“Last week I decided to test the most secretive, hotly anticipated smartphones on earth in a place where there was no danger of them being recognized or damaged or both: Disneyland,” Matthew Panzarino reports for TechCrunch. “I’ve had a ton of experience using phones to navigate, communicate and photograph in the park. It’s tens of thousands of people packed into the same square mile, all using devices to do the exact same thing you are. The network is crushed, it’s bright and hot and you’re juggling kids and strollers and other vacationers. It’s an ideal real-world test for smartphone batteries, screens, usability and cameras.”
“I used the iPhone 6 Plus for two days straight at Disneyland without charging it once and still had 16% battery life left. The iPhone 6 did very well too, with 32% left after a single day of use, but the 6 Plus was definitely a beast,” Panzarino reports. “The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are the best smartphone cameras I’ve ever used, and approach the best point-and-shoot cameras I’ve ever shot… It would have been more cost-effective to buy an image processor from whomever, but creating a custom one gave Apple an edge that paid off much larger dividends in the long run. The same goes for the 64-bit A8, though we haven’t begun to see that show its cards yet.”
“I’ve been trying to quantify exactly what makes these versions so badass — and they are. What I’ve come up with is that they finally feel fully intentional,” Panzarino reports. “I have no doubt that the comments of this article will fill up with people crapping on Apple for one reason or another, or defending Android — no matter that this isn’t an ‘Android or iOS’ article. But that doesn’t change the truth of it and it doesn’t do anyone any favors to pull punches — Apple simply has its act together better than its competitors.”
Read more, and see photos, in the full review here.
Related articles:
Apple posts new how-to guide: Switching from Android phone to iPhone – September 16, 2014
Re/code reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6 Plus: ‘A statement phone,’ not a ‘plastic toy’ – September 17, 2014
Megapixels mean nothing: Apple iPhone 6 trounces Samsung Galaxy S5 in camera shootout – September 17, 2014
The Telegraph reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6 Plus: ‘It’s peerless’ – September 17, 2014
TechCrunch reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6: ‘The best smartphone available’ – September 17, 2014
USA Today’s Baig reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6/Plus: ‘Smartphone stars’ – September 17, 2014
Walt Mossberg reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6: ‘The best smartphone on the market’ – September 16, 2014
The Wall Street Journal reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6: ‘The best smartphone you can buy’ – September 16, 2014
Macworld reviews 64-bit iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus: Bigger is better (in the right hands) – September 16, 2014
Oh oh… the comment section for this article on TechCrunch is going to look ridiculous, lol!
Boy was I wrong… Maybe Samsung hasn’t given out their orders yet for this particular comment section.
34 (at the time of this comment) completely positive reviews. Either I’ve dropped into a time/space anomaly, or they’re editing comments.
It was a very good article however…
Matthew is really on to something — reviewing tech through the lens of a relatable, real-world experience; showing how the design details and specs influence the ‘little’ things that matter in your everyday life; saying how using the tech made you feel, and how you came to appreciate the maker’s intense focus on you personally.
I wouldn’t want to be in the business of selling point-and-shoot cameras right about now. Image stabilization is amazing and the exposure is so much better.
At this point the only major thing a cheap point-and-shoot still has that’s missing in an iPhone 6 Plus camera is optical zoom. Full manual controls might not be in the default app but 3rd party apps will be able to add those controls.
Not to take away from the tremendous smart phone camera technology in the new iPhone 6’s but I was at the San Diego Zoo recently and glad I took along my Panasonic Lumix and was so glad I did. The zoom enables so many more great pics just not possible with any smart phone. It was such a joy to move much closer optically on a whim. Apple should be first to have an optical zoom. Digital zooms are worse than useless, they’re pointless.
It’s not just buying a phone… it’s buying a phone, camera, payment device, health device…
I’m due an upgrade 25th October… cannot WAIT!
6 or 6 Plus????
I guess based on Samdung’s latest quarterly projections, there wasn’t enough money to keep bribing all the tech writers.
haha
This is a very good one!
This was a great read and I hope other journalists take notice. It’s one thing to sit in a controlled environment and pick apart a piece of tech, but the authors aproach in this piece was right on. I love Matthews approach here and hope to see similar content from other publications in the future.