Apple iPhone 6s Plus review
Review: September 2015 | ||
![]() Last updated September 2015 Rating: In a nutshell: The iPhone 6s Plus comes with a faster A9 processor, a 12 megapixel camera with 4K video recording, and Apple's new 3D Touch feature. It's also been substantially strengthened to avoid problems with bending, making it a lot heavier than the 6 Plus. Although it's a a wonderful piece of tech in many ways, it's phenomenally expensive. Today's best buy: Apple iPhone 6S Plus 128GB from Very (£349.00) |
Review
We're not going to review the iPhone 6s Plus in detail here, as it's simply a larger version of the iPhone 6s, so read our detailed review of the 6s here.
The iPhone 6s Plus looks almost identical to the 6 Plus. On closer inspection, it's a little thicker - closer to 7.5mm than 7mm, and a lot heavier. In fact it's heavier than any of its rival phablets from other manufacturers. The reason for this big increase in weight is the extra metal Apple has been forced to add to the casing to avoid problems with the phone bending (as happened with the iPhone 6 Plus.) The new 3D Touch feature also adds to the weight.
The 6 Plus was already too big and heavy for many users, and we're guessing that the increased weight will make this too heavy for most people. Its nearest rival, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+, is nearly 40g lighter! The Edge+ is smaller, thinner and has a bigger screen too. Not that numbers ever swayed anyone from buying an Apple product.
The new phone comes in a wider choice of colours - Silver, Space Grey, Gold and Rose Gold, and is available in 16GB, 64GB and 128GB versions. We'd advise that the 16GB version will be too limiting, as there's no memory expansion card slot.
While it's nice to have a larger screen in an iPhone, and the 6s Plus also has optical image stabilisation and a larger battery than the iPhone 6s, this comes at the expense of significantly more size and weight. It costs a lot more too.
The price of the 6s Plus is quite eye-watering. If you want it free, you'll be signing up to a two-year contract at £70 per month, which is just ridiculous. No other phone comes anywhere near this cost, and that's why we can't rate it higher than 3 stars.
Apple iPhone 6s Plus features include:
- iOS 9 Operating System
- 12 megapixel camera with touch autofocus, True Tone flash, auto HDR, BSI sensor and optical image stabilisation, 4K video recording
- Front camera: 5 megapixels with HD (720p) FaceTime video calling
- 5.5 inch Retina HD display: 1920 x 1080 pixels IPS touchscreen with 3D Touch
- Music player
- Siri intelligent assistant
- Fingerprint identity sensor built into the Home button
- Messaging: SMS, MMS, email
- Assisted GPS and GLONASS with digital compass and Maps app
- Processor: A9 chip with 64-bit architecture and embedded M9 motion coprocessor
- Memory: 16GB, 64GB or 128GB plus iCloud
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.2, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n/ac with MIMO), NFC, 3.5mm headphone jack
- Quad-band GSM (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz) plus UMTS/HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz) plus 4G LTE
- Size: 158 x 78 x 7.3 mm
- Weight: 192g
- Video playback: 14 hours














User questions
Sorry - questions and comments on this page are now closed.
Apple iPhone 6s Plus user reviews
Sorry - reviews and comments on this page are now closed.
Average rating from 5 reviews:
Reviewed by Karl
from United Kingdom
on 12th Aug 2016
The only people that complain about phones being "too heavy " .....
are wimps. I am by no means an apple fan boy, but crikey this phone is
the business.
Being too heavy is not something that has
ever concerned me at all. This is a fabulous phone, performs
flawlessly, excellent camera backed up by solid, slick operating
system. Yes it is expensive on contract, but you pay for what you get.
And the 6s plus is an absolute beast of a phone. 5 stars any day, all
day long.
Rating:
Reviewed by steven
from england
on 29th Jul 2016
3 stars??? I know this is an android biased review site, especially
considering the praise samsung always get, despite how poor their os
is, and how many hardware issues there have been with all the galaxy
models. But come on, grow a pair, and admit that Apple make solid
phones. I only buy what is best, and yes apple aren't perfect, but
when it comes to phones they are far nicer to use, not to mention
ridiculously more reliable. I've had a 6 plus for 2 years and it has
been flawless since day one. Previously I had a HTC one, great phone
but didn't even come close to an iPhone. I had a galaxy S6 for a few
weeks but the amount of issues were just unbearable, and the lag was
ridiculous. It is pointless giving a phone so much power when it is
plagued by a sloppy OS.
I'd love to see samsung, etc, sony, lg
etc bring out phones with their own operating systems as android is
dreadful. the cyanogenmod improves android greatly but it voids
warranty.
iPhones need no mods to be great, they may be far more
restricted than android phones but they don't get virus's or need anti
spyware. They are pretty perfect.
Rating:
Reviewed by Tris
from Uk
on 23rd Jul 2016
First things first. I'm not an iPhone lover, never have been. Until
recently I actually favoured Blackberry passport. In many ways I still
think it's a far superior device and bb10 if used in the right way is
monumental. The problem I had was certain aspects of my job changed. I
have to use images and presentation software much more now. I had an
iPad anyway so I bought a 6s plus at a reasonable discount. I must say
as a tool for my job I can't fault it. I don't think the design is
anything special at all. We've all seen Android OEMs do this similar
design before Apple.....(HTC). It's very expensive for pretty low
grade specs at 2gb ram, 1080p screen, expensive and restrictive Eco
system. So why did I do it you might wonder. iPhone and any other
apple device has a few trump cards up its sleeve. No1 is the camera.
It's a dam decent snapper and is easy to use. 2nd is optimisation.
Apple really does a good job at this and even legacy device run better
then legacy android phones. 3rd is integration across devices. This
makes it super easy for me to edit and finish things on my iPad after
collecting what I need on my phone. Sometimes I can even do it all on
the phone. Other things are good too such as all the bands in the
radio. It's good for when I go to Europe, North America and Canada.
It's a bit of a vein minor thing but iMessages and FaceTime are super
useful to me as half my family and most my work colleagues have
iPhone. So all in all its not really the hardware that's epic. It's
actually the software that drew me in. With constant updates I'm
actually finding the 6s plus very robust and useful and reliable.
Probably not the best review ever but it's a good look how a phone has
to be more then just the some of its parts to become part of someone's
life successfully.
Rating:
Reviewed by c.lion
from uk
on 17th Oct 2015
cool phone , lots of great features , it can even make calls and txts.
abit on the big side though.
Rating:
Reviewed by Rob
from Scotland
on 28th Sep 2015
You must be happy S21, new iPhones for you to slag off? I replaced my
6 plus for the new s version and its great. The build quality is
industry leading and although the tweaks are subtle they make a super
fast phone even slicker. The 3D screen is a fantastic feature, though
you have to remember its a starting point and as developers get on
board it will go from strength to strength.
Rating: