Apple iPhone 6 128GB

The first thing you notice about the new iPhone 6 is how drastically different it appears from the iPhone 5/5s. The blocky frame with chamfered sides has been replaced with a slim profile, curved corners and rounded edges, making it look suspiciously like the HTC One (M8). Despite the new look, the iPhone 6 sports some trademark Apple design touches. Prime among these is the emphasis on symmetry, evident in the equally-sized, broad bezels above and below the display. On the chin is the familiar home button hiding the metal Touch ID sensor, while the top features the earpiece, front camera and sensors. The glass panel in the front has also been given a makeover, and is now contoured, sloping gently down to the sides. While the result isn’t visually striking, it’s apparent as soon as you start using the smartphone. Simple gestures like scrolling or swiping feel silky smooth, with your finger easily sliding off the sides instead of meeting a sharp edge.

While Android phones are upping the pixel count with full HD and 2K displays, the iPhone 6 sticks to a modest resolution of 1,334 x 750 pixels. Even though it features a higher resolution than the 5s, the larger screen size results in the same pixel density of 326ppi. While you may not be impressed by the pixel count, the difference is negligible when viewed by the naked eye (hence the term Retina HD display). It’s very sharp, with no jagged edges visible in text. Brightness levels are at an all-time high, and viewing the screen in sunlight is not a problem. In addition to the IPS technology, Apple has also packed in something called ‘dual-domain pixels’ which further improve viewing angles and colour accuracy. Colours appear natural, with whiter whites and darker blacks, without being oversaturated as Samsung’s AMOLED displays are wont to do. Overall, the iPhone 6’s display continues to be one of the best in the market.

We had expected Apple to bump up the resolution on the iPhone 6's cameras, but the company decided otherwise. The iPhone 6 features an 8-megapixel iSight camera at the back, and a 1.2MP FaceTime camera in the front – the same configuration as the 5s. Instead of increasing megapixels, Apple has packed in several improvements. The most significant among them is a new sensor with Focus Pixels, a fancy marketing term (Apple loves them) for phase detection autofocus. Seen on high-end cameras like DSLRs, this feature enables the camera to focus on the subject faster. The results are evident – the camera locks focus at lightning speeds, and is greatly improved over the 5s, which often struggled while focusing in macro shots.

The iPhone 6 runs iOS 8 (upgradable to iOS 8.1 out of the box). We’ve already covered the features of the new operating system update in our iOS 8 overview, but we’ll touch upon the basics.

The iPhone 5s was the first smartphone to feature a 64-bit processor, in the form of Apple’s A7 chip. The iPhone 6 features an A8 chipset, the first from the company to be built using the 20nm manufacturing process. According to Apple, the chip provides 25 percent more CPU performance, and 50 percent more GPU performance. Although Apple never reveals the internals of its processor, teardowns have confirmed that it’s a dual-core processor clocked at 1.4GHz, paired with 1GB of RAM. This might sound underpowered on paper, but iOS is a highly optimised operating system, with restrictions on how much memory apps can use. Plus, the current number of 64-bit apps are few, which makes the configuration more than capable of handling intensive tasks. The iPhone 6 offers smooth, stable performance, and doesn't break a sweat while multi-tasking or playing graphics heavy games like Riptide GP2.