When the iPhone 6 was first released in September 2014, it was going up against phones like the Nexus 6 and the Galaxy S5, which were phones it was relatively on par with at its price point of $900AUD. But now, in 2018, the iPhone 6 is competing with increasingly popular budget smartphones, which pack the maximum amount of features in to a phone with a cheap price tag. The iPhone 6 is now commonly priced at $450AUD. But so are phones like the Moto G6, Xiaomi Mi A2, and the Nokia 6.1. So is the iPhone 6 worth it, in 2018. Let’s find out.
Display
Tech Specs – 4.7 inch IPS LCD display with 1334×750 resolution at 326ppi
– 500 nits of max brightness
The display is one of the most important parts of a smartphone, and this is one of the places where the iPhone 6 shows its age. The iPhone 6 has a 4.7 inch HD+ Retina Display, which just feels dated, and is one of the big downsides of buying a old flagship in 2018. The display is just an LCD, not an OLED like any Samsung flagship, and this greatly impacts on day to day use in direct sunlight. It’s fine indoors, but as soon as you make the step outside during midday, even at max brightness, the phone can be really hard to see. The display has 326 ppi, which is very poor, especially for a display of this size, and most phones of this price point and lower usually come with at least Full HD screens. Phones like the Moto G6 have Full HD displays, and cost $50 less than the iPhone 6.
Performance
Tech Specs – Apple A8 1.4 GHz 64-bit Dual Core Processor
– Apple M8 Coprocessor
Here’s another crucial part of a smartphone that the iPhone 6 really shows its age in. The phone often struggles with everyday tasks such as scrolling through Instagram or playing Pokemon Go. It also gets to ridiculous temperatures after scrolling through webpages or playing simple 2D games. Other phones at this price point, once again have processors like the SnapDragon 630 or even 660, which are significantly faster than the old Apple A8 processor. It also only has 1GB RAM which in 2018, and especially in iOS 11, this just makes multitasking impossible, as you can only have about 3 apps open in multitasking before the phone deletes them out of it’s RAM. The iPhone 6’s Geekbench Scores are significantly slower than the G6 or the Nokia 6.1, and these smartphones cost $50 less. Swiping through menus is noticeably slow, and the real reason for this issue is probably iOS 11, this phone just can’t keep up with the competition, but hopefully when iOS 12 is released, some things like opening apps, or the camera become much faster.
Camera
Tech Specs – 8MP iSight Camera with F/2.2 aperture
– 1.2MP Selfie Camera with F2.4 aperture
– Auto HDR
– True Tone Flash
– 1080p Full HD at 60fps video recording
– 720p HD at 240fps slo-mo video
– Time Lapse Video
The camera on the iPhone 6 isn’t bad, it shoot decent photos in daylight but when you start to zoom into any photo, you start to see the low resolution 8MP show its true colours. I have go some pretty impressive shots in daylight with this phone, but it really can’t hold it’s own in low light shots. The f2.2 aperture just doesn’t let enough light into the camera, and as soon as the sun starts to set, then shots come out grainy, and often not focused at all. Unlike the iPhone 6 Plus the iPhone 6 doesn’t have Optical Image Stabilisation, but it does have some of the best Electronic Image Stabilisation I have seen in a phone. The iPhone 6 records 1080p video at 60fps, and the video is usually fine, even when the camera is moving a fair bit. Overall the camera is probably one of the best parts of this phone, as long as you don’t look to closely. The front facing camera is one of the worst I have ever seen, you don’t really want to be taking any photos with this, it often produces blurry shots and is impossible to use in low light.
Battery Life
Tech specs – 1810MAh Battery
The battery on this phone is awful. It usually lasts until the early afternoon if I have been using it at all, but even simple 3D games just chew the battery us so easily, it’s really impossible to do anything but take a few photos and maybe read a news article or two before this phone is down to 40%. This is not a faulty battery, it has just been replaced, and it’s still lasts only about 3 hours of screen on time. The standby time isn’t great either, if I leave the phone off charge for 5 hours, it’s lost 20%, even with low power mode on. I often find myself having to charge it in the morning, if I have been watching and hour of Youtube so it gets me through the day. It takes about 2 hours to fully charge, which isn’t that bad, but it certainly doesn’t have fast or wireless charging.
Features and Software
There really isn’t many special features on the iPhone 6 but it does have Touch ID, which works pretty well, but sometimes it does have bugs and glitches that strangely stop it from working. It’s quite fast and the addition of the fingerprint scanner makes this phone lots more usable in 2018. The phone is made out of aluminium which makes it much more durable than the all glass phones of 2018. The software is something that is really just personal preference. If you are heavily invested in the Apple Ecosystem then this phone is the cheapest 4.7 inch iPhone that you can buy. But if you don’t have a Mac, iPad, or other Apple devices, skip this phone, it’s not terrible, but with the increase in the budget smartphone market there are much better phones at the same price point or even less. I would recommend the Moto G6, Nokia 6.1, Xiaomi Mi A2, or for the cheapest phone with the SnapDragon 845 processor, the Xiaomi Pocophone F1.
Tech Input 