Apple iPhone 6s review: A solid phone, even years after its release

The iPhone 6s is a fantastic device, and your last port of call if you want an iPhone with headphone connectability -unfortunately, it’s now also been relegated to the history books.

During the announcement of the iPhone XS and XS Max, Apple’s newest generation of devices, the company also discountinued several ranges of products, including the iPhone 6s. This means that, while it’s still available from third party retailers (it’s currently £235 on Amazon), you won’t be able to get it from Apple shops.

The iPhone 6s is still a wonderfully reliable device, even though it’s several years old, and you can find our review of it below. This will help you compare the device to similarly affordable iPhones such as the iPhone 6, as well as its key rivals.

Apple iPhone 6s review: 3D Touch takes a bow

The reason for this is 3D Touch, Apple’s new take on touchscreen interaction. Put simply, the iPhone 6s is designed to respond not only to where and how long you press the screen, but also how hard you do it. To use Apple’s Phil Schiller’s own words, it’s the next step in smartphone interaction, with Apple, in effect, attempting to sense “intent”, to draw users into a thoughtless action that is entirely intuitive.

It’s the sort of intention that’s at the heart of all good interface and hardware design – the thing Apple has made a habit of executing successfully over the years – and by gum 3D Touch pulls off exactly that trick. The pressure sensitive layer, coupled with a network of sensors behind the 6s’ slightly pliable glass, is able to measure the distance between the glass and the LCD beneath with pinpoint accuracy.

That means that not only can it sense you’re pressing the screen, but also how hard you’re applying said pressure. It isn’t the first time this feat has been achieved in a smartphone, but unlike Huawei, which beat Apple to the punch in launching the pressure-sensitive Huawei Mate S at IFA 2015, Apple has clearly thought long and hard about what to do with it.

In its most basic form, 3D Touch is effectively adding a right-click capability to the iPhone 6s. Press the icon of a compatible app on the homescreen a little harder than usual, and up pops a context-sensitive menu, offering options and shortcuts related to the app in question. The camera app gives you Selfie, Video, Slo-mo and Take Photo shortcuts; Safari offers up links to your reading list, bookmarks, as well as standard and private tab creation.

There are more sophisticated actions than this, though. Press the screen once – on a web link, for instance – and a preview of the webpage appears. Slide your finger up a touch and extra options for sharing and saving appear. Press a touch harder, and you pop off to somewhere else in the OS – Safari in the case of a web link. Apple calls these preview, then launch behaviours “peek” and “pop”, and while it takes a bit of getting used to, I soon found myself taking it for granted.

The list of places that 3D Touch is implemented across iOS 9 is extensive. It can be used in the email app to take a quick look at messages without leaving the list view, to view the new Live element of your photos (more on this later), and on the keyboard, where you can press then drag to reposition the cursor. In the Notes app, it’s possible to sketch with your finger and push harder for a heavier pen stroke, and in Apple Maps it can be used to get quick directions from your current location – by simply pressing down a little harder to launch the Actions menu.

From a hardware perspective, 3D Touch is beautifully implemented. You don’t have to press too hard to activate the first level of pressure sensitivity, and the iPhone’s new Taptic Engine provides a slight tickle of feedback every time you reach a pressure threshold, to leave you in no doubt over what action you’ve just performed. Even if you don’t get on with the way it’s set up initially, it’s possible to adjust the sensitivity in the Accessibility settings, although I had no problem with it at all with it at the default settings.

The implementation of 3D Touch is mighty impressive. It’s the sort of leap forward that may well transform the way we all use our phones in the future, much like the pinch-to-zoom and swipe-to-scroll gestures have revolutionised the way we interact with our mobile devices over the years. Right now, however, 3D Touch doesn’t feel quite finished, and in some places it isn’t implemented in a terribly consistent way.

That will change over time as app and (most excitingly) game developers get hold of the new technology and try out new ideas. And, slowly but surely, developers are adding support for the feature. Instagram, CityMapper, Evernote, Trello and Shazam are among the big names that have integrated 3D Touch already, and in Badlands you also have a major game that’s using it, too, to control the speed of characters on-screen.  

And there are some obvious missed opportunities, too. A two stage camera shutter button? Nothing to see here. How about a way to peek at apps in the new multitasking view. Nowhere in sight (although it is possible to now launch into the multitasking screen by hard-pressing the left-hand side of the homescreen). What about a heavier press on the keyboard to bring up numbers and symbols? No dice.

Fortunately, 3D Touch is due an upgrade soon, and although the current tranche of features is pretty slim, iOS 10 will bring more ways to use it. You can read our first impressions of iOS 10 here, but to summarise, the reach of 3D Touch is going to be significantly extended come September, when the next OS upgrade hits consumers’ smartphones.

One example of this is the newly redesigned Control Center. As well as being divided up into panels, it’s now 3D Touch enabled. Press down on the flashlight button, for instance, and you’ll see a popup menu offering you three different levels of brightness:low, medium and high. The camera icon offers options to take a photo, capture a slow-mo video, take a selfie or record a normal video.

Push down on the calculator button and you’re presented with the option to copy your last result to the clipboard. Finally, if you hard press the timer icon you’ll see four preset options: one minute, five minutes, 20 minutes or one hour.

3D Touch, even nearly a year after the launch of the iPhone 6s remains a work in progress, but Apple continues to back it, and soon it’ll become part of the fabric of the OS – something you can’t imagine you could ever do without.

Apple iPhone 6s review: Cameras

The other of the iPhone 6s’ major changes is less revolutionary than 3D Touch, but is no less welome. It concerns the cameras, with the main, rear-facing shooter receiving a boost in resolution to 12 megapixels from 8 megapixels, and the front camera rising from a pitiful 1.2 megapixels to a far more respectable 5 megapixels. Note that, just as with the iPhone 6, the iPhone 6s still lacks OIS (optical image stabilisation); that feature is enjoyed only by the larger iPhone 6s Plus model, making slightly more accomplished in low light.

Of these improvements, the one that will make the biggest impact with users is the upgrade to the front-facing camera, and that’s because it’s the one area Apple has neglected in recent times.

The new camera captures much more detailed shots, and has one ingenious feature that will help you capture better selfies indoors, in low light: turn on the flash capability and the iPhone 6s will employ its screen as a makeshift flash.

Apple being Apple, though, it hasn’t stopped there. Its screen-based flash is a two-stage affair, flickering on once in bright white to provide full illumination, then again in a lower intensity yellowish colour in an attempt to balance out the skin tones, a bit like the dual-tone LED flash on the rear. It works, too: although low-light selfies do still look pretty noisy, there’s a reasonable amount of detail and skin tones look realistic.

As for the rear camera, that’s pretty good, too. A rise in the number of pixels is often accompanied by increased noise and, thus, lower quality. I’ve seen no evidence of that in the photographs I’ve captured with the 6s’ camera. In both low light and daylight, it’s remarkable how reliably well the iPhone 6s’ camera performs. Almost every snap I’ve ever shot with the iPhone 6s has been well-exposed, with perfect white balance, spot on focus, and .

Having said that, in most circumstances – posting to Facebook or Twitter, even previewing the shots on the phone’s screen – you won’t notice the difference between this camera and the already excellent 8-megapixel camera on the iPhone 6 – you have to download your shots to a laptop and get out your pixel peepers for that – but it’s just as reliable in producing a usable shot, slightly more so in low light.

Far more likely to make a difference to the way you take photos on your phone is the new Live Photos feature, but not necessarily in a positive way if you’ve opted for the lowest-capacity 16GB model since Live Photos occupy double the space of a standard 12-megapixel picture.

What are Live Photos? Essentially, they’re like always-on Vines that are built into the camera app, capturing 1.5 seconds of motion footage before and after you touch the shutter button. The feature is switched on by default, with a small circular icon on the screen indicating that fact, and a yellow LIVE indicator lighting up to show that video is being captured.

Taking a Live photo is a seamless process. You can carry on taking pictures in the normal manner, and the phone feels much as the iPhone 6 did before it. It’s just as responsive, just as quick as shot-to-shot, and it’s just as reliable. So much so, in fact, that most of the Live photos I captured when I first started using the phone ended with footage of the pavement, or my feet. For the best results, I slowly realised I needed to tweak my behaviour, and keep the camera pointed at its subject until the yellow indicator disappeared.

It’s a fun feature, but is it any more than that? With plenty of other, more established, ways of capturing short sequences of video, available through third-party apps like the aforementioned Vine and Snapchat, will it become part of the fabric of social media, or subside into obscurity over time? I’d suggest the latter. Even with Facebook recently adding support for the feature, with only users of the iOS Facebook app able to view Live Photos, it’s going to have limited global appeal.

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Apple iPhone 6s review: Video capture

The other big camera news for the iPhone 6s’ camera is that it can finally capture 4K video. The number of people who own devices capable of displaying such detail-packed footage is still small, but it’s good to see Apple jumping aboard the bandwagon now, before it’s left behind.

If you have such a device, there’s no denying that the video the iPhone 6s produces is much sharper than the 1080p footage captured by the iPhone 6, but more useful to more people is likely to be the iPhone 6s’ ability to retain detail under zoom. Load the video into the preloaded iMovie video editing app, which can now both process and export 4K footage, and you’ll find you can crop quite heavily into your 4K footage without reducing image quality much.

Clearly, though, Apple is being cautious here about the adoption of 4K, as the feature is turned off by default. Clearly it’s worried about customers with 16GB iPhones saturating their storage space with capacity-hungry 4K footage. This worry would appear to be justified, too. With that footage chomping its way through around 380MB per minute, it won’t take long before you’re running out of space.

It’s about time Apple stopped being so darned tight and swallowed the cost of upping the base storage from 16GB to 32GB. Even with iOS 9’s lighter storage footprint and app-thinning reducing the size of installed software, sticking with 16GB for the low-end model is beginning to look like a poor decision on Apple’s part.

Apple iPhone 6s review: Design

Since this is an S year for the iPhone, there isn’t much from a design perspective that has changed. The flat front and rear remain, as do the smoothly rounded sides and corners. It’s a design that has split iPhone fans over the past 12 months and I suspect will continue to do so in the year to come.

Some, and I count myself among them, like the phone’s soft-edged and ultra-slender profile. Others think it too slippery and take umbrage at the “ugly” protruding camera lens. I think it’s somewhat harsh to say the iPhone 6s is anything other than achingly pretty.

Regardless, the iPhone isn’t entirely identical to its predecessor. If you’re used to handling an iPhone 6, you’ll notice the first time you pick up a 6s that it’s a touch heavier, primarily due to the extra electronics required to make 3D Touch work. It’s also thicker, supposedly, but it has expanded by a such small amount that I struggled to tell the difference, even with the two phones side-by-side on my desk.

Apple has made some improvements to the materials employed in the iPhone 6s’ design. The aluminium frame is built from a stronger alloy now – 7000 series aluminium to be precise – which happens to be among the strongest forms of aluminium available. The screen glass has been strengthened, too, although that’s impossible to verify without trashing a handful of rather expensive iPhones. Apart from that, Apple has only provided me with one review sample, and I need to keep it looking spick and span.

There’s now a fourth colour option – “Rose Gold” – to supplement the existing Gold, Space Grey and Silver models. In this humble reviewer’s opinion, the new colour is execrable, but don’t disregard it completely. Everyone’s taste is different, and you may well find you like it if you take the time to saunter down to your nearest Apple Store and meet it in the flesh.

That’s it for official design changes for the iPhone 6s. However, it’s also possible that Apple has quietly sneaked in a rather significant change completely under the radar. According to iFixit, the eponymous smatphone teardown website, almost every port, socket and significant component now has the extra protection of a rubber gasket, making water ingress damage far less likely than on any previous iPhone.

Apple hasn’t said anything officially about this, presumably in an attempt to forestall users from immersing their phones deliberately, but if you believe the YouTube videos, one of which I’ve embedded below, they’re capable of surviving an impressively long period of time fully immersed in water. As ever, I don’t recommend you try this at home, but it’s an interesting development nonetheless.

Apple iPhone 6s review: Performance

And yes, the new iPhone is faster than it was last year. It has the new A9 processor and this, Apple would have us believe, is up to twice as fast as the A8 in the iPhone 6, while graphics performance is claimed to be faster still. I’ve run the phone our normal selection of benchmarks, and can confirm it’s much, much quicker.

While its raw number-crunching abilities are impressive enough – as the Geekbench 3 results above illustrate – it’s the GFXBench gaming test results (see below) that are most illuminating.

Indeed, the Apple iPhone 6s is so fast in the Manhattan 3 onscreen tests (run at native resolution) that it’s butting up against the screen’s 60fps refresh rate cap imposed by the screen. At the higher offscreen resolution of 1080p, it’s just as impressive, doubling its rival’s results and hitting a frame rate of 40fps.

What really surprises me is that, a year on from the launch of the iPhone 6s, even Android phones with the latest chips inside – the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 in the OnePlus 3 and Samsung Exynos 8890 in the Samsung Galaxy S7, S7 Edge and Note 7 – still struggling to match the Apple A9’s performance across the board.

There’s one area where Apple’s rivals edge ahead. The multitasking capabilities of the quad-core CPUs contained within the octa-core chips mentioned above, are clearly superior to the A9, which remains steadfastly dual-core. However, when it comes to single-core performance, the A9 remains the top dog, just edging out the fastest phones on the market.

Interestingly, storage performance is also impressively fast. I ran the Passmark PerformanceTest Mobile benchmark, which revealed sequential read and write speeds of 416MB/sec and 258MB/sec. While the read speed is slightly slower than the Samsung Galaxy Note 7’s fastest score, the write speed is the best I’ve seen in a smartphone by quite a long way.

What this means in the real world is less clear cut. To all intents and purposes, the iPhone 6s is a phone no modern app or game will stress, and in daily use you’ll hardly notice the difference between it and the iPhone 6.

Apps do launch a fraction of a second quicker. Transitions around the OS – from homescreen to the search screen and the new iOS 9 Siri Suggestions screen – feel ever-so-slightly speedier, too, but you can only really tell the difference between the two phones by performing those actions at exactly the same time with the two right next to each other.

The only aspect of performance that is noticeably quicker in real world use over the iPhone 6 is the Touch ID sensor, which now offers almost instantaneous unlocking. It’s a saving of less than a second, though, so nothing to get too het up over.

Apple iPhone 6s review: Battery life

I was concerned to discover, in the aftermath of the September launch event, that Apple had, instead of increasing battery capacity to match the more powerful processor, reduced it. So far, though, I’m pleased to report that I’ve not noticed a significant difference between the two phones when it comes to real world usage.

In fact, even though I have the smaller of the two new iPhones in front of me right now, I’ve been rather more impressed than I thought I would be. As I write this review, after a 5.30am start, and continuous testing, capturing lots of live photos and some 4K video, installing apps, games, and listening to two hours’ worth of streaming audio over 4G, the iPhone 6s still had 35% remaining, 12hrs 30mins later, a performance that should easily see me through to the end of the day, assuming I’m not sidetracked by a two-hour session of Dustoff Heli Rescue.

In testing, my results back up that experience. While streaming audio over 4G, with the screen off, the iPhone 6s used up 3.6% of its capacity per hour; while playing a 720p video in flight mode with the screen set to a brightness of 120cd/m², it ate through its capacity at a rate of 7.2% per hour. With the brightness pumped up to 170cd/m2 and our new video rundown test in action, the iPhone 6s lasted 11hrs  18mins before running running out of power juice entirely.

Although you can clearly do much better if you opt for a rival Android phone, these figures are, in my experience, indicative of solid, day-long stamina – so nothing particularly amazing, but equally no disaster.

It’s also worth noting that, if you are desperate for longer battery life, there are plenty of battery booster cases available for the phone now, including the first ever official Apple battery case, which we’ve tested and reviewed here. Apple says it delivers a boost of 80% over and above the existing battery life, and I found it matched those claims. was enough to get me through two days of use.

Alternatively, you could opt for a third party case, such as the Mophie Juice Pack Air, which adds a bigger 2,750mAh battery to the iPhone 6s and passthrough charging via microUSB. Although bulkier than the official case, it looks much more elegant, is able to fully charge the phone from scratch with enough charge for a little extra boost, and it has a built-in capacity gauge and standby switch, so you can choose precisely when the extra juice kicks in.

Apple iPhone 6s review: Screen quality

I’ve never had a big problem with the screen quality of the iPhones I’ve used, and I’ve used and tested pretty much all of them, including the very first one. But other manufacturers, notably Android with the  superlative Super AMOLED displays adorning the front of the Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge and S6 Edge+ have caught up with and surpassed Apple in recent times.

A quick eyeball of the iPhone 6s’ display reveals that little has changed in the past 12 months. It appears to be as bright as ever, with well-balanced colours across the board, but dim the backlight and there’s a suggestion of greyness around some of the edges and corners.

Still, given how much work Apple has done in squeezing the 3D Touch system in and the Taptic Engine behind it, I’m willing to forgive it this small indiscretion. And, in fact, when measured with our X-rite i1Display Pro colorimeter, it’s clear that the screen on the new iPhone 6s is able to mix it with the very best smartphones aroundarket.

It reaches a maximum brightness of 572cd/m² – that’s bright enough that it’s readable in even really sunny conditions. It delivers an eye-popping contrast ratio of 1,599:1, which means that graphics and images have real impact and stand out dramatically.

Colour accuracy is exemplary, too, with the screen covering 95% of the sRGB colour space and its average Delta E hitting a remarkable 1.02. Delta E is a measure of the difference between the colour displayed and what it should look like, so the lower this number (or the closer it is to what it ought to be) the better. Anything below or around one is brilliant.

In short, the iPhone 6s’ display is outstanding, and at least as good as the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge’s display, just without the intensely saturated colours.

Apple iPhone 6s review: Verdict

I’ve been pretty positive in my last few iPhone reviews, largely because Apple has got very little wrong. Year after year, it has churned out new models with great success, alternatively boosting power and camera resolution, then refining the design to the point at which it was tough to see where it could go next.

With 3D Touch, however, Apple has delivered something bigger than you could possibly imagine, the next step in the evolution of the smartphone (you wait, soon everyone will be copying it). It’s done so without compromising screen quality or battery life, and has even found the time to improve the phone’s cameras, boosted its all-round resilience plus – as befitting an S generation iPhone – the performance and internals.

The biggest disappointment, particularly with the introduction of Live Photos and 4K video, is that there’s still a 16GB iPhone. That means, realistically, the entry model for most people should be the 64GB iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, and that’s a significant investment.

It’s £619 inc VAT SIM-free, and starts at around £40 per month with an upfront fee of £125 on a two-year contract. That’s almost as expensive as the 5.7in, 64GB Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+, and a good deal pricier than the highly accomplished 5.1in, 64GB Samsung Galaxy S6.

However, if you want to be at the forefront of the next revolution in smartphone technology – and, make no mistake, that’s precisely what 3D Touch offers – there’s nothing else to do but buy an Apple iPhone 6s. It also happens to be a mighty fine smartphone.

Read our round-up of all the leaks and rumours about the iPhone 7

Apple iPhone 6s vs the competition

If you’re not wedded to the iOS ecosystem, or you simply can’t justify spending this much on a smartphone, there’s a whole host of excellent Android-driven alternatives, vying for your cash. And Android phones aren’t the poor relations they once were when it comes to apps and software either.

1. Google Nexus 5X

Price when reviewed: £339 inc VAT, 16GB

The closest you can get to the iPhone’s simplicity and sophistication in the Android world is Google’s Nexus range of phones. Nexus handsets always get the latest version of Android, and Google takes care not to burden its phones with too much bloatware or unnecessary extra features.

The LG-manufactured Nexus 5X is the very epitome of this approach. It has Android 6.0 Marshmallow onboard, which works smoothly and responsively, and Google complements this with an excellent selection of smartphone hardware. The 5X has a great camera, a fingerprint reader, fast performance and doesn’t cost the earth, either, at a very reasonable £339 for the 16GB version.

What you don’t get with the Nexus 5X is the sumptuous design of an Apple device – it’s a bit cheap and plasticky. Otherwise, though, it’s a cracking alternative. Click here for our Google Nexus 5X review.

2. Samsung Galaxy S6

Price: Around £410 inc VAT, SIM free

Samsung finally ditched the plastic for its 2015 flagship phone and, aside from a few reservations, the result is a triumph. The S6 looks glorious with Gorilla Glass 4 at the front and rear and coloured metal beneath it to give it a glitzy, shimmering look. It isn’t only the exterior of the handset that impresses, however: the Samsung’s performance and battery life is also spectacular. The highlight, however, is the Galaxy S6’s 16-megapixel camera – it’s incredibly impressive and slightly better than the iPhone 6s’ camera, too. The S6’s sibling – the Galaxy S6 Edge – is just as good and arguably the more attractive device, but its higher price means we’d recommend going with the standard S6. Click here to read our Samsung Galaxy S6 review

3. Sony Xperia Z5 Compact

Price: 32GB, around £400 inc VAT

If you like the size of the iPhone 6s, but not the battery life, Sony’s pocket powerhouse could be the phone for you. Its 4.6in screen is lovely and bright; it has a fabulous 20-megapixel camera, which produces photographs that look almost as good as the Galaxy S6; and battery life is top drawer. Factor in the reasonable price, reassuringly sturdy build and IP68 water resistance, and the Z5 Compact is great alternative the iPhone. Click here to read our Sony Xperia Z5 Compact review

4. Samsung Galaxy S7

Price: 32GB, £549 inc VAT SIM free

The most talked about Android phone of 2016 turned out to be the best handset of the year when we finally got our hands on it back in April. There’s nothing dramatically different about it, but it took what made the Galaxy S6 a great phone and improved it in almost every way.: better camera, faster performance, longer battery life and slicker design.

Samsung even found it in its heart to bring back water and dust resistance and a microSD card slot. All-round, it’s the most capable smartphone on the planet right now and if you’re looking to make the leap from the iPhone to an Android handset, it’s the one to choose. Click here to read our Samsung Galaxy S7 review

Apple iPhone 6s review: iOS 9.3

Since the iPhone 6s first came out last year, Apple has updated the software a number of times, most recently to coincide with the launch of the iPhone SE. This software update adds a number of key new features, the first of which is the new Night Shift feature.

Night Shift is designed to reduce the amount of blue light the phone’s screen emits late at night; too much blue light before you go to sleep, it is claimed, can mess with your sleep patterns.

While I can’t vouch for the effectiveness of this feature, there’s no doubt that Apple’s implementation is very slick. It works out the sunrise and sunset based on your location, turning your screen gradually warmer and warmer as the evening wears on. And it’s very easy to turn on and off. Simply swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen to access the iOS Control Center and click the shortcut button at the very bottom of the screen that looks like a moon imposed on a sun.

It’s also possible in iOS 9.3 to add locked notes using the core Apple Notes app – either using a password or Touch ID. With so many people relying on this app to note down often sensitive data, it’s a welcome upgrade.

But that’s not all. Apple has delivered upgrades to the Health App dashboard, Apple News curation, and also CarPlay Music and Maps. If you haven’t downloaded and installed iOS 9.3 already, I recommend you do so just as soon as you can.

	Apple iPhone 6s specifications
Processor	Apple A9 with integrated M9 motion co-processor
RAM	2GB
Screen size	4.7in
Screen resolution	750 x 1,334, 326ppi (Ion-strengthened glass)
Screen type	IPS
Front camera	5MP
Rear camera	12MP (phase detect autofocus)
Flash	Dual-LED
GPS	Yes
Compass	Yes
Storage	16/32/64GB
Memory card slot (supplied)	No
Wi-Fi	802.11ac
Bluetooth	Bluetooth 4.1 LE, A2DP
NFC	Yes (for Apple Pay only)
Wireless data	4G
Size (WDH)	67 x 7.1 x 138mm
Weight	143g
Operating system	iOS 9
Battery size	1,715mAh