Samsung Galaxy S6

The South Korean brand finally makes a stunning phone and Galaxy S6 called Samsung's best phone yet by industry execs. It’s the beginning of 2015, and time to get excited about this year’s new smartphones. News of the Samsung Galaxy S6 started to arrive at the end of 2014, and is sure to accelerate in the days leading up to the launch event at Mobile World Congress. The bar is set high for Samsung in 2015, in light of lower than expected financial results last year, declining smartphone sales, and growing discontent among even its most loyal customers.

Smartphones stopped needing more power a long, long time ago - arguably we could have called it quits with 2013's specs and spent the following months optimizing them to allow days-long battery. So with that race already run it became a battle for the best design, which meant that HTC suddenly rose to prominence once more, with a good-enough spec list sitting inside one of the best phones I've ever held. Apple managed the same thing with the new iPhone 6, focusing on a premium metallic shell while getting the battery life just about tolerable.

All the while Samsung toiled in the background, promising that we'd start loving plastic at some point, showing that it's more robust and scuff-free and rugged... and it didn't work. So Project Zero was born, a plan within Samsung to completely redesign its S6 model from the ground up. Plastic was out, waterproofing gone, and in their place a fusion of glass and metal. Put simply: it's a much, much better phone, but again that's not hard when you've got the Galaxy S5 to improve upon. But the S6 does feel very well packaged, the combination of metal and Gorilla Glass 4 giving no hint of creak or give when pressed. It does sound a little hollow when tapped on the back though, which does diminish the effect somewhat - however, at only 6.8mm thick, that's kind of understandable.

Samsung's gone bold with this design in more than one way. It's got rid of two of the staples that users have loved for years: the microSD slot has been removed and the battery is locked in. The reasoning behind this is sound: Samsung tells me the former is to improve performance and speed (something the S5 struggled with terribly as it aged) and the latter is clearly to allow for a unibody design.

I'm behind the loss of the removable battery - after all, it's easier to carry a battery pack than shell out for a replacement power unit - but the microSD card disappearance is a shame. I appreciate the quest for a better performance, and perhaps it will turn out to be up there with the iPhone when my full Galaxy S6 review comes out, but other Android phones seem to manage to tick along just fine with expandable storage.

Samsung is offering the S6 in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB flavours to compensate, but those latter options are likely to be pretty expensive.

I'm hugely impressed with the way Samsung has put this phone together though - it's managed the incredible feat of bringing the best screen on the market (the brand's words, although the combination of QHD resolution and a 5.1-inch display with Super AMOLED technology means I'm inclined to agree) in a package that's barely larger than the iPhone 6. That means Samsung can offer a phone with a huge, crisp display while still being small enough to be considered alongside Apple's non-phablet and Sony's Xperia Z3 Compact - both phones that I'll point to when people ask 'I want a phone, but not one that's massive'.

Considering the options from Sony and Apple both have a 720p resolution, and Samsung's packed in four times as many pixels in the same footprint, and you can see why I'm impressed by Samsung's option. Of course, this could all come at the expense of battery - after all, more pixels take more power, and the smaller package means there's less space for a battery (a 2550mAh pack is smaller than the 2800mAh seen in the Galaxy S5, which is a bit of a worry) so I'm intrigued to see how Samsung has managed to solve that problem.

Samsung needed to sort out the build quality of the entire phone, but one of the big issues was with the home button, which was too soft to push. The S6 has a really nice action now, with a lot of effort put into the satisfying click (useful for when you need to activate the camera, which I'll come onto later). The phone is going to be unveiled in four colours at launch too, with a pleasant jewel-like exterior that changes colour slightly as the light hits it. It's got a nice translucent effect, which again adds to the more premium chassis.

The display on the Galaxy S6 warrants its own section, simply because it's so crystal clear and sharp, while offering the high contrast ratio for brilliant whites and dark blacks. It's also the sharpest on the market at the moment, according to Samsung, with 577ppi and a super bright mode that fires when outside - and it'll even do so automatically, rather than needing to be activated manually. he QHD resolution is almost diminished by the size of the screen - at 5.1-inch, it's going to be hard to see the greater amount of pixels compared to last year, but web browsing and video watching (especially those encoded at the right resolution) are a real joy to watch.

In terms of output, I suspect Samsung could have stuck with a 1080p screen on this phone and still have a brilliant display, but the brand knows what a baying mob the media and early adopters can be when the best spec isn't present on a flagship phone, so decided to aim for the headlines, That's not to say this isn't a brilliant screen - it's better than the Note 4's, which was already industry leading - but that smaller battery pack is still worries me slightly, so here's hoping the display isn't going to harm that.

TouchWiz

TouchWiz, Samsung's Android overlay, was never going to go anywhere, but at least it's been cleaned up a little bit. It's still got the same cartoony look about it, with the colours garish and the amount of options slightly complicated, but it's a far cry from that seen on the Samsung Galaxy S4. The main changes are to the menus: Samsung tells me that the extra dialogue boxes it deemed unnecessary are gone, so if you activate flight mode then you'll get just that - no double checking from the phone.

Other apps have been polished as well. As you can see the Contacts screen has been scrubbed of options and tabs, instead offering you the chance to just interact with the people you want to. I think this means that it's been uncoupled from the phone dialler, which is annoying as having the two apps together made sense to me, but at least things are simpler.The icons have been flattened as well, with Google's Material design from Lollipop stretching further through the phone - it's certainly more attractive, if not quite all the way there.

But one of the big pats on the back has to be for the loss of S Voice from the home button. Instead you'll be taken to the camera in, according to Samsung, 0.7 seconds.Given this is a brand that takes a few seconds to open up the 'Running Tasks' pane after pressing, I'm not convinced this will remain so speedy, but I'll reserve judgement until I check out what Samsung's done with the upgraded memory and RAM.

Specs

The specs on the Samsung Galaxy S6 are out of this world, with very little left to want for. I've already covered the QHD screen and improved design, but that's joined by a 64-bit octacore processor (clearly Samsung's own Exynos offering as it declined to name the chipset) 3GB of RAM and upgraded storage of between 32GB and 128GB. The RAM and storage used has also been improved, which Samsung reckons is worth at least 40% performance improvement in some areas.

Given this was one of the poorest parts of the Samsung Galaxy S5, it's a bold claim. In my early tests, it held up really well despite constantly opening and shutting of apps. This bodes well for something that's probably early build software, so should only get better. I didn't get a chance to check out the keyboard, but I hope that's been given a lick of paint as the inbuilt version on the S5 was truly awful.

The fingerprint sensor is present as well, and it's (likely - Samsung wanted to confirm this before launch) a touch option, in the same vein as the iPhone 5S and iPhone 6. This is great news as the swipe was just too inaccurate, so hopefully this new technology will allow you to be more accurate and stay secure as well.

Payment options have been increased massive to include magnetic strip payment (somehow, the phone will mimic the stripe on your credit card, but the Galaxy S6 isn't THAT thin) and NFC payment too - with barcodes chucked into the mix as well for good measure it seems. Overall, this is a very, very well specified phone, and one that even the most hardy of Android fans won't be able to resist at least looking at, despite their attitude towards Samsung. The loss of microSD and removable battery will sting a little, but the reasoning over their removal at least makes sense. The camera on the Samsung Galaxy S6 is a 16MP affair with f1.9 aperture, up 34% in terms of low light ability from the S5.

It's still got all the tricks of the Samsung Galaxy S5, including Auto HDR mode and optical image stabilisation, as well as an automatic tracking mode which can follow faces, pets and other moving objects without needing to refocus.

The front sensor is also improved, up to 5MP with the same impressive low-light performance and faster shutter speed. It also packs the same automatic HDR mode, which will show you just how much the high dynamic range will improve your pictures.Of course, if you're taking selfies, then this is going to be the sort of thing you worry about... or you could just, you know, not.

And in another moment of 'isn't that what another brand is doing?' Samsung has chucked on fast and slow motion to the video app, so you can do cool timelapse shots or slow things down to 240fps to get a really smooth slo-mo movie. The extra trick is here is the ability of the Galaxy S6 to choose the speed with which the slowdown happens, meaning you can go really, really slow if you want to properly show your mate getting hit in the nuts with a hamburger in minute detail.

Battery

This is the big one, the sticking point that could prevent Samsung from making an industry-leading phone. But let's get the positives on the table first.The Galaxy S6 has a custom processor, which means it'll be more efficient at processing and won't need to do a lot of pointless work to complete whatever you're asking the phone to do. That same chipset is also smaller, which adds to the efficiency.

Samsung's being very upfront on how much battery life is left too, with an app letting you know how long you could get if you enable power saving or ultra power saving modes, so you'll at least be in control of what's there.However, let's get down to it. The battery in the Galaxy S6 is 2550mAh, which is less than the 2800mAh option on last year's phone. That's also smaller than the one found on HTC's One M9 this year, which is something of a worry.

HTC has always, historically, had the worst battery life of the top smartphone vendors, so if it can combine good efficiency from the Snapdragon 810 chipset with a lower-res screen, it could well leapfrog Samsung this year. Also there's that QHD screen to think about - all those pixels in such a tight space is going to take its toll on the battery life, and the packaging of the phone overall is such that it's going to get pretty toasty in there.

Samsung thinks it's got the problem covered, with better battery life than ever - plus it's stuck double wireless charging in there too. The Galaxy S6 will be able to wirelessly grab power from either of the standards (Qi or PMA) without having to mess around with an accessory if you've wandered into a coffee house with the 'wrong' technology built in.

Highs

• Gorgeous metal, glass design
• Wireless charging built in
• Streamlined user interface looks fantastic
• Internal memory up to 128GB
• Super fast 64-bit processor
• Working fingerprint sensor

Lows

• No longer waterproof
• New non-removable battery
• No MicroSD anymore
• S6 Edge isn’t as comfortable, seems fragile
• Glass back vulnerable to scratches and cracking

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10 best mobile phones in the world today

The best smartphones 2014: what phone is best for you?

1. HTC One M8

What to say about the HTC One M8? They often say the second album is the hardest, but the follow up to the all-conquering HTC One takes the best of that phone and yet still re-invents things enough to make it a massive recommendation over the old model. We love the speed of the camera, the Duo Camera is smart as a tack, the Boomsound upgrade is impressive and the design... well, you have to hold it.

The Snapdragon 801 processor has boosted battery dramatically compared to the 600 of last year, and that means that photos also process much more quickly as well - even the front-facing camera is much better.

Gaming, movies, photography, browsing all work really well, and in a phone that that's easily going to destroy whatever anyone else can design, unless Apple or LG have got some dark sorcery up their sleeves when the iPhone 6 or LG G3 appear later in the year.

If we were to criticise the One M8, it would be the camera's lack of a megapixel upgrade, which means pictures are a little less sharp than they might otherwise be.

That said, it's a minor point in a phone that has barely any flaws. The lower megapixel camera means faster shutter speeds, and if you don't want to zoom in a lot, most will enjoy the depth perception and background de-focus ability to make some pro-looking snaps.

We urge you to hold this phone for a few seconds and try not to feel at least a small flicker of smartphone attraction. It's got great specs, a splendid design and some clever hardware innovation where the competition is relying on software to do the same thing.

2. Sony Xperia Z2

Sony has something of a slump last year, following up the impressive Xperia Z with the lacklustre Xperia Z1 just a few months later.

The camera, which was supposed to be the headline feature, didn't impress as much as we'd hoped, and the screen was still lacking the IPS clout that the Xperia Z Ultra managed - meaning muted colours and poor viewing angles.

Anyway, enough about last year - Sony's back in 2014 and comes with an excellent phone in the shape of the Xperia Z2. Tipped to be the third of the stellar smartphone triumverate, alongside the Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One (M8) we were intrigued to see how it shaped up.

And the good news is it's impressive. Really impressive. The industrial design is a little chunky but oozes premium quality in a way that Samsung's plastic shell doesn't, and it's a little more robust than its Galactical and Primary rivals thanks to being IP58 rated.

Great battery life, strong power and a good camera all are present and correct with our new top three phones, but Sony steals second simply by being a great all-rounder.

It doesn't have the polish of the HTC One M8, nor the more functional UI, but it does what's asked with top-end specs. That's what we like.

What did Sony need to do to impress? Not a lot, but that screen and camera needed a fix as well as adding in some other features.

Front facing speakers, a new screen with better colour reproduction, 4K video recording and inbuilt noise cancellation all make a great device that should be right on your possible upgrade list.

3. OnePlus One

You've probably never heard of OnePlus... but if you have, you'll know why this unknown brand is suddenly sitting at number three of our list of best smartphones in the world.

The reason is simple: it's a phone that has all the power, specs and functionality of the top dogs, adds in super-customisable software and does it at nearly half the price. We're talkingbig savings on cost (£229 for the 16GB version and £269 for the 64GB variant) without much in the way of compromise.

In fact, the only things it's really missing are a microSD slot and removable battery, and those are elements more for the purists that absolutely necessary.

If we're being super picky, it's not got the greatest camera set up and the design is a bit... efficient, but at this price point it really doesn't matter. And given the target audience is those that care about raw power over style, it makes sense that this is where the costs could be saved.

We love the fact that a new contender can come in at number three in the ranking of the best phones in the world - it means that it's not just a case of 'big budget means best phone'.

We were debating whether the OnePlus could even have gone higher, but there's one big problem that you'll have if you want to get your hands on one: they're pretty scarce. Numbers won't ramp up for a while, and probably never to the level of availability of the better-known names.

But if you want a phone that offers supreme power at a really low cost: the OnePlus One is it. It's what the Nexus range used to be, and if Google ditches that program, then thankfully the likes of OnePlus have shown there will be brands to pick up the slack.

4. Samsung Galaxy S5

2014 is turning out to be a stellar year for the prospective smartphone user, as the HTC One (M8) was joined by the Samsung Galaxy S5 in our 'best smartphone' list, and now the Xperia Z2 enters the fray too.

There was a lot of hype around the new Galaxy, and rightly s it's by far the best phone Samsung has ever produced, with a blazing fast core, a strong result in the benchmarks and a larger 5.1-inch screen.

Then there's the fact that with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 CPU the Galaxy S5 is one of the best phones on the market when it comes to battery life, besting the already impressive One M8 in the power stakes.

Samsung has also dropped the 'innovation' of the air gestures from last year (well, they are in there but not the main focus) and improved the hardware with a better camera, fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor too.

The last addition is pretty pointless... but hey, it's fun for down the pub

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is a good phone, apart from the design. It's something that needs to be updated sorely, and while it doesn't have to be an all-metal shell, it needs to evolve.

The next generation of smartphones is a cut above last year's models - that said, the LG G2 still impresses even with a few miles on the clock - and if you're looking for a new phone, you should check out one of the top four first.

The S5 has a clear UI, powerful innards and is also waterproof... the rivals might edge it slightly overall, but it's very, very tight at the top and whichever handset you end up with won't disappoint.

5. LG G2

Wait, an LG phone in the top rankings? Believe it people; LG has made a phone that not only impressed us but ran the HTC One very, very close for the top spot in 2013 - and holds a strong place into 2014 too.

We don't know where to start in terms of extolling the virtues of this new handset from the South Korean firm: it's got an insanely good screen, quality camera, the best audio pumping out from its speakers and headphone jack... the list goes on.

We even came to tolerate, then love, the power and volume buttons being placed on the rear. These aren't ideal, but the ability to knock on the screen makes it really easy to interact with this impressive device.

The LG G3 is here now, and is going to blow this out of the water in terms of price and power (it's even got a next-gen QHD screen) but given the lower cost the G2 is still an excellent choice.

There's so much on offer here that we can't help but recommend it to anyone looking for a cheaper smartphone powerhouse.

The only things that we dislike are the cluttered UI (pull down the notifications bar and you'll see why) and the plastic casing, which drops the premium feel of the phone a lot, especially compared to the handset that sits one place above.

But launching at £400 on PAYG (and even cheaper with a few third party retailers), along with comparable contracts older phones, is a really nice touch from LG, and we reckon it's going to pay dividends.

6. Google Nexus 5

So we've updated our review with the new phone software, and thankfully things are a lot better now. The battery is improved, the camera a little more stable, and the low cost is still in place.

You already know we like Android 4.4, the clever implementation and the £299 price tag. We love the high power CPU, the quality screen; even the rubberised outer shell.

You can get the LG G2 for around the same price now though, and that offers a far superior camera, better battery life and a huge slew of extra features - it really depends if you're a fan of the stripped-down experience.

We're glad to put this smartphone higher up in the rankings, as it's one of the cheapest out there in terms of bang for buck.

It's a great phone that hits the marks well - it lacks something in terms of innovation, but that's not a problem for those that want to be able to run all manner of apps and games at a decent price. It doesn't come in at the same price point as previous Nexii, but it's still jolly cheap.

7. Sony Xperia Z1 Compact

With a 4.3-inch screen it's one of the most easy to use devices in the hand, coming in next to the iPhone 5S, but it does it with a much lower cost and a great battery life to boot.

On top of that it's waterproof and has expandable memory, plus a superb screen. It's been usurped in some ways by the Xperia Z2 insofar that if you want that Bravia-powered IPS screen, the G Lens camera or just general access to Sony's tight band of media apps, this is no longer the best Sony phone on the market and has dropped a few places as a result.

However, if you're more about size then this is still the best of the mid-range players... check it out if you want to save a bit of cash over the bigger brother flagship too.

Want a great phone that's just a little bit smaller without losing all the power? If so, then we've found your ideal device. Strong CPU, great battery and expandable memory are traits we love to see.

It's not got the same screen sharpness as some of the others on show here, and the camera can oddly throw in a little noise here and there, but these are minor gripes indeed.

It's been launched with a palatable price tag as well - so head on down to your local emporium and throw it in some water. Because it's waterproof too, not because you're a vandal.

8. iPhone 5S

Did you see this one coming? The iPhone 5S behind lots of other Android phones in our rankings? Some think it should be higher, some think lower - it depends on your level of Apple love.

Never has a company polarised opinion in the smartphone world like Apple - and with the iPhone 5S, so many are quick to decry it while others know it to be the smartphone they've been waiting for.

And let's make no bones about it: this is a stunning phone, with a gorgeous two-tone finish, a high-res screen with good colour reproduction, a 64-bit chip and that all-powerful TouchID sensor that lets you unlock your phone with a simple fingerprint.

The iOS 7 update is one that we sorely, sorely needed and does bring a lot more power and control - as shown by the impressive and pervasive Control Center.

We really like TouchID, the 64-bit processor might be a little useless now but definitely brings a touch more zip to things, and the M7 chip gives developers something to play with in terms of fitness, with the likes of FitBit taking advantage already.

The issue of price is starting to diminish somewhat - but many vendors are still charging the same for this older phone as the likes of the HTC One M8 despite being a few months older.

Quick verdict

Let's not beat around the bush here: the iPhone 5S is still one of the great smartphones in the world thanks to a great package of technology, design and UI intuition.

iOS 7 is the update we've needed for a while, and does a lot to help keep Apple current at the sharp end of the market - but we still can't wait to see what the iPhone 6 will bring, as essentially this is still the same phone as the iPhone 5 but with a better engine under the hood.

9. HTC One

It's quite a tumble from the top spot for the HTC One, especially given it was our top smartphone for so long. However unless you're desperate to pay a little less per month, the newer One M8 does everything the original did, but so much better.

It's nothing to do with the quality of the One - which is still one of the outstanding phones on the market - but more the fact that if you like Boomsound, and Ultrapixel camera, a sharp and bright screen or a powerful processor, the M8 has improved in every way there.

But let's not forget what made this phone so great: the supreme aluminium chassis, the Full HD screen and the simplified version of Sense 5.0 sitting now on top of Android KitKat means it's still a pleasure to use and recommend this handset - but again, only if price is your main driver and you simply must have a One.

The innovations are also more than just marketing gimmicks; Zoe functionality allows the creation of delightful video highlight reels, and the Ultrapixel camera means you've got a much wider range of shots available thanks to being stunning in low light - and none of that is diminished with time.

Quick Verdict

With power, poise and beauty all combined in this innovative phone, HTC has proved it can more than still cut it with the big boys when it comes to bringing out a lust-worthy flagship smartphone - and the One deserves to stay in the top ten.

However, remember that this has one year fewer in terms of HTC promising to keep it upgraded, so if you pick it up now you might not get the newer versions of the software in 12 months time. The battery is also not as strong as on the One M8 - but it's still got a lot to offer.

10. Motorola Moto G

Motorola's back, and it's kicking off its global smartphone revival with the keenly priced Moto G handset. A mid-range handset with a low-end price tag - we're talking around £100 in some stores.

On paper the Moto G looks like an excellent handset for the price, and in practice it lives up to the billing.

As the Nexus 4 did with the mid-range market, the Moto G has turned the budget end on its head with features found on handsets double its cost.

It exceeds its rivals in several key areas, from the well defined 4.5-inch display to its 1.2GHz quad-core processor and the early Android 4.4 KitKat update. There's a lot to love about the Moto G for its price.

And now the Moto G has been given a 4G variant, and it comes with a microSD slot now - all for the price of just £149. It might not have the power or precision of its smartphone compatriots, but it's still a good phone indeed.

Quick verdict

Motorola must have cut some corners to get the price of the Moto G so low, and the camera is one area which has seen the compromise, but that's one of the only gripes.

So here's the upshot: Motorola is back folks, it's official. It may not be the return we would have predicted - there's no flagship phone stuffed full of the latest tech - but arguably what the now Google-owned firm has done is even better.

The Moto G is a top notch, low cost smartphone and we wholeheartedly recommend this as the best budget mobile currently on the market.

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SAMSUNG RF34H9960S4/AA

If you’re an amateur or professional chef with six grand just burning a hole in your pocket, we’ve got just the gadget for you. The Samsung RF34H9960S4/AA Chef Collection Refrigerator is bound to leave any food aficionado standing slack-jawed, awed by a truly stunning appliance. 

The massive unit features three highly-customizable compartments, a bevy of techy features and a back chilling wall that may freeze off your fingertips (OK, it’s not that cold). It would make a great centerpiece in a highly-trafficked kitchen.

A chef-inspired design

Samsung didn’t fly blind when designing this four-door fridge. The company gathered together a group of master chefs — dubbed “Club Des Chefs,” it includes Michelin-rated chefs such as Daniel Boloud — and used their insight to design something that not only looks good but functions well for busy cooks. And this unit definitely shows the fruits of that labor.  For one, the door pulls are integrated into the sides of the doors, which means you don’t have to worry about bumping into protruding handles when rushing around the kitchen. And of course it’s crafted of stainless steel, which is durable, easy to clean and resistant to bacteria.

Then you have the unique and useful temperature setting display, which is made out of pinholes through which LED lights shine. The result is a seamless look that provides information about your three cooling zones without always being “in your face.” The display lights up whenever you open the door, or touch the dispenser panel.  In a nod to the fact that this is indeed a fridge for a home kitchen, Samsung has included an ice and water dispenser in the top left quadrant. Those who enjoy their bubbles will be happy to note that sparkling water is an option, though you’ll have to purchase the Sodastream carbonator bottle separately. Given the price of this unit, we think it would have been a classy move for Samsung to throw in a “get one carbonator free” card. We do appreciate that the fridge lets you select your level of bubbles, though.

(Aspiring home chefs, take note: The RF34H9960S4 draws more juice than the average fridge. It kept tripping the circuit breaker in our test kitchen, until we pulled an energy consuming kegerator off the same circuit. You should plan to keep yours on a separate circuit too – what, you don’t have a home kegerator?) 

Moving to the inside of the Chef Collection fridge, you’ll notice many more expert-inspired touches, most important being the fact that all 34.3 cubic feet are impeccably optimized for maximum storage. 

In the fridge, you’ll find three main shelves; half of the top and half of the middle can slide back to accommodate taller items like 2-liter soda bottles. There are two crisper drawers and a Chef Pantry drawer as well — more on that later. The left door has three compartments, two of which have attached metal bars that can be flipped in to help keep bottles and such in place. The right door has two butter-sized buckets, a medium compartment with a flip-up lid and a Chef Basket that pops out easily for toting meats and such. It’s a very smart design, and all compartments and shelves (minus the main shelf) are easy to remove and clean to boot.

The left and right freezer sections are similar though not identical to one another. Each has three drawers and three door compartments. The left offers a sliding compartment above the top drawer, while the right features a full-depth sliding shelf at the top. All drawers roll completely out, making it easy to access even items in the way back.

So back to those freezer sections: the right half actually doesn’t have to be a freezer, which means you can up your fresh food storage to 26 cubic feet. In fact, this is the Cool Select section of the RF34H9960S4, and you can customize it with one of four temperature settings. Your options are Cool at 41 degrees, Chill at 36 degrees, Soft Freeze at 23 degrees or Frozen at anywhere from 9 degrees to just about zero. 

Another Chef Collection fridge feature we’re digging is the Chef Pantry. It’s designed to chill at 30 degrees, which — according to Michelin chefs, of course — is the perfect temperature at which to store meat and fish. We’re not about to argue with Daniel Boloud on that point

Plus Samsung included two stainless steel chef’s pans, which can go right from fridge to oven (meaning their perfect for marinating a roast). These pans can also slide into rails below the middle shelf, which is an awesome little storage easter egg. 

To help make sure your food stays fresh and cool, Samsung integrates some innovative fridge technology. One is the stainless steel back paneling, which distributes cooling evenly. There are also three evaporators — one for each zone — that ensure precise humidity levels. 

The tech extends to the control panel, which is located on the top edge of the bottom left door. This placement isn’t ideal to us, as it requires you to open a door to make adjustments, although you should be able to change settings quickly enough in theory. We found that the controls weren’t the most intuitive and definitely required thorough reading of the manual. However, you’ll get the controls down pat with a little practice. 

As for what you can control, your options are many. You can set the fridge temp between 34 to 44 degrees, adjust the freezer temp from 5 to -8 degrees and select your Cool Select setting. There are also buttons marked Door Alarm (options are on or off); Energy Saving, which also functions to toggle temperature units between Fahrenheit and Celsius; and Control Lock. Pressing and holding either the Fridge or Freezer keys will, respectively, put the unit into Power Cool or Power Freeze mode, which helps quickly chill easily spoiled items. (We tested it by chilling beer from lukewarm to delicious.)

It’s worth noting that the Samsung Chef Collection fridge has a bit of smart functionality, a companion app called E-Smart Refrigerator (available for download on Google play) that lets you view your temperature settings as well as how much energy (in KWh) the unit is consuming. It would be nice if the app also let you control settings, but alas, it won’t, at least not at present. There is a function called SMART GRID that can let you control energy usage, but you need a separate contract with the utility company to use it.

To test the accuracy of the cooling in the three independent sections of the Chef Collection fridge, we used three digital thermometers. We had the fridge set to 37 degrees Fahrenheit, and our thermometer came back at 37.7 degrees. We set the Cool Select zone to Soft Freeze at 23 degrees, and our thermometers read 24.6 — pretty much right on. 

As with Samsung’s Wi-Fi fridge, our freezer readings weren’t as accurate, with temps coming back ranging from -3 to -10 degrees, despite a nominal setting of -8. This might be because the room temperature has a much wider spread with the freezer, and so the unit was gaining heat and then trying to overcompensate.

To test the cooling ability, we started with a Full Sail ale at 72 degrees Fahrenheit and placed it on the middle of the bottom shelf of the fridge. To speed up the process, we activated the unit’s Power Cool feature, which is designed to chill the compartment temperature quickly after the doors have been opened. The RF34H9960S4 chilled the beer to a frosty 44 degrees in one hour flat, an average drop of about half a degree per minute. Meanwhile, the built-in spout poured a 6-ounce glass of water in just over 12 seconds – a bit slow, in our opinion.

The Chef Collection fridge is a stunning example of what people from different areas of expertise can build when they think together. From the seamless design to the masterful use of space for storage and organization to the handy features, it’s impossible not to fall in love with the RF34H9960S4. 

It’s also among the most expensive consumer refrigerators on the market, and you may be hard pressed to justify dropping $6,000 on an appliance. However, if you’re caterer, home chef or just love to cook — and you’re on the market for a luxury fridge — this is one of the best.

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IROBOT SCOOBA 450

You probably know iRobot as the purveyor of robotic vacuum cleaners, but they do more than just Roomba. In addition to the company’s iconic carpet-cleaning bot, the company also produces robotic servants of all kinds, including gutter cleaners, pool cleaners, and autonomous floor scrubbers. Not being fans of manual labor, we had to get our hands on one of the latter to see if it was actually better than scrubbing floors manually. Here’s what we found.

Setup and installation

Getting this little bot up and running is about as simple as it gets. Don’t even bother with the instructions manual — just pop in the batteries, fill up the water and soap compartment, punch a couple buttons, and you’re done. The pictorial directions iRobot includes in the accompanying Quick Start guide are practically impossible to screw up, which we really appreciated. All in all, you’ll have this thing out of the box and roving your floors in just a couple minutes.

Features and design

Somewhat unsurprisingly, iRobot decided to stick with it’s iconic “oversized hockey puck” look with the Scooba. It’s a bit taller and beefier than your average Roomba, but otherwise retains the exact same design aesthetic – minimalist, round, and low-profile. But don’t let the look fool you – under the hood, this little bot is completely different than Roomba. On the undercarriage, it sports a different brushroll that’s better suited for scrubbing flat floor surfaces like tile, laminate, concrete, and hardwood. Additionally, because this is a floor scrubber, the bot is outfitted with a two-compartment reservoir – one for water and cleaning solution, and another for the dirty wastewater it squeegees off the floor. Unlike other robomops out there, this one doesn’t push around the same gunk-ridden water – it lays down clean water and sucks up the dirty stuff all in one pass, which is pretty nice. It’s also eliminates the need for sweeping beforehand.
When it comes to the control interface, we’ve got to give iRobot big props for outfitting Scooba with one of the easiest control systems we’ve ever encountered on a household robot – though it’s worth mentioning that this lack of difficult controls largely comes as a result of having few advanced features and settings. Even so, the Scooba is a breeze to control. There are only three buttons you use to access all the functions: one big one in the center for activation, a smaller one on the right to play voice instructions, and another that toggles the bot between its two room-size settings. Even your grandma could figure it out.
If you get the bot, it’s highly recommended that you also get a beacon or two, as this will allow you to tell the bot which sections of your floor are off limits, and help keep it quarantined to areas of your choosing. You wouldn’t want it on your carpet, after all – that might start a turf war between this bot and your Roomba.

Performance and use

Unlike Roomba, which can be configured to run on a recurring schedule and operate on its own, Scooba requires direct interaction with you, the user, every time it’s deployed.
Why? Well, as it is a floor scrubber instead of a vacuum, the Scooba needs to have its reservoir filled with soap and water before every use. Obviously, this makes it slightly less convenient than the mostly-autonomous Roomba, but in our experience, setting this thing up isn’t nearly as tedious as busting out the mop and bucket and doing everything the old-fashioned way. In terms of performance, the Scooba isn’t particularly fast at the job, but what it lacks in speed it makes up for in thoroughness. The bot can be set for either 20- or 40-minute cycles, and will clean your floor for that long regardless of the size of the room. This translates to multiple passes for most normal-sized rooms, but might mean missed spots if you’re cleaning a particularly wide area. For smaller rooms, this means the bot will likely make multiple passes over the same spots.
Scooba is outfitted with a slightly different version of iRobots cleaning software. It’s not entirely random and bouncy like a Roomba, but also not nearly as calculated and methodical as other robotic floor cleaners we’ve seen. When the cycle begins, the bot’s first move is to create a small, outwardly-expanding spiral. After it creates a spiral of a certain size, it suddenly switches gears and begins a much more Roomba-like pattern, bouncing around in a pseudo-random fashion until the floor is done. We did notice it making slight corrections to its path though, as well as some wall-following and mid-path corrections that we don’t recall seeing with Roomba.
To put it to the test, we set it loose in a handful of different environments – the concrete floors in our office lunch room, the laminate floor of our office kitchen, and even the grimy, disgusting faux wood-panel floors of my own house. Since we had no idea how much dirt was there to begin with, we just let the bot do its thing and pick up as much gunk as possible – the idea being that we’d give the collected wastewater a look when it was done to see how much it differed from the clear the clear tapwater we filled it with.
For the first trial –our small kitchen floor—we didn’t expect too much gunk to come off, since it gets cleaned fairly regularly, but we were surprised by the results, which you can see below:

When we set the bot loose on the dirty faux-wood floors of my basement, however, the results were much more dramatic. This time around, Scooba had more floor area to work with, and the resulting gunk collection it amassed was far, far dirtier. However, despite the extra measure of dirt, the bot never got hung up on anything – not even small pebbles or long strands of hair. Just don’t let it roll over power cables or drawstrings for your blinds: in later tests we discovered that those things will definitely cause it to choke.
After these first two rounds, we were impressed with Scooba’s abilities, but picking up loose dirt and debris is completely different than cleaning caked-on gunk that’s actually stuck to the floor. We were curious how this thing could handle sticky messes, so for the third test we intentionally spilled Diet Coke and maple syrup on the floor and let the resulting puddles sit for about 24 hours each. When we let the bot have at the resulting stains, the bot’s pre-soak first/squeegee next cycle made short work of the diet coke, but wasn’t quite enough to get the dried maple syrup off the floorboards. We would’ve appreciated a spot cleaning function in this instance, but in all fairness, caked-on maple syrup globs probably aren’t going to be a common issue for most people, so we’ll cut Scooba some slack.
All things considered, there’s a lot to love about this bot. It’s ridiculously simple to use, it cleans floors thoroughly, and it only requires a small amount of effort to set up before each use. No matter how you look at it, Scooba is a thoughtfully-designed robot that delivers on iRobot’s promises – so the only question remains is this: Is this thing worth the 600 price tag?
If you don’t have trouble cleaning your floors the old fashioned way, and your floors don’t require much attention to keep clean, by all means, save the 600 bucks and keep doing what you’re doing. If, however, you spend a fair amount of time sweeping and mopping your floors to keep them clean, and find yourself tearing through Swiffer pads at an alarming rate, this bot would probably be a smart purchase for you. Having a robot to do that work for you will save you time, energy, and maybe even some money in the long run. Unlike Roomba, which isn’t a true replacement for a full-sized vacuum, Scooba is a full-fledged replacement for a mop and bucket. You might have to scrub the occasional caked-on mess yourself, but if used regularly, Scooba will almost completely eliminate the need for you to sweep and mop manually. If you value your time and clean floors, it’s totally worth the asking price.

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BLENDTEC DESIGNER 725

If you’ve browsed through YouTube any time in the past five years, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve seen Blendtec blenders before. The company has made a name for itself by blending everything from iPhones to Bic lighers on camera — but pulverizing a smartphone doesn’t necessarily mean a blender will make you a good smoothie. To see how Blendtec’s blenders perform in real-world applications, we brought one of its top-of-the-line models into our kitchen and went berserk. Here’s how it went.

The first thing you’ll notice about this badboy when you take it out of the box is how damn heavy it is. Most blenders have a fairly hefty base, but Blendtec’s Designer 725 is like an anvil — which is a good thing. The heavy bottom keeps it stable, and all that extra heft presumably means a bigger, more powerful motor.
The setup is more complex than your average blender, mostly because the Designer 725 is equipped with an interface that’s not as straightforward as what you’d typically find on a standard blender. It’s like upgrading from a car to a spaceship, so be prepared to learn a few new controls.
Not to worry though — the first time the machine fires up it’ll walk you through all the different functions in an easy-to-follow tutorial. It throws a lot of information at you here, which is a little hard to absorb all at once, but even if you miss something on the first go, the blender’s symbols make it fairly easy to figure out on your own.

Features and Design

The first feature you’re likely to notice after unboxing the Designer 725 is its distinct lack of buttons. In place of physical ones, Blendtec outfitted this blender with a big, beautiful touchscreen that occupies the machine’s entire face. The snappy, responsive touch buttons are also accompanied by a slider, which offers easy and intuitive speed control.
Speaking of speed, Blendtec boasts that the D725 offers 100 different speed settings, which is definitely overkill. Are you going to be able to tell the difference between a smoothie made at 98 versus one made at 96? Probably not — although having such a high degree of control over the blade’s RPMs is definitely not a bad thing. Even more impressive than the blender’s speed is its power. Sporting a ridiculously powerful 1,725 Watt electric motor, the Designer 750 has more horsepower than some go-karts we’ve ridden (3.8 at its peak), and is drastically more powerful than flagship blenders from other brands — including its main competitor, Vitamix. And the features just keep on coming. On top of the sleek interface, variable speed, and beefy motor, Blendtec’s Designer 725 also has brains. The blender comes with a range of pre-programmed mix settings, including cycles optimized for smoothies, salsa, ice cream, whole juice, and hot soup. There’s even a self-clean button that’ll take care of the mess when you’re done (with some water, of course). These cycles will run automatically at the touch of a button, but if you should ever feel inclined to grab the reigns and take over, the D725 also has a Pulse button, as well as the aforementioned slider that allows you to run the blender at whatever speed you like.

Performance & Use

We put this blender through a pretty rigorous testing gauntlet to see how it stood up to various fruits, veggies, and other foodstufffs; and even after seeing all of Blendtec’s infamous “will it blend” videos, we were still impressed by how well the D725 performed.

For a blender that can reduce a brand-new iPhone to a pile of dust in just a few minutes, it should come as no surprise that this machine makes short work of fruit and ice. The massive batch of smoothies we made on our first blend session were about as smooth as they come. The guac and hummus we made on day two? Fine and silky — you couldn’t find a chunk in there if you tried.
It’s definitely a great blender, but how does it compare to other machines? We needed some perspective, so after a few preliminary smoothies, we put it up against a cheaper, but equally-hyped up blender — the Ninja Professional. In a side-by-side smoothie test, we ran both of these machines for an equal amount of time with the same ingredients (ice, juice, and various fruits & veggies), and when it was all said and done, the differences were obvious.
Despite having fewer blades, the BlendTec blender did a far better job at shredding up ingredients. The chunks in the Ninja smoothie weren’t necessarily big, but they looked massive in comparison to the fine-ground mixture the D725 produced. Things like seeds and broccoli buds –which managed to survive in the Ninja– were almost completely pulverized when the Blendtec finished its cycle.
Another big plus is that you don’t have to worry about strategically layering in your smoothie ingredients (or whatever) before you hit the “puree” button. Unlike the crappy Goodwill Oster blender I’ve got at home, it doesn’t matter if the ice is on top or at the bottom — the D725 will mince it up just the same.
t’s also much easier to clean. Blendtec’s blade is purposefully blunt, so you don’t have to worry about it biting back and slicing your fingers open when you attack it with a sponge. Technically you don’t even need a sponge — you can use the machine’s self-clean cycle to take care of the mess, but in our experience it’s usually faster to do it manually. After a couple weeks of intense use and comparison, it’s abundantly clear that the Designer 725 is one of the best blenders money can buy.
In a lot of ways, it’s like a Ferrari. Do you need one? Probably not — your ‘96 Kia Rio will get you to work just the same — but do you want one? Hell yeah you do. It’s faster, better looking, more powerful, and has a smoother ride. If you want one and can afford the hefty price tag, then by all means, get yourself a Blentec.
If price is an object for you, you might consider going with something like the Ninja. It’s 400 bucks cheaper, and gives you almost the same blending results. If you’re all right with dropping $650 on a blender, the Designer 725 is the one you want. It’s more powerful than other blenders in this price range, has better features, and comes with an 8-year warranty. ‘Nuff said.

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GIONEE ELIFE S5.1 - The world's thinnest smartphone

Lately, the race to hold the title of World’s Thinnest Smartphone is busier than ever, but few companies work as hard as Gionee. Its Elife S5.5 held the trophy for sometime, and rather than let another company take it away, it came up with a second record beating phone: the Elife S5.1. Gionee has opted for a more mid-range spec this time, perhaps as a consequence of pushing for an even slimmer chassis. Unfortunately, losing weight has hurt it.

GIONEE ELIFE S5.1

Gorgeous looks, high quality finish

The phone’s name gives it all away – it measures just 5.1mm thick. Here are a few comparisons: The new iPhone 6 is 6.9mm thick, Samsung’s Galaxy Alpha is 6.7mm thick, Sony’s Xperia Z3 is 7.3mm, and the LG G3 is a comparatively plump 8.9mm. Slimming down the chassis also reduced its weight, and the Elife S5.1 is a mere 97 grams. The iPhone 6 is 129 grams, and even the Galaxy Alpha is 115 grams. Smartphones under 100 grams are a rarity, and the sylphlike S5.1 is almost disarmingly light. It often felt like it would slip through my fingers. The metal chassis is sandwiched between two white pieces of Gorilla Glass, and like the S5.5, it has a truly premium feel. Gionee has smoothed out the rear panel for the S5.1, losing the camera lens bulge (but at a price), and made the edges more comfortable to hold. It’s a very attractive phone, although the gold chassis color isn’t to our taste, and we can’t help but want to see it in a cool steel grey alternative, and with darker glass panels. It’s also very solidly built. There’s no noticeable chassis flex, and I carried it around in my pocket without a case to see if it caused any problems. It came out unscathed. On the subject of carrying it around, Gionee has packaged the Elife S5.1 with a silicone case, a wrap around folio case, and a few screen protectors.

Android is stifled by Gionee’s UI

The Elife S5.1 uses Android 4.4.2, which is covered with the Amigo 2.0 user interface. The phone came with Google Play already installed, along with eighteen non-Gionee apps, from the WeChat messenger to demo versions of Uno and Spider-Man. There are also a few Gionee standard apps, including a theme switcher, and an alternative camera app. Most are largely pointless, but we did like the attractive and informative weather app.

Out of the box, the Elife S5.1 comes with the S5.1 theme activated, which after experimenting with the alternatives, turned out to be the most sluggish. Selecting Amigo or Android themes made the phone snappier, with the added benefit of standard Android apps reverting to more familiar icons.

Amigo UI works like Huawei’s Emotion UI, and abandons the app drawer in favor of spreading app icons over multiple home screens. It’s perfectly acceptable, but if you’re a fan of Android’s widgets, it can mean a lot of home screens through which to wade before finding an app. It’s also not always very pretty. Amigo 2.0’s screens are very basic. Compare the settings page on the S5.1 to the one found on the LG G3, and it’s like looking at phones from different eras.

Beautiful screen, but needs more power

Let’s start off with the positives. The Elife S5.1 has a 4.8-inch AMOLED touchscreen with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, which looks far more impressive than the numbers suggest. It’s beautifully bright, and very sharp. The super-slim bezels make it appear larger than it actually is, and it never once felt too compact, even when I was swapping between it, the Nexus 5, and the LG G3. Powering the phone is a MediaTek MT6592, 1.7GHz octa-core processor. It’s a year old now, and was never an absolute powerhouse, regardless of its “true octa-core” ability. However, inside the Elife S5.1 it’s being strangled by only 1GB of RAM. Performance is a problem. Scrolling and animations suffer the most, but swapping themes did help us speed things up.

The S5.1’s performance can be compared to flagships from several years ago, in particular the Galaxy S4 and the HTC One (the M7 version). Put it alongside a Snapdragon 800 powered phone with a custom user interface, and it matches them for snappiness. In the real world, it reminded me of using the Moto G, a Snapdragon 400 phone unencumbered by a skin over stock Android. The Moto G costs just north of $200, while a S5.1 is about $600.

Thankfully, Gionee has included a fast way to clear the cache and RAM, but it never freed up more than 380MB, and arguably it shouldn’t be needed at all. Only having 1GB of RAM may mean the phone won’t enjoy running the latest apps. Running the Geekbench 3 benchmarking app returned a multi-core score of 2268, while Quadrant gave a score of 13602. Both of these are lower than the scores achieved by the Elife S5.5, which has the same processor and 2GB of RAM. DTS Audio is an advertised feature on the phone, and the tweaks can be found in Gionee’s standard Music app. Even with headphones plugged in, the results weren’t impressive. Bass was lacking, although vocals were clear, and the DTS system is good for adjusting the overall sound. Whether the end result is pleasing to your ear may depend on your personal preferences.

Gionee app works hard to save the camera

The Gionee Elife S5.5 had a 13-megapixel camera on the rear, which was fitted inside a slightly raised, angular bump in the top rear corner of the phone. To make the Elife S5.1 completely flat, Gionee has presumably been forced to opt for a smaller 8-megapixel rear camera. It’s an unfortunate compromise, because the pictures the S5.1 takes aren’t up to the S5.5’s standards, although messing around with the filters can produce some cool looks.

Better pictures can be taken with the Nexus 5 and the iPhone 5S, both of which have 8-megapixel sensors, but it did produce much better results than the 5-megapixel Moto G. The front facing camera outshines all three though, so if selfies are your thing, you’ll be happy with the S5.1.

Sadly, Gionee hasn’t done anything about the annoying “processing” pause after taking a picture. Press the shutter button in the standard app, wait three-seconds while it fiddles around, and then you get the chance to take another shot. It’s frustrating, and really should have been solved.

However, there is an alternative camera app installed on the phone, which doesn’t suffer from the same problem. It’s Gionee’s own CharmCam app, which has various different modes for adding filters and effects. There’s no delay here, plus the gesture controls are great. You can snap selfies using a peace sign, or wait for it to detect a smile. The S5.1 was quick to recognize both, and the 5-megapixel front cam has a suitable wide angle to it. You can access CharmCam using a button in the stock app, but there’s no obvious way to link CharmCam to the shortcut on the lock screen.

Adequate battery life

Despite its thin profile, there is a 2,050mAh battery inside the Elife S5.1, and it’s surprisingly long-lasting. Even with Bluetooth connected to a smartwatch or Google Glass, the phone happily kept itself going for two days of moderate use. Gaming inevitably cut this time down, but given the phone’s size, this was a pleasing result. Of course, the battery is fixed in place, but Gionee has added a battery saving feature to make the most of any power available. The smaller, lower resolution screen means the battery life is roughly equal to the S5.5’s 2300mAh battery’s performance.

The Gionee Elife S5.1 is notable because of its incredibly thin profile. It’s so slim and light, it’s easy to forget you’re carrying it around at all, which is unusual for a modern smartphone. It looks great, feels more comfortable in the hand than the S5.5, and the build quality is of a high standard. To look at, it’s a truly premium phone. However, the processor is old, and the RAM too low, so it doesn’t perform like a premium phone. Compare it to other mid-range phones — even something that’s half the price like the Xiaomi Redmi Note — and it falls behind. Gionee’s software enhancements may also have to shoulder some of the blame here.This makes the phone a little frustrating. Just a little extra power inside the S5.1, and Gionee would have got it right. I can live with the 8-megapixel camera, but I want my sleek sporty phone to have some oomph behind it, and not an engine which feels stifled to conform with emissions laws.

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Apple iPhone 6 Plus

The most serious Apple smartphone yet. 

The Good The bigger battery means great battery life, and the 5.5-inch screen is not only big but bright and high-contrast. Optical image stabilization improves low-light photography.

The Bad The big footprint of the iPhone 6 Plus is not for everybody, and it's less visually distinctive in overall design than previous iPhones. Also, apps that haven't been optimized yet look blurry and have big keyboards.

The Bottom Line The iPhone 6 Plus is too big for everyone to love it, but it's Apple's best phone this year. If your budget and your pocket can make room for it, give the iPhone 6 Plus serious consideration.

Apple iPhone 6 Plus

It's hard to imagine a phone more eagerly anticipated than the iPhone 6. After the design revolution that was the iPhone 4, the much-anticipated iPhone 5 disappointed some with its modest visual update. People craved a handset with looks significantly different than what had come before, and so those expectations shifted to the iPhone 6.

In many ways, the iPhone 6 delivers on those design expectations (and in many other ways, as you can see in our full iPhone 6 review here), but if you're really longing for something totally different, look to the iPhone 6 Plus. The iPhone 6 Plus is significantly larger, noticeably thinner, and -- perhaps most importantly -- offers far more endurance on a single charge than any previous iPhone.

The iPhone 6 Plus is a great phone, but it isn't for everybody. I hate the word "phablet" (literally, "phone" plus "tablet"), but you can't deny that's exactly what the 6 Plus is. Its 5.5-inch, 1080p IPS LCD deftly straddles the chasm that existed between the former 4-inch iPhone 5S and the 7.9-inch iPad Mini. While the new 4.7-inch iPhone 6 fits in the same gap, the 6 Plus sits right in the sweet spot for those who'd like a little more tablet in their smartphone.

Design

In the grand scheme of phone dimensions, the 6 Plus is on the large side, measuring 6.22 inches high by 3.06 inches wide (158.1mm by 77.8mm), nearly a half-inch (12mm) taller than the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, though slightly narrower. At 6.07 ounces (172 grams) it does come in just a touch lighter, and it's noticeably thinner -- just 7.1mm in thickness, compared with the Note 3's 9.6mm. However, the newer Note 4 is closer in most dimensions, with its 6.04 x 3.09 inch span (153.5mm by 78.6mm), and at 8.5mm thick.

Regardless of dimensions, there's no denying that the iPhone 6 Plus feels better in the hand than any of the members of the Note family. Like previous iPhones, it's made of matte aluminum, but where harsh lines and chamfered edges give the iPhone 5 a stark, industrial feel, the new phones are more organic. They nestle comfortably in your hand rather than cutting into it.

That said, this new rounded shape -- complete with glass that blends into the rounded edges -- does provide a less distinctive appearance. That curved glass will be familiar to owners of Nokia Lumia devices, and the inset lines of plastic on the back are reminiscent of the HTC One. The iPhone 6 Plus looks and feels great, but it must be said that it doesn't offer the unique stylings of its predecessor.

Even the button placement matches the competition's, with the power/lock button moving to the right side. That's a good thing, given how far a reach it would be up to the top. Volume buttons still live on the left -- now wide and flat rather than round -- directly beneath the ring/silent toggle switch. The 3.5mm headphone jack sits at the bottom, as it did with the 5S, next to eight holes that allow sound from the (surprisingly powerful) internal speaker to escape.

Then, of course, there's the home button, front and center below the display. It is of the Touch ID variety, as on the 5S, meaning you can unlock the iPhone 6 Plus quickly with a thumb. Or an index finger, if you'd rather, or any other digit that you care to train. While this feature is no longer as novel as it was this time in 2013, Touch ID still proves quicker and more reliable than the fingerprint detection we've seen on other smartphones.

Touch ID is particularly useful here on the iPhone 6 Plus, because punching in a traditional four-digit PIN for unlocking can be a bit of a stretch on a big display like this. Pressing on the Home button for a moment is certainly a fair bit easier. And with iOS 8 -- which all iPhone 6 Plus models ship with -- you'll finally be able to use fingerprint access for a much wider variety of apps, not just the lock screen and iTunes Store.

Reachability

To avoid any unfortunate thumb-straining incidents, Apple has provided a feature on the iPhone 6 Plus called "Reachability." Two quick taps on the Home button slide any content at the top of the display -- app icons, Safari's URL bar, whatever else is up there -- down to the bottom. (That's a double tap rather than a double press -- the latter of which opens up the app switching screen, as it does on iOS 7.) It's handy in theory, but not particularly useful in practice.

For example, if you want to open a folder of icons on the top of the display, a double-tap brings that folder down. Tap on the folder and it opens, but then slides back up to the top again. Another double-tap on the Home button is needed to bring it down a second time so that you can select an icon within. It's simply too much tapping to be of regular use, even for those with short thumbs, but could be handy if you're on a bus or train and need your other hand to hang on.

Landscape mode

Another software tweak, exclusive to the Plus, is a special layout for some apps when the phone is held sideways in landscape mode. Apps like Mail and Messages give you an iPad-like view, with a list of messages on the left and their content on the right. This is quite helpful, and though we're still waiting to see more app developers add support for their own apps.

Pocketability

The size of your hands, and your tolerance for straining to reach the corners of the device, will play a large part in determining whether the 6 Plus is for you. Another deciding factor will be whether it fits into your pockets. Unless your pants are of the cargo variety, you're probably going to want the iPhone 6 Plus in a back pocket when you're out and about.

For phablet newbies this can take some getting used to. So, too, will remembering to take it out of that back pocket before sitting down. In the interest of fully comprehensive testing I sat on the 6 Plus numerous times and it registered nary a creak nor a crack. Still, I wouldn't advise doing so regularly, if only for your posture's sake.

Camera

Both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus feature revised cameras front and rear, but the Plus offers even more upgrades. The rear shooter here is 8 megapixels as on the iPhone 6, but the Plus adds optical image stabilization to the mix. In our testing we found the Plus consistently shot with a slower shutter speed than the iPhone 6, yet delivered images that were just as sharp. Longer exposures mean lower ISO and noticeably less image noise, plus better color.

There's new video stabilization on the 6 and 6 Plus as well, and though it's a digital effect, the results are still quite impressive. I shot multiple videos free-handed, even while moving, and the footage is smooth, without any of the distortion you sometimes see from other digital stabilization techniques. There's real-time autofocus while filming, too, so you won't have to tap-tap-tap on the screen to follow the action.

Video is still 1080p, though now captured at 60 frames per second if you want it. (30fps is optional.) Slow-motion videos have also been boosted, up to 240fps from 120fps.

The front-facing camera has been updated as well. It lacks stabilization, but does now offer an f/2.2 aperture. This means more light hits the sensor than on the old model, offering better selfies in dark conditions. Perfect for pub crawls.

Performance and battery life

Inside, both iPhone 6 models offer the new A8 processor, though curiously the Geekbench benchmark reports it as running ever so slightly slower on the 6 Plus -- 1.35GHz versus 1.39GHz. Benchmarks were very comparable between the two, however, and consistently 10 to 20 percent faster than on the previous-generation iPhone.

So, a nice step up over the iPhone 5S, and overall the iPhone 6 Plus is very snappy and responsive in daily usage. We did notice some stutters and poor performance on occasion, but for now we're putting that down to this being the early days of iOS 8. Hopefully things will improve.

One place you will certainly notice a huge difference between the 6 Plus and the iPhone 5S, and indeed the iPhone 6, is battery life. The iPhone 6 Plus managed a solid 13 hours and 16 minutes in our battery rundown test. It backed that up with impressive real-world performance, easily and repeatedly making it through a full day of heavy use (constant Web surfing, gaming, video streaming, and GPS navigation), often lasting well into a second day before needing a charge.

Sadly, charging still requires that you fish out a Lightning cable. While the Apple Watch will offer wireless charging, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus still make do without.

Comparative benchmarks appear below; as always, they should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, unlike in 2013, when the iPhone 5S and its A7 processor blew away the competition at the time, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus don't dominate every ranking.

Display

Battery life is doubly impressive considering how large and how bright the 5.5-inch IPS LCD is. It's easily viewable in bright sunlight and isn't lacking for contrast, even if you're viewing at an odd angle. That 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution makes it ideal for watching 1080p content, but does pose a few problems.

First, few iPhone apps have been optimized for this resolution. For the moment, nearly all will need to rely on the phone's integrated scaler, which simply blows up apps to fit the screen. It works well enough, but results in some blurry text and, more problematically, scales the keyboard up too. Yes, as you go from app to app the keyboard gets larger or smaller, which, as you can imagine, poses a bit of a problem if you're into touch-typing.

This problem will be reduced as more third-party apps are optimized for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, but for now it's quite annoying. Also annoying? It doesn't run iPad apps. You'd think that scaling apps from a 7.9-inch display down to 5.5 inches would be no more complicated than scaling up from 3.5 inches. I'm still holding out hope that developers will someday start to migrate features and designs from their iPad-only apps down to the iPhone 6 Plus, but the outright running of iPad apps is sadly verboten.

Versus the Note 4

And how does the iPhone 6 Plus fare specifically against its strongest competition on the Android side, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4? I've been testing the two side-by-side for quite awhile now, and it is indeed a very close battle. In general, the iPhone 6 Plus features better aesthetics, better comfort in the hand and slightly better battery life. The Note 4 feels more durable and offers much more productivity when it comes to usability. But, the real story is much more complicated than that, so I highly recommend checking out our in-depth comparisons, both part one and part two.

Conclusion

The iPhone 6 Plus is not a phone for everybody. Its size is its biggest drawback and, indeed, that will likely be the deciding factor for many on whether to go with the 6 or 6 Plus. If you can live with a device of these dimensions, the additional $100, £80, or AU$130 is well worth it for the upgraded battery life alone. It's doubly worth it if you're intrigued by better performance of the camera -- or if your eyesight could benefit from extra room for larger fonts.

The iPhone 6 Plus may not be the most visually distinctive phablet device on the market, nor the most feature-packed, but it is a big step forward in the world of Apple mobile devices. This is the most potent iPhone yet, and a serious contender in this, the most serious segment of the smartphone market.

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