view the clock or any notifications.

3D Touch is being given a clever new job here too: you’ll be able to interact with selected notifications and pop-ups without having to unlock the screen. Just give the relevant notification a hard press and you’ll be able to delve into its contents, whether it’s a text message or a pop-up to say your Uber has arrived.

Another thing previewed at WWDC was a reworked Apple Music, with the (in our opinion) messy old layout replaced by something much cleaner and simpler. Creaking social layer Music Connect looks to have been quietly axed (it will be missed… NOT) and Apple has taken a leaf out of Spotify’s book by giving each user a regularly updated personalised playlist. Apple’s doing it every day rather than every week – although that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be better at magically tapping into your music tastes as Discover Weekly.

PHOTOS GETS A GOOGLE-STYLE BRAIN BOOST

Apple is set to inject a lot more AI-based stuff into the Photos app with iOS 10, with deep machine learning recognising faces, places, objects and events and using these things to categorise and tag your stills and videos. That means you’ll be able to find things quicker, and Photos will also automatically create little vignettes, collections and movies in a tab called Memories.

Yes, you’re probably thinking that sounds a lot like the features Google Photos has been offering for some time, but Apple’s implementation has one key difference: all the computation is done on your actual device, not in the cloud. The true implications of that difference (will it be slower/faster than Google Photos, for instance?) won’t be clear until launch, but in theory it could be a better way of doing things.

HAS MAPS FINALLY FOUND ITS WAY?

Apple’s Maps app has a chequered past. In its current form it’s a decent, usable mapping service, but its disastrous introduction means it’s lagging way behind Google Maps in terms of public perception. iOS 10 looks set to deliver a sizeable boost to Maps’ functionality, however.

At WWDC, Apple showed us how it's opening Maps up to developers, letting you book an Uber or make an OpenTable reservation without having to leave the app, and getting cleverer suggestions based on what it knows about you (gleaning stuff from your calendar, for instance).

The navigation is also getting richer, with traffic levels appearing in the route, while reroutes to avoid that – or to buy food or petrol – will give you more info on the extra time you’ll need.

Will that be enough to overtake Google Maps? Probably not, but it seems to be getting closer.

Yuneec Typhoon H review

If DJI is the Coca-Cola of consumer drones, Yuneec is Pepsi – a big, successful name, but still second best. We're not sure if it's got the same funny taste if you lick one, though.

The Typhoon H wants to tip the balance in Yuneec's favour, and on paper looks like it has the chops to do it: at £1,100, it’s cheaper than DJI’s Phantom 4, but has a beefier features list.

How does retractable landing gear, dual-operator flying and a 7in touchscreen built into the remote controller sound? If that doesn't get your motor running, the Typhoon has six of its own - two more than than the Pantom's four. All while packing in a similar blend of 4K video recording, clever trick flying modes and user friendliness.

In fact, the Typhoon H seems a more worthy rival to DJI’s step-up model, the Inspire 1 (£1,769 at the time of writing), than the Phantom 4.

So does it deliver the drone to finally knock DJI off its perch? Not quite – but it comes really, really close.

SIX APPEAL

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This isn't a drone that's too tubby for take-off, even with six rotor arms. It's a fair bit larger than a Phantom with all six arms extended, sure, but you can fold them down to make it much easier to lug around between flights.

There's no carry case like the Phantom 4, though, so unless you want to lug it everywhere in the original box, it's a good idea to invest in the rugged backpack - a £110 option. I can throw (or rather carefully place) my Phantom 3 in a tote bag at a pinch for a discreet drone drop-off, but the Typhoon H is just that bit too wide for that.

At 1.85kg, it's a little heftier on the scales than the 1.38kg Phantom 4, too, but still far from back-breaking. You've got the lightweight carbon fibre rotor arms and landing gear to thank for that.

Ah yes, that landing gear. After take-off, flicking a switch on the controller will swivel the feet up about 90 degrees, letting the gimbal-mounted camera pan around a full, unobstructed 360 degrees. It's a party trick shared by DJI's Inspire 1, but not the Phantom 4, so it’s a quite the coup for Yuneec to squeeze it into such an affordable drone.

ROTARY CLUB

With six rotors, the Typhoon should, in theory, be more stable in-flight than any four-rotor rival. Flying round my local park on a cold, windy June morning (never change, British summertime), it certainly felt very stable - with the footage looking like it was taken from a crane rather than a dinky flying platform when I played it back later.

Then again, I’ve never found DJI’s quadcopters to be particularly susceptible to gusts of wind either, thanks to the gyroscopes and IMU sensors doing a bang up job to keep themselves level at all times. I’m not sure how much of the Typhoon’s stability is down to an abundance of motors.

The other advantage to putting hex appeal before quad goals is that, according to Yuneec, if one motor fails the drone will stay in the air. Short of sabotaging an £1100 loaner, this wasn't a claim I could test, so I'll have to assume Yuneec isn't telling porkies here.

SMALL FRY

Micro Drone 3.0 review

TAKE CONTROL

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Flying the Typhoon H is a cakewalk with the remote controller, which links up to the drone over Wi-Fi and radio. It's got a 7in touchscreen built in, for changing settings and getting a 720p real-time feed of what the drone's camera is pointed at. 

OK, the reflective screen coating can make flying a bit trickier when the sun's blazing, but the three-sided shade included in the box blocks out direct sunlight. Basically, you'll always be able to see what's going on, without having to stuff the controller up your jumper.

There are a ton of physical buttons and switches for controlling flying and camera modes, and it recharges over USB so you don't have to mess about with battery packs. It's a little on the large and heavy side, so the bundled neck strap definitely comes in handy when you're heading off to do some flying.

Overall, this Typhoon's remote is better than the Phantom's, mostly because you don't have to faff about plugging in a smartphone or tablet. It’s basically an Android tablet itself – you can even run apps on it.

Turn on the controller and the drone should pair automatically - at least, that's the theory. Most times, the RC would pair but the Wi-Fi wouldn't, so I was diving into the menus to try and re-bind the two together. If this happens once or twice, it’s forgivable, but it happened most times I used the drone.

I suspect it’s a problem that can be fixed through a software update, but right now it’s an annoying time-waster.

VISION OF THE FUTUR

UP, UP AND AWAY

There might be an extra pair of props, but once you'e up in the air the Typhoon feels a lot like the Phantom. 

It’s zippy and responsive, holds its position well if you take your fingers off the sticks, and has collision detection to stop itself ploughing into obstacles directly in front of it. Don't expect it to dodge anything if you're flying backwards or from side to side, though - that'll just end up with a shashed drone and an expensive repair bill.

Software restrictions make anything above 400 feet a no-fly zone, but you can still get a fair old distance away from the controller without losing connection. Yuneec reckons it's about a mile, but given how flying out of your visual range is illegal (and we're all law-abiding drone pilots here at Stuff), I didn't put that limit to the test. It's certainly fine to a few hundred feet.

If you do lose sight of the drone for whatever reason, flicking the flight mode switch to “H” makes it automatically fly back towards you and eventually land within a few metres. Spot it coming back and have some flight time left? Jump back on the controls and you can pick up where you left off.

A bunch of other handy autopilot modes are included, to circle a point of interest for a perfectly steady shot, follow a route you draw onscreen using map waypoints, or even lock the camera on a subject and track it - handy if you want an aerial shot of your bike ride or running route.

Nikon D5 review

“Anything you can do, I can do better.” All aboard the banter bus, yeah?

It might sound like playground smack talk, but it’s also the mantra that’s kept rivals Canon and Nikon neck-and-neck for decades, churning out some properly brilliant cameras in the process.

The D5 is Nikon’s latest, a top-of-the-line, £5k DSLR that’s landing just in time for some of the huge sporting events heading our way this summer.

It’s built to take on Canon’s mighty 1D X MkII, throwing in the incremental upgrades that’ll appeal to pro photographers - or just those of us with an extra £5k kicking about. That’s most of us, right? No? No.

A resolution bump from 16MP in the D4S to 20.8MP for the D5 wasn’t really going to set tongues wagging - Canon’s got the 50MP 5DS, after all.

Instead, it’s the D5’s ISO range that’s been getting camera buffs all excited. After all, bigger numbers here mean better light sensitivity - handy if you're out on a job with no studio lighting.

The native range stretches all the way to 102,400, which is impressive in itself (and two stops up from the D4S), but the real number comes from the expanded setting. The D5 tops out at an incredible 3,280,000 - yes, have a moment to take that number in. More than three million.

Whether it’ll actually produce usable results is another matter, but either way, low-light snappers will appreciate the new 153-point AF system. It’s got 99 of the more sensitive cross-type points, so focusing shouldn’t be a problem.

You’ll be able to rattle off frames at up to 12fps, thanks to the new EXPEED 5 processor, and can take 200 RAW shots before the camera will need to buffer - if you’ve got a XQD card, anyway.

Newcomer to Nikon’s top-level gear? XQD is a super fast card format you won’t find in many other cameras, but opens the door for lightning fast shooting speeds and data transfers. The D5 comes in two flavours: one has dual XQD slots, but the other makes do with good old fashioned Compact Flash. Go for the dual CF card version and you won’t get such speedy shooting, but that might not be a problem if you’re not constantly working in burst mode.

Pro photographers are about as fond of change as they are of Instagram filters. Start radically changing up the design and layout of your top-end gear and they’ll be trading in their lens collection faster than you can say “full-frame sensor”.

It’s hardly a surprise, then, that the D5 has pretty much the same body size, shape and layout as the D4S - good news for upgraders looking to make a smooth transition. And to prevent outright rebellion from the Nikon faithful.

There have been a few minor tweaks, though; ones that make handling even better. The ever-so-slightly reshaped grips are more comfy to hold now, whether you’re holding the boxy D5 vertically or horizontally. All of the important buttons are duplicated on the portrait grip, so you don’t have to work your hands like an octopus just to take a head shot.

Speaking of buttons - there are a lot. You’ve got direct access to pretty much every control you could possibly want, along with two small joysticks for moving the AF point around the screen, but it’ll take a while to get used to the layout - unless you’re already using a D4S. If you’ve leapt up from a phone to this beast, you’re in for a rude awakening.

It might say 153 AF points on the box, but you can only pick between 55 of them - the rest are merely the support act. You’ll have to reframe and refocus if your subject gets itchy feet and starts wandering into the edge of your shot.

At least focusing is fast, even in low light, with sensitivity down to -4EV. That’s a clear, moonlit night, for anyone that doesn’t always have a light meter within arm’s reach. There’s no built-in flash, just a mount for an external one - you weren’t expecting a £5k camera to make do with a weak-sauce integrated flash, were you?

Sports pros will be happy to hear continuous focusing has been given a boost over the D4S too. Combined with 12fps continuous shooting, or 14fps if you lock the SLR mirror up first, you’ve got every chance of catching every step of the 100m final in Rio later this summer.

Just keep in mind Canon’s 1DX MkII tops out at 16fps, so you might miss out on that split-second shot that hits the next morning's newspapers.

iphone 6s plus review

When Apple’s first phablet dropped last year, it basically turned out to be a big iPhone.

Although Samsung’s Note series had shown you could do a lot of things differently with an ample display, the iPhone 6 Plus simply offered you more of the same. More battery life, more pixels in its 5.5-inch screen and more aluminium to hold on to. It was fine, but a little boring – like a bumper-sized pack of lightly salted crisps.

One year on, you might be wondering whether the iPhone 6s Plus has found its own identity. The advent of 3D Touch and 4K video seem to offer it a coming-of-age moment. One that arrives without the need to spend Saturday in high school detention or head to the woods in search of a dead body.

Then again, with a near-identical design to its predecessor and no stylus in sight, is the iPhone 6s Plus just the 6s after a growth spurt? Allow us to size it up for you.

A TOUCH OF THE FUTURE

Pressure-sensitive interaction with your iThings was first introduced with Force Touch on the Apple Watch and the new generation of MacBooks. While it’s more of a fancy right-click on the MacBooks and a shortcut button on the Apple Watch, the purpose of the feature has been refined on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

It’s also been renamed to 3D Touch. Because why not?

There are two things you can do when using 3D Touch with Apple’s own apps. Firstly, you can use it to preview messages and emails. Should you like what you see, just press a little harder to be taken into said message. Secondly, it brings up a tiny menu of options so you can jump directly into actions without wasting a single second.

We’d love it if we could customise the options within these Quick Actions. But this is an Apple-made phone so you’ll take what you’re given, alright? Now stop complaining.

Ignoring the limited-edition Huawei Mate S 128GB, the iPhone 6s Plus and 6s are the only flagship handsets to currently offer 3D Touch as a feature. This is a big deal because it’s a super-convenient bit of tech, one that makes using the 6s Plus a whole lot more pleasurable. Your old iPhone will feel like a luddite in comparison.

READ MORE

9 things we learnt from Apple’s iPhone 6s event

HITTING THE RIGHT NOTE

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‘In a world where the Apple Pencil exists and costs US$99 (£64), why doesn’t the 6s Plus offer stylus functionality?’ you might ask in exceptionally geeky fashion.

Well, 3D Touch is the answer and it’s a surprisingly great response for Apple to have in its back pocket. 3D Touch offers a lot of the same functionality you’d get with the Galaxy Note 5’s stylus. You’ll lose a little precision, but that doesn’t really matter given that you’re using the feature as a means of navigation – not to turn your phone into an Etch A Sketch.

Also, you can now press and hold the 6s Plus’ keyboard to turn it into a trackpad so you can edit your typing exactly. The same feature exists on the 6s, it just makes more sense on a bigger screen.

Similarly to when you’re first using a Galaxy Note’s stylus, 3D Touch will take some getting used to. We kept tapping and holding on the screen at first, instead of pressing and holding, causing the apps to shiver in fear of deletion. But once you get the hang of things, it’s as if you’ve never lived a day without the feature.

What’s needed now is for more third party app developers to jump on the 3D Touch bandwagon. It looks as though big names such as Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Dropbox have 3D Touch integration on the way, but until then this feature is restricted to first-party apps such as Safari and Mail.

IS THAT AN IPHONE 6S PLUS IN YOUR POCKET...

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Although the iPhone 6s Plus’ 5.5-inch screen isn’t the biggest you’ll find on a phablet, it does mean you’ll need large hands to comfortably use it. As was the case with its predecessor, the 6s Plus has a 1920x1080 resolution display. Unlike the iPhone 6s, this means it can screen Full HD video footage, which is great news for anyone who watches a lot of Netflix or YouTube on the go.

With 401ppi clarity, the 6s Plus is still quite a way behind the other flagship phones when it comes to dazzling your eyes with pin-sharp detail. The LG G4 and Samsung Galaxy Note 5 are currently in the front of the pack with 538ppi and 518ppi respectively, while the 4K Sony Xperia Z5 Premium is about to knock it out of the pixel park at 806 ppi.

Unless you’ve got laser sharp vision and put the iPhone 6s Plus next to its Android competition, you shouldn’t notice the difference on a day-to-day basis. Especially since Apple excels at getting the best from its displays. The 6s Plus offers rich, natural colours compared to the oversaturated tones you’ll get from many an Android alternative.

MORE CUSHION FOR THE 3D TOUCHIN’

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Aside from offering a screen that’s almost an inch bigger than the 6s, the 6s Plus is 49g heavier. What’s the cause of this added plump? 3D Touch, of course.

The thicker glass this pressure-sensitive tech requires also means the 6s Plus now weighs 192g in total. Put both the 6s and 6s Plus in your hands like a human scale and you’ll certainly notice the difference. If anything this phablet’s added heft is reassuring, you don’t feel like you could accidentally toss it across your living room. In contrast, handling the 6s is a more precarious affair.

Aside from its new-fangled glass, the 6s Plus’ construction has also been strengthened with 7000 series aluminium. The same material you’ll find in the Apple Watch and a jumbo jet airliner. Why? So ‘Bendgate’ doesn’t happen again for anyone who carries their iPhone around in their back pocket.

We tried checking if this were the case, but the 6s Plus proved too big to squeeze into our jeans. Petite folk of the world, consider yourselves warned.

As with the iPhone 6s, the 6s Plus’s battery capacity has been reduced to accommodate its new 3D Touch-enabled display. Unlike with the 6s Plus’ smaller cousin, this shouldn’t offer as much cause for concern.

To get technical for a moment, the 6s Plus is said to have a 2750 mAh battery. This means it’s about 5% smaller than the 6 Plus’ 2,915mAh battery, but still significantly bigger than the 6s’ 1715 mAh battery. While some of this extra charge will be used to power the 6s Plus’ bigger screen, Apple’s phablet definitely offers greater stamina than its standard iPhone.

After hammering the 6S Plus for a good eight hours with power-sapping 4K videos and Live Photos, we were left with a fifth of its battery life left. To tide us through the commute home, we simply activated iOS 9’s new Low Power Mode that instinctively shuts down or decreases the thirstiest features in your phone.

Stuff like push emails and background app refreshes are culled to stretch out what’s left of your battery life, and you’ll barely notice. It’s no biggie at all. If you’re torn between the two new iPhones, battery life might be just the factor to sway you.

Unlike the Galaxy Note 5, the 6s Plus doesn’t come with fast charging tech. This means you’ll have to remember to charge it overnight, because a 10 minute lift before dashing out the door won’t cut it for this slow-sipping battery. Comparatively speaking, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ (3000mAh) and Note 5 (3,020mAh) also offer more power to see you through a day’s use and that little bit extra.

THAT JUNK IN ITS TRUNK

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The iPhone 6s Plus comes with Apple’s new A9 processor and is rumoured to feature 2GB RAM too. That would be double that of its predecessor, but Apple is coy to confirm anything and we’re loathe to rip open this phone’s casing to find out.

One thing we can tell you without whipping out our ratchet and hammer is that the 6s Plus is ever so slightly slower than the plain old iPhone 6s. It received a maximum score of 4181 for multicore performance in our Geekbench 3 testing, compared to the iPhone 6s’ 4410 rating. When you consider the 6s Plus has more screen to work with, this isn’t all that surprising.

What it does mean though, is that the 6s Plus is far from a speed king. Although its A9 chip makes it faster than the LG G4 (3502), It’s something of a slouch compared to the HTC One M9 (4200), Snapdragon 810-powered OnePlus 2 (4460) and the Samsung Galaxy S6’s Exynos 7420 CPU (5200).

How this translates to real life is that you’ll be able to play Crossy Road, answer an email, and go back to playing your game without experiencing non-responsive frustration. Swiping, tapping and now 3D Touching our way through the 6s Plus was stutter-free. This phablet was as eager as the rest of its family in responding to our touch, even though we’ve crammed it full with a lot of photos and videos already (11,765 in total to be exact).

We’re a little trigger happy, okay?

When it comes to handling a graphics intensive game such as Riptide GP2, the A9 chip keeps good pace with what's asked of it. Not once did we experience any stutter that might get in the way of our hydro jet racing career. And that large screen provided for incredibly immersive gameplay, buoyed by slick smooth visual rendering.

TAP THAT TOUCH ID

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As with the iPhone 6s, Touch ID on this monster phone is blazingly fast. And that's a very good thing given its sometimes unwieldy size. You don't want to drop your brand new dink-free iPhone 6s Plus while attempting to type in your passcode now, do you?

Even if your hands are too dry or too clammy, the sensitivity on the fingerprint sensor has been improved. The Touch ID of old would have prompted us to try again countless times before we finally gave up and entered our passcode manually.

This Touch ID waved us through in the time we took to press the Home button to wake the phone. Who even needs passcodes anymore?

OIS IS A KILLER CAMERA FEATURE

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Following suit with the 6s, the iPhone 6s Plus’ camera has finally been upgraded to offer 12-megapixels instead of the paltry 8 you may have been used to. It also features a pleasingly wide ƒ/2.2 aperture that means your photos look more intricate Hieronymus Bosch than smudgy Van Gogh.

Using the 6s Plus’ camera is like having a sharpening filter applied to all your photos. Your eyes will lap up all that glorious detail, which is only made better by the generous screen.

Nevertheless, both the LG G4 and Galaxy S6 are still better-specced for photos. The G4 has a 16MP sensor with a wider f/1.8 lens for capturing more light in dim conditions, while the Galaxy S6 has a 16MP sensor with a f/1.9 aperture. Both phones also feature optical image stabilisation (OIS).

As with screen quality and battery life, photography is an area where the iPhone 6s Plus fares much better than the iPhone 6s and this is largely thanks to OIS. By compensating for camera shake, this feature ensures your photos and videos won’t look like they’ve been shot by someone walking on a trampoline of Jell-o.

This tech compensates for some motion blur, keeping lines sharp, but don’t expect it to save you in really tricky weather conditions. When shooting video on San Francisco’s waterfront, the wind was so strong that our phone kept shaking and the footage looked pretty shonky. OIS is great, but you’ll still need a pair of steady hands to create National Geographic-worthy footage.

INTRODUCING… GIFS

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The iPhone 6s Plus also introduces Apple’s neat new Live Photos feature, which inserts 1.5 seconds of footage before and after your still snap. You’ll want to hold your phone in place before and after hitting that trigger, otherwise it will just be a hot mess of movement.

For those who truly love themselves, Live Photos also works on the FaceTime camera and you can use these selfies as your wallpaper. With a press and hold, they’ll start to move before your eyes. For the provided Live Wallpapers. the harder you press on them, the quicker they unfurl on your screen. Take your finger off and it rewinds itself. It’s almost like poking your finger into a time warp.

Sure, it’s nothing groundbreaking but it’s one of the many small details on the 6s Plus that will raise a smile. We found ourselves demonstrating it to people to explain what Live Photos are about, and also tapping it whenever we were bored. Just bear in mind that Live Photos take up twice the space of a normal photo so proceed with caution.

4K VIDEO KILLED THE HD STAR

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You still really need loads of natural light to make 4K really pop. Footage we shot in the dusky light of the shady Muir Woods was a little grainier than we’d have liked, but where sunlight is abundant, 4K sparkled like Edward Cullen. Literally. Just check out our video of Sausalito’s waterfront and look at that light glinting off the water.

From gossamer spider web threads to bubbles, it did a brilliant job of capturing what’s barely there. It’s like going back to previously perfect eyesight before it was ruined by too much computer use. 4K requires minimal effort and turns out maximum results so we won’t be surprised if it becomes your default video recording resolution.

We don’t think we can go back to to 1080p, let alone 720p, which is bad news for our storage. 4K will munch right through your precious GB - a minute of 4K averages 375MB - so don’t go too crazy. Otherwise you’ll find yourself having to sacrifice apps to make space for an extremely detailed video of a snail gliding across the picnic table.

STORAGE WARS

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This phablet doesn’t come cheap, as with all Apple products. The 16GB costs £619, the 64GB £699, and the 128GB - a princely £789. The 32GB Galaxy Note 5 costs around the price of the 16GB iPhone 6s Plus in the US while the 32GB version of the LG G4 rings in at £525 for the more expensive leather-backed version if you need a little perspective.

Either way, the 6s Plus is an expensive piece of kit which makes its 16GB entry-level storage even more disappointing. It’s not hard to figure out why Apple has skimped on offering a 32GB model as standard, a 16GB device is cheaper to make and will push more people towards a 64GB 6s Plus. Still, none of those benefits apply to you: the consumer. Given Apple’s obsession with customer satisfaction scores, its intransigence on storage is totally perplexing.

You’ll soon fill up 16GB on a 6s Plus with music, apps, photos and video. It just doesn’t offer enough space for the modern day smartphone user. If you don’t mind coughing up the cash, we’d recommend that you steer clear of the entry-level 6s Plus and get a 64GB or 128GB handset that can make the most of its features.

IPHONE 6S PLUS VERDICT

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No matter what people say, size matters. And because of its sheer screen size, the iPhone 6s Plus does tremendously well at showcasing some of Apple’s new hardware features. It’s particularly good for 3D Touch, and has a great screen for showing off those 12Mp photos and 4K video you can now shoot. Perhaps best of all, it enough battery life to see you through a day and then the morning afterwards.

Is the 6s Plus the better iPhone of the two? Only if your hands can handle its generous curves. If not, you’ll find it cumbersome to operate quickly which defeats the purpose of having those fab photo features. Also, the iPhone 6s is the faster phone by a clear margin.

When it comes to the league of giants, the iPhone 6s Plus is actually one of the smaller phablets around. In terms of screen quality, storage, battery life and sheer power it doesn’t offer as much as the Samsung Galaxy Edge+, Note 5 and many other flagship handsets. 

Smart with a good eye for camera work, the iPhone 6s Plus still puts the ‘fab’ in phablet. Only just though.