The day has come. The leaks all stop and the device is confirmed. The new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have been formally announced and bring with them almost no features that had not already been leaked over the last few months. Does that make the announcement any less important? Of course not! Let’s look in to what you need to know about the best phones money can buy for the next 12 months.
The most popular questions are probably the best way to break down the information about the new iPhones, so Let’s get started:
What’s different?
As with every new generation iPhone pretty much everything. From inside and out, the iPhone has been reengineered and the design has been further refined. Now larger, thinner and proportionately lighter.
There are now two defined models in the iPhone family, the 6 and the 6 Plus. The 6 has a screen that measures 4.7 inches diagonally and the Plus’s is a gargantuan 5.5 inch. In the cut-out-and-keep guides published on this site a few weeks ago, you can see how these measure up to the current iPhones. The officially confirmed devices are a little larger than these mockups, but not by a lot.
As for the rest of the changes, well, the larger screens means they have higher resolutions. Both devices are being trumpeted as ‘Retinal HD’. In plain English, that means that the 6 has a resolution that is slightly higher than 720p HD video and the 6 Plus’s screen measures up to 1080p HD (the same as most TVs over 38 inch and most Android flagship phones).
On that lovely new screen, you can view photos and videos that now look better than ever. The 6 Plus has some extra camera clout in the name of OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation). In the simplest terms, that means that your images will come out sharper and videos smoother than ever before. All in Full HD or in 240 frames per second 720p HD video.
As well as the big changes in design and the camera, the memory options have changed. They now go 16GB (cheapest) 64Gb (replacing and thus doubling the old 32GB option) and a whopping 128GB version (most expensive).
So, I get it. It’s totally different. What else is there?
Given that every year we get a new version of Apple’s mobile operating system iOS, there’s always some new software features. There’s a more in depth breakdown of iOS 8 coming in the next week to this site, but at the moment, let’s just say that it fixes a lot of the design with iOS7 and refines a lot of the rough edges. Other big changes are around making using the iPhone quicker. On that, the iPhone 6 Plus has some cleaver landscape modes for apps to make use of that massive screen.
Right then, It’s bigger, faster and better in every way. I’m sold. When can I get one? and How much?
As speculated on this very website in January of this year, the iPhone 6 will be available on the 19th of September (*takes a bow*) at the same price points as the 5s last year. the 6 Plus, carries an £80 premium over the the 4.7 inch version. Both will be available on all UK networks. The 5s and 5c will now be effectively free on most contracts and most networks, so there’s bargains to be had there!
Hopefully you have found this rotund up nice and easy to digest and I’ve answered some of the bigger questions. Want to know more? Grab the Tame Geek on the social media platform of your choice.
