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  • nerd1 - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    So they increased the pixel count without increasing the sensor size... wonder how anandtech will justify this this time.
  • Taneli - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    It's likely a better camera, regardless of the smaller pixels. Probably a Sony sensor again.
  • JoshHo - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    We don't exist to justify Apple's decisions. It remains to be seen whether they can maintain the low light quality that they did with the iPhone 6 Plus.
  • ImSpartacus - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    Cmon, you didn't need to reply to that.

    Have some class. Anand never bickered with commenters.
  • JoshHo - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Apologies, it was not my intention to attack, but to be clear that I'm maintaining an open mind about the pixel size reduction.
  • akdj - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    Seriously? Class?
    The very FIRST comment in the ComSec essentially sums up in a sentence Anandtech is an Apple employee, full of shit when it comes to reviews 'with justifications' and challenges to author on a perfectly well written concise 'pre'view of iPhone 6s.
    News bro. YouAren'tSpartacus and if you're Greek, I'd bail. Not sure they'll be selling them, they're having a hard time paying off their governments order for skinny jeans from January 2013.

    Thanks Josh for stepping in. Didn't sound like an attack to me. Anand didn't 'bicker' but indeed participated in discussions and when the first comment of his time spent/written article ...regardless of how long the research and writing took ...was directed at 'him' being a paid or compensated Apple school damned straight would've engaged Anand
    You aren't Spartacus but you do need to learn comprehension (reading). Bickering isn't responding to a direct insult and bullshit accusation with a professional, two sentience response. Concise. Professional. Not negative and directly responding to the horse's ass that wrote the ridiculous comment. The first comment of an article he knew all along he was going to disrespect the writing of by commenting on. First.
    When was the last time Apple regressed on their camera's abilities? They've led the way photographically and their 1080p/60 looks better than the 4K from my Note 4. S6 is right there and arguably a bit better with resolution but it's sammys new phone. Three months old. The iPhone 6s is Apple's 2015 flagship like Sammys S6.
    No need for justification. Pick it up and shoot it at a colorful shot at low or default ISO, lowlight cranking up ISO AMD comparing resolution shot photos --- easy. Nothing to justify. It's better or its not. Backlit sensors, included imaging sensor processors dedicated to the camera (CPU and GPU and memory specifically for the shooter) {ISP}, as well, Apple's dedication to squeezing the most out of each sensor they've used.
    I own the 6+, Note 4 and S6. What I'd consider three of the the four horseman on the market. Don't to brass tacks, I love the S6 due to its size and hold ability but the iPhone when it comes to stills, 720 & 1080p motion. Not that the S6 is 'worse' but it's not as quick with the reviews popping up, it's more convoluted settings aren't necessarily helpful and it's default high megapixel resolution is 16x9. Fine to crop a 4x3 or 3x2 shot but definitely outta the ordinary creating extra work.
    The OS system of the iPhone is better than the Note 4 or S6 and they're a bit on the warm side shooting anything over two minutes of continuous 4K motion. I've had my S6 reboot while shooting 4K after about six minutes (four clips totaled the six minutes).
    I do like the S6 dbl tap to the home button though as a camera launcher. And it's an excellent still and motion cam ...just Apple does it better hear in year out. Even with the comparison of iCloud Drive and Google's Drive integration and aggregation, Apple takes the cake for backing our family up, making it easy to locate old shots, and enjoy the best possible shots in mobile.

    This is gonna be a helluva phone
  • prisonerX - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    First thread and we're into a fanboi cat fight.
  • Taneli - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    High resolution DSLRs like D800 and A7R have shown that high pixel count sensors can have high performance at low light. When interpolating to same resolution as photos from sensors with fewer but bigger pixels, the averaging operation will significantly reduce the noise. This is especially true when sharing photos to places like Facebook (2048px wide), Instagram (1080px wide), Whatsapp (1280px wide) and so on. Newer sensor also helps.
  • V900 - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    You cant compare a DSLR, with its massive lens, soaking up any light available, with the tiny opening in a cellphone.
  • lmcd - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Independent of his validity? Yeah, he can.

    Best of all? It's valid -- ironic that someone who (I assume) attempts to follow the industry doesn't see how the large scale and small scale implementations learn from the others' techniques. See: every new Intel processor learning from ARM, while ARM's designs keep getting bigger and more Intel-like. Maxwell's gains from smartphone GPU design. I could go on.
  • Michael Bay - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    What could Intel even learn from ARM? They are on entirely different level of complexity, not to mention no manufacturing expertise.
  • Morawka - Sunday, September 13, 2015 - link

    physics bro, that's the validity. Photons dont shrink just because it's a iphone
  • Impulses - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    A DSLR's large lens goes hand in hand with a sensor that's several times larger...
  • nerd1 - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    I remember anandtech greatly overhyped the larger pixel sizes of iPhone 6, in spite of it actually having smaller sensor than android flagships. Low light test results from other sites proved elsewise. It's the sensor size that governs low light photography, not the pixel size. A good example is D600-D800, A7s-A7-A7r etc.
  • Fidelator - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    I can completely back up this claim, rarely there would be anything but criticism over the pixel size regardless of the bigger sensors on other flagships
  • solipsism - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    If the images are worse for it, then I'm sure it will be noted. What I recall AnandTech, other sites, and knowledgable people referring to when they talk about the pixel count, is that it's a single metric. If that's the only thing that's different and you're only marketing the number of mega-pixels because the images aren't great, then that's a problem. Why don't we wait for their review in a month(?) to see how the images compare to the iPhone 6-series.
  • Kutark - Monday, September 14, 2015 - link

    I seriously don't understand why people focus so much on the camera quality of a phone. Lets be serious, camera phones are primarily used for selfies, dick picks (etc), and random shit like taking a picture of your car accident or other just completely random things. To the point, things that having a 10% better sensor is going to be utterly and completely meaningless.

    Nobody who actually "needs" to have excellent image quality in their photos is going to be using a phone, they will be using a DSLR.
  • MrMaestro - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    Brian left AnandTech to go work for Apple. I think he's a qualified optical engineer and he was always raging about subpixel size getting smaller and smaller in his reviews. I wonder what his contribution to the camera systems was.
  • nerd1 - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    And he was entirely wrong. High resolution sensor usually shows better noise performance than lower resolution sensor of the same size and generation. And modern NR algorithms favor high resolution - you will have some detail after NR if you start with high resolution images.
  • BurntMyBacon - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    I think you are hitting two different points. He is suggesting that the Signal to Noise Ratio (without post processing) is worse for smaller pixels. This is a pretty straight forward concept, so I'm assuming your issue is elsewhere. It sounds like you are suggesting that with proper post processing algorithms, the noise can be reduced (and SNR improves) at the cost of some resolution. This reduced resolution may be equal to or perhaps greater than sensors with larger subpixels that achieve a similar SNR.
  • WaltFrench - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Sensor analysis isn't as easy as “more megapixels!” but it doesn't mean you have to ignore the basic physics.

    Silicon sensors, for a given process, have a roughly constant amount of noise per unit of area, while the signal gets proportionately stronger. Cutting pixel size reduces the noise but reduces the signal more, a lousier signal-to-noise ratio per pixel. But when you look at a picture from a 12MP sensor versus an 8MP sensor, you see the same amount of noise <i>per picture.</i>

    Or approximately. Smaller pixels mean a slightly worse ratio of wasted space around each pixel, mostly due to proportionately more insulation between them. That's a secondary effect, tho, which could be offset by improvements elsewhere.

    Net-net, more pixels undeniably give you more flexibility in shooting and editing, but zooming in might not look quite as good, particularly in low light when noise becomes more visible.

    Dinging AnandTech for favorably reporting the combo of more pixels, better color purity (those deep wells) and a bunch of nice software features is just trolling. With adequate software—and evidence is that Apple's is more than adequate—there's no reason the photos won't be noticeably nicer.
  • Zizy - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Next gen sensors are better than the previous gen, so the camera will be better.
    As for larger pixels vs smaller (same tech and total sensor area):
    For FSI, larger pixels let in more light => better low light performance, despite lower pixel count and less options for post-processing.
    With BSI, that advantage goes mostly away. Total area for light collection is almost the same. Therefore the amount of photons collected by both sensors will be the same. Smaller pixels have obvious advantage of resolution. This alone means results will almost always be better than with larger pixels.
    Larger pixels have some not-as-obvious advantages: Larger pixels can collect more light before getting saturated => more range. In addition to shot noise (photons), there is also sensor noise (electrons). I have no values for often used stuff in cameras and can't be bothered to find some, but I guess it is at least several photons of noise, likely 10s of photons. This means larger pixels will be able to use slightly shorter times => less blur. But the advantage is relatively slight.
  • BurntMyBacon - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    I would note that smaller pixels loose proportionately more space to insulation between pixels in addition to having more pixels to insulate. Two sensors of the same size, but different resolution do not in fact collect the same amount of photons. That said, if the difference in pixel size isn't that large, then the difference isn't very notable and post processing algorithms can go a long way in rectifying the issue. Most phones don't have a way to force RAW capture, so the quality of the post processing is often more important to a phone than the pixel size.
  • Synomenon - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    I know iOS is an efficient OS, but still only 1GB of RAM or is there more now?
  • JoshHo - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    We don't have any information on that. There are rumors, but we don't consider rumors or speculation to be a valid source.
  • Morawka - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    Why don't you guys just straight up ask apple reps at the try on tables? If they say "we dont disclose that" then that is seriously messed up
  • danbob999 - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Good attitude, especially since just about every reviewer was wrong assuming the iPhone had 1GB when they stuck with 512 MB.
  • akdj - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    ? Four years ago?
    I suppose that's what I enjoy about this site. No 'race to review'. Time spent in the lab, real world and differing conditions as well as excellent writing and in depth discovery is sow,thing I can always count on here
    And one needs look no further than (original) S6 review if they want to ensure non bias Android/iOS reviewing
  • 3DoubleD - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    How much RAM does it have? This important detail appears to be absent.
  • TheSlamma - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    2GB
  • SpartanJet - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    You have a link for that? Apple has once again skirted the issue carefully. If it had 2GB im sure it would have been advertised.
  • ssiu - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    No, for bizarre reasons Apple just doesn't like to talk about RAM. Even when iPad Air 2 was introduced last year with 2GB RAM (and 3 CPU cores).

    But journalists who are familiar with iPhone 6 and Safari reloading tabs due to 1GB RAM, should be able to do some experiments in their hands-on time and make an educated deduction? It won't be "official confirmation" but it would be better than "rumors and speculations". Report their experiments and their results, and let the readers come to their own conclusion whether "yeah I think that proves there is 2GB RAM" or not.

    Personally I think they have 2GB RAM, simply because I don't believe they can get away with 1GB for the 4th year.
  • SpartanJet - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Actually it was known durring the iPad Air 2 that it had 2gb ram.

    Apple even talked about the RAM being faster this time but avoided the more important issue being its 2015 and their phones still come with 1GB RAM which is severely limiting.
  • Brandon Chester - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    No, Apple has never stated the RAM capacity of an iOS device during their keynotes. It always comes out via benchmarks, dev sessions, or developers profiling apps on the devices.
  • akdj - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    They did indeed discuss memory bandwidth and thoroughput. Both doubling.
    While you could do this by building an eight lane vs four to the SoC, from the RAM, it wouldn't. Ale sense. Like others I think Apple milked the single GB as long as they could.
    Funny thing, every game in parity I've got on iOS and my Note 4 w/3GB of RAM is more fluent, better gameplay and quicker communication and draws with the measley 1gb and 2core SoC ;)
  • osxandwindows - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    If the iPad air 2 has 2gb of ram, then the iPhone 6s has 2gb
    The iPad is always the first one to get a ram boost
  • asendra - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    If rumors are to be believed...

    Iphones 6s/6s Plus - 2GB
    Apple TV - 2GB (Official)
    Ipad Pro - 4GB
  • Thermogenic - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    Live Photos is pretty much a copy of Living Images from the Lumia line of phones, which is also integrated seamlessly in modern (2014+) Lumias.
  • osxandwindows - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    It works way better on the Iphone
  • lilmoe - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    Something I really hate about Samsung is that some of their nice yet badly executed "gimmicks" can be really useful if they'd stick with them, improve on them, and perfect their functionality and APIs.

    Air View, that debuted with the GS4, is a very good example... It's hover nature had lots of potential, and the APIs could have been similar (or the same) of the hover features of the Note series (decreasing the work of development and app support)... It could easily replicate (or even exceed) the force touch functionality of the iPhone 6S...
  • aryonoco - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    Can you please stop publishing these misleading meaningless carrier-subsidised prices of the phones and actually publish the correct price instead?

    It was always meaningless to begin with, it's more meaningless now that even a lot of people in the US or moving away from this stupid carrier subsidy model.

    For the record, the iPhone 6S costs $649/$749/$849, while the 6S Plus costs $749/$849/$949.

    Thanks.
  • speculatrix - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    +1
    There lies, damn lies, statistics, and cellular phone customer pricing.
  • Gunbuster - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Double +1, Stop sucking up to Apple and fix the prices you listed.
  • Supercell99 - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    +1

    Yea I didn't think the 6S+ with 64GB was only $499. That's damn deceptive & makes me start to believe the trolls that claim this site is a bunch of Apple fanboi's
  • Sleepingforest - Sunday, September 13, 2015 - link

    If this was the item that makes you believe that Anandtech harbors Apple favoritism, you never really though they were impartial to begin with. Of course the 6S isn't $500 for 64GB. Use your damn brain, it's a US designed phone released in a US press conference being covered by a US site. Of course they stick to US standards of a subsidized price.
  • Kevlar21 - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    I noticed a mistake above. These devices have 23 LTE bands, not 28. I double checked the keynote video on Apple's website and found this information at 114:53.
  • JoshHo - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Thanks for the catch, I thought I heard 28 but maybe it was something else in the presentation. I've updated the article to correct this error.
  • agoyal - Wednesday, September 9, 2015 - link

    Does anyone else think Apple is moving to 3 core CPU in the A9??
  • Pissedoffyouth - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Nah, they'll stay dual core and up the RAM
  • extide - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Doubt it, probably 2 cores in A9, and 3 or possibly 4 cores in A9X.
  • osxandwindows - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    quad core
  • 0iron - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    It weight 14g/20g more for 6s/6s plus. Could it because of new aluminium, bigger battery or new component?
  • nerd1 - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    It's mainly due to the weight needed for haptic feedback I thknk.
  • Laxaa - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    The battery's actually smaller this time around, but Apple claims the same performance as last year.
  • SirKnobsworth - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    Still Lightning? I was kind a hoping after the MacBook that Apple would be leading the charge toward Type-C. Alas, it seems not.
  • electralink - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link



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    Brand New Apple iPhone 6S PLUS
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  • electralink - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link


    Kindly Contact us for more product that are not listed above.

    Sales Manager: Halima Abass
    skype ID : electralinks
  • name99 - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    OK, electralink.
    If you have these items in stock and available today, as you claim, how about you run Geekbench3 on them and settle for us these questions about number of cores, core frequency, and RAM?

    That will add some, uh, credibility, to your claim...
  • RT81 - Thursday, September 10, 2015 - link

    I like Apple stuff and use it along with Windows and Android every day. I appreciate the deep attention you all give to iPhones and Macs. However, for the sake of the sanity of the staff involved, maybe Anandtech is no longer the best venue for Apple?

    It's one thing when comments are critical of Apple. The comment section of every Apple article on ALL sites have that. It's another thing entirely when there are accusations of bias on the part of the staff. When the Skylake article was published, there was criticism towards Intel about it's performance and criticism towards Dr. Cutress' conclusion that it was an upgrade from Sandy Bridge, but I don't remember anyone inferring he or Anandtech was in Intel's pocket.

    You all put a lot of effort into every article you all create, but since Anand left, I'm starting to get the feeling the Apple articles aren't really appreciated. This is, after all, a site with an intense focus on hardware employed by PC gamers and enthusiasts which is not exactly the target market Apple is going after. Maybe Apple articles draw a lot of traffic, but the constant stream of negativity in the face of hard work has to be tiresome.
  • Hrel - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    Biggest mistake here was making the base model only 16GB, 32GB should be the minimum, frankly for the prices they charge 64GB should be the bare minimum. Especially without an SD card...
  • newbietech - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    Hi Josh,
    Good article. I have some doubt on the wireless support in the new iPhones and hope you can provide some information on that.
    Do you know why Apple needed a separate SKU for the CDMA phones? The relevant wireless support info from the Apple website is shown below. Apart from CDMA, all other wireless protocols and frequencies seem to be identical to both versions of the phones. So why have separate models, one to support CDMA wireless providers and one without CDMA? Would it be better to buy the unlocked CDMA phone for full price? Better to be able to move between CDMA and GSM providers in the future. Or, am I missing something here? Like, the CDMA phone not actually working on GSM wireless network even though the website says they are supported.

    Model A1633*
    Model A1634*

    LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
    TD-LTE (Bands 38, 39, 40, 41)
    TD-SCDMA 1900 (F), 2000 (A)
    UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz)
    GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

    Model A1688*
    Model A1687*

    LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29)
    TD-LTE (Bands 38, 39, 40, 41)
    TD-SCDMA 1900 (F), 2000 (A)
    CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz)
    UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz)
    GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

    If anyone else knows anything regarding this, please chime in as well.

    Thanks in advance for the help in understanding this issue.
  • newbietech - Friday, September 11, 2015 - link

    I did not look close enough. Apparently the CDMA phones will be missing LTE Band 30.
    It seems that the phones not having CDMA (Model A1633/A1634) are for AT&T to support their upcoming LTE roll out on Band 30. T-mobile is going to sell Models A1688/A1687 so I guess the CDMA phones could be true world phones as long as you don't need support on LTE Band 30. More information is there on this link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2491013,00.as...

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