You read that right. No, I don’t mean iPhone 6 Plus. Yep, iPhone 6 is too big.
It’s now been over 8 months since a brand new and shiny iPhone 6 arrived at my doorstep, and ever since then I’ve battled with the question “Is this thing too big?” Last week, I decided the answer to that question is unequivocally yes.
Note: Your milage may vary, I’m not saying it’s too big for everyone. It’s just too big for me and I’ll explain why over the course of this post.
It doesn’t fit in pockets, it can’t be carried as easily, it’s more difficult to balance when holding it with only one hand… the list goes on. For me, my phone is meant to be a portable computer. Emphasis on portable. Something I can slide in and out of a pocket, something I can hold and use discretely. I lost both of those characteristics when upgrading to the iPhone 6. I use my phone primarily for messaging, browsing Twitter, quickly looking up info on the web, for music and of course for listening to a tonne of podcasts. None of those things benefit from me having a physically larger phone. For any serious web browsing or computing, I have a MacBook Pro which does the job perfectly.
There’s no doubt that iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are the two best and most advanced smart phones ever released by Apple. From their camera, to Touch ID, to the processing power, even to the physical design and shape of the phones, they beat out every previous generation hands down. But iPhone 6 is just too big. For me.
My decision was confirmed the other day when I put my iPhone 6 in an armband to go running with. The result? A phone thicker than my arm. I don’t want my phone to be this large. This is when I realised it’s gone beyond the point of portability – it’s a liability to carry.
The design is amazing, it feels so nice and soft in the hand, yet iPhone 6 is still too big. Unnecessarily so. The ONLY benefit of having a larger phone is that typically larger phone’s have bigger batteries and hence get better battery life. iPhone 6 wins out by a considerable margin over my old iPhone 5s when it comes to battery, there’s no question there. But is the tradeoff worth it? I’ve decided it isn’t.
So, my next phone? I won’t be buying another iPhone with a 4.7″ screen. Hopefully a 4″ (iPhone 5 & 5s sized) iPhone. That’s if Apple ever go back to that sized flagship again. In an ideal world they’ll have a 4″ flagship phone variant which sits alongside its 4.7″ & 5.5″ offerings, but I can only hope…