DriveClub Exclusive to PS4 review

Exclusive to PS4
It’s no secret that DriveClub’s launch was a disaster. Network issues kept paying punters out of the game, the long-promised PlayStation Plus version was put on indefinitely hold, and complaints about draconian penalties for collisions and corner-cutting were both rife and not unfounded. Sony’s flagship racer arrived to a chorus of complaints.

Since launch, however, Sony and Evolution have worked hard to fix the game. Server stability has improved dramatically, patches have dealt with the major gameplay issues, and free DLC packs and updates have added new tracks, new cars, new events and a range of enhancements. The latest updates have bought us two longed-for features – dynamic weather and a photo mode – and resulted in a tangibly better game.

Weather is – quite literally – a game changer. Rain and snow don’t merely look impressive, but transform the way your tyres interact with road surfaces, affective traction and making high-speed cornering a serious challenge. Both also have an impact on visibility, partly because it’s hard to see what’s coming through downpours and snow flurries, but because every camera, from the cockpit view to the chase view, is affected. Thought driving at night on the Norwegian or Scottish tracks was hard? Now try doing it with the visibility halved again.

The rain and snow effects also give DriveClub’s visuals a drama they might previously have lacked. DriveClub actually simulates the water droplet by droplet, so that light bounces off them authentically, and so that they behave pretty much like you’d expect them to behave in real life. Droplets streak across the windscreen from the effects of airflow and the windscreen wipers. The snow flies towards the windscreen, but also drifts in direction of the wind. Driveclub’s weather effects set a new benchmark for racing games. They make an already good-looking game look great.



It’s still not a flawless experience. For all the astonishing detail in the cars and the environments, there’s still something oddly sterile about the world you race through; something that makes it look and feel more like a film set than a living landscape. You can see the waves ripple on a lake or fjord and watch the trees wave a bit too gently in the breeze, but something doesn’t quite cohere. Yet when you’re racing through the tea-fields of India or tackling sweeping curves down the side of an ice-clad mountain, DriveClub can and does look breathtaking. Throw in rain and the odd flash of lightning, and it’s in touching distance of becoming as impressive as Sony always claimed it would be.

When it looks that good, you might be tempted to share the moment. Luckily, the new Photo Mode is brilliant, allowing you to pose your shot and move your angle quite effectively, with advanced tools for setting aperture, shutter speed, bokeh shape and even film grain.  Once you’re done, you can upload your efforts using the PS4’s standard Share functionality.
 

The gameplay is improving too. At launch, DriveClub seemed to be forever hitting you with penalties for going off-track, skipping corner or colliding with the opposition. These still come up, but a lot less frequently and you’re usually the one at fault. The lunatic AI still has its moments, of course, where you’re on the racing line but the git behind you decides to shunt you, throwing you off track and effectively out of contention. It’s enormously frustrating and probably the biggest single remaining reason not to play. We love races and we love driving against tough competition, but DriveClub is the only racing game I can think of where I look forward to the time trials rather than the races. That really says it all.

Overall, the improvements and updates make DriveClub a stronger driving game, and there’s still something lovable about its focus on racing, speeds and lap-times. This isn’t a game for tuners, car collectors, open-world explorers or fans of the Fast and Furious films; it’s a game for those who want intense racing, an even field and the pleasures of knocking milliseconds off a laptime to claw ahead of rivals. The sensation of speed is impressive and the handling consistently exciting. DriveClub can be unforgiving. It’s hard to recover from mistakes and there’s no quick rewind button. All the same, its purist approach can’t help but resonate with a certain kind of driving game fan.
 



Coming back to it, we mostly love it, but a few reservations remain. Because the weather wasn’t built in from the start it’s not reflected in the core Tour mode or even in the free Ignition and Photo-Finish DLC packs – presumably to ensure that past and present race times, lap-times and face-to-face challenges remain comparable. This means that you’ll only get to enjoy the enhancements in multiplayer, where there are specific weather events on the board, and in single events and challenges. Weather will be supported in the next dlc packs – Elements and Readline – but we understand that these will be premium packs, not free.

More seriously, Driveclub still has an uphill struggle winning back a mass audience. Driveclubs set up in the early days have faltered, and when the other members of your club aren’t posting times and setting challenges, it takes some of the fun out of the game. It’s also surprisingly difficult to find a packed event to join in multiplayer – or sometimes an event with any players signed up at all.
 
Final verdict
Driveclub deserves a second chance, but will it get it? We hope so. It might not be a crowd-pleaser like Forza Horizon 2, but it’s a frequently fantastic racer that’s only getting better with time.



Originally reviewed - October 7, 2014
It’s all too easy to damn DriveClub with faint praise. Emerging just after the launch of Forza Horizon 2, it’s less of a crowd-pleaser and more of a slow-burner. It’s a beautiful-looking game, but not as glossy or glamorous as the Microsoft racer, and where Horizon 2 is all about simple thrills and the freedom of the open road, playing DriveClub is a more rigorous pursuit. It’s social aspects are fascinating, but a harder sell than Forza’s on and off-road racing festival. For a game that’s forward-thinking, DriveClub can be surprisingly old-school.

By now, you probably know the basic concept. In fact, the title pretty much sums it up. DriveClub is all about social racing: joining a club, driving for that club, and sharing the glory with your friends. In terms of structure, it’s not dissimilar to a dozen racers of the last generation, with several tiers of events, taking in point-to-point races, circuit races, time trials and drift challenges. Each event has its own objectives, and by completing these objectives you unlock further tiers of events. 



However, in Driveclub you’re not only competing for first position or a lower lap time; you’re competing for Fame - both for you individually and your Club. You get fame for the normal things, of course, but also for beating bit-sized challenges known as Face-Offs, where you’re tasked with cornering better than another player across a section of the track, or beating their average speed. They'll pop up on the track and monitor your score/speed/drift in that section. If you beat your buddy or your nemesis in the Face-Off, you get massive points for you and your team mates. 

As your fame builds you level up, unlocking new cars from the game’s selection. What’s more, your fame contributes to that of your club, pushing it up the ranks and up the leaderboard, so that you’re always contributing to the tally. As your club ranks up, new cars also become available to the members, meaning it’s in everyone’s interest to keep the tally growing.



Thus in Driveclub you’re always trying to do two things at once: win the race or get the lowest time in the time trial, but also succeed in any challenges thrown your way. To be honest, the challenges will often play second fiddle. The time trails become very tight as you get higher up the ladder, even if you're a skilled driver with a kick-ass car. Face-Offs can become a barely noticed pop-up as you speed through a series of S-bends on your way to the finish line. Yet at other times they can become the focus, allowing you to pull something back from even the most miserable performance, or grab a little extra glory from your latest triumph.

Were Driveclub’s racing no good, all the social stuff wouldn’t make a difference, but past the first hour or two it gets very good indeed. Driveclub’s strength is that, beneath the social layer, it’s a purist’s racer. You pick a car, take it to the course and try and get it to the finish line before anyone else. There’s no tuning or upgrading, no real options for AI difficulty or handling, and no sneaky way to rewind the action and retake the corner you just span out on. 

Some may think that's a pro for DriveClub, especially as developer Evolution aimed to make a driving game that is accessible to everyone. But, it does have its limitations for those who are well-versed in driving games and looking for that edge.



The handling straddles the line between arcade and sim territory, and while first impressions are that it leans too far towards the arcade side, that changes as you move up from hot hatches to executive touring cars, sports cars, supercars and track toys. Driveclub is no Forza 5 or Gran Turismo 6, but it’s a little more realistic than a Ridge Racer or Need for Speed.

The tracks also help its cause. Set across five regions – India, Canada, Scotland, Norway and Chile – they provide a strong selection of high-speed circuits, soaring mountain tracks packed with treacherous bends and twisting, dusty layouts that will have you spinning and drifting with the best of them. The scenery is frequently stunning, especially as the time changes from day to night and there’s no shortage of variety. To go from the brooding landscapes of the highlands to the bright colours and sun-dappled foothills of Tamil Nadu can be a real aesthetic treat. 



Of course, you can argue that Driveclub’s purist approach is a weakness. There’s no framework beyond going from one event to another, and lots of players like to tweak the handling, or have the option of upgrading their car. But then that would be to spoil the social aspect. The intention is clear: to make sure that each race, each time trial and each challenge is met – bar the choice of car – on a level playing field. You win fame for you and for your club by driving better than the other players, not by grinding for credits and upgrades or switching driving aids on and off.

The social stuff doesn’t end with the head-to-head challenges. Finished a race and feeling pleased with yourself? Post it as a challenge to the world, or to the friends in and outside your Driveclub. If they beat it within the challenge period, they get some glory. If they don’t, the glory comes your way. Cleverly, you’re not pushed to post a challenge immediately after racing, but can access a history of recent activities and post from there. When a player takes your challenge you’re alerted, giving you a chance to go back and post an even better time.

That goes for Face-Offs too. You can set mini-challenges for your friends and the world of racers with DriveClub. It could be a corner challenge that you'll need to reach a specific point score on a tricky hairpin, a drifting challenge or even an average speed Face-Off around the twirling bends on the mountainous paths. 

Although there are the more conventional multiplayer aspects, which let you set a race time for you and your buddies if some of you are currently embroiled in a long race. It is far more stripped back than alternate facing titles, and has more of an old school pre-Motorstorm feel to it from Evolution. But to be honest, it feels like working solo for your Club is far more important in DriveClub. It's definitely a more solitary racer, despite its unique social network structure. 



We can’t say enough that Driveclub can be a brilliant racer. It’s fast, thrilling, challenging and (mostly) fair. The sound is fantastic, to the extent that the decision not to cover the engine noise with music by default seems absolutely right. It can feel a little bleak at first, but you'll soon realise the detail that the devs have gone to for a realistic sound. 

The graphics don't have the shine or clarity of Forza Horizon 2, but there’s some superb, atmospheric lighting and an awful lot of detail, particularly in the forests of Canada or the rugged mountain tracks of Chile. The cars are beautifully rendered, both inside and out, with a choice of cameras that should please arcade racers (the external views) and serious drivers (the fantastic cockpit views). 
Yet it's sometimes evident that Driveclub lacks a little soul. For all that scenic beauty, it hasn't quite got the wow factor that a next-gen titles should. Just look at games like Horizon 2 or even The Last of Us Remastered, and their water and lighting effects stand out in a way that Driveclub's don't.  

The car line-up is pretty special. Driveclub doesn’t try to compete with GT, Forza or even Horizon 2 when it comes to quantity, but with the likes of the Aston Marin V12 Zagato, the Ferrari California and the Pagani Huarya around, the quality is never in doubt. The worst thing you can say is that some of the cars feel a little too skittish – is the Audi TT RS Plus really that prone to rattling around the track? – but in general cars handle as you might expect them too, and the arcade handling makes them brilliant to drive.



All the same, Driveclub doesn’t come without some aggravations. The AI, for example, can be exasperating.  Sometimes it’s perfect, giving you the kind of fast, demanding competition that makes each race a high-stakes thriller. Sometimes it’s pitifully easy. You pull ahead in the early stages, and no-one has a chance of keeping up. At its worst, however, it’s teeth-grinding, temple-throbbing, Dual-Shock 4-through-the-window infuriating. 

In some cases, the early stages of the race become a fiesta of clangs and crashes, as everyone trades place with everyone else and you hope for a miracle to make your way through the pack. Alternatively, you’re pushing hard for first position in the last stretch of the race, jockeying for position with the guy just up in front, when the guy in third steams up behind you, smacks into you as you’re trying to corner, then sends you spinning off the track. And because the AI has a horrible habit of bunching up, you go from 2nd to 8th in roughly half a second. It’s time to hit restart and repeat the whole race. Why? Damn you Driveclub AI, why?



We’re also not so sure about some of the night or twilight races. Sure, it’s good to challenge players with limited visibility, but does the track have to be quite this hard to see? For one event we had to close the curtains and turn screen brightness up to full just to see the tarmac. Either that’s a problem, or the game needs a toggle to set the lights on to full-beam.

It’s testament to how good Driveclub’s racing is that these irritants don’t seriously spoil the ride. It’s the kind of racer that has you swearing that you missed that time objective by 0.2 of a second, or that keeps you coming back to try and beat a friend who’s come in two seconds ahead. It’s the kind of racer where you’ll spend an hour repeating one event, not because you can’t complete it, but because you could complete it a few seconds faster if you could just iron out some mistakes on that sudden uphill corner or fast downhill bend. Like we said, it’s a purist’s racer – albeit for purists who aren’t bothered by an arcade handling model.

What’s more, there’s potential in all this social stuff. True, it’s not entirely unique – EA’s Autolog has been doing this stuff for years – but Driveclub does an impressive job of making it a focus for the gameplay, and of using team cooperation and healthy competition as a spur to keep you coming back to the game. We’ve yet to try the companion app, but it’s not hard to imagine how getting an alert that your challenge has been beaten will push you back to restake your claim.

Verdict
Driveclub’s strength is its killer combo of stripped-back racing and social features, pushing you to keep going back to the track for personal glory and the glory of your team. If it lacks the glamour, freedom and exuberance of Forza Horizon 2, there’s compensation in the fierce competition on the track. The AI can be annoying, and not everyone will get the game’s approach, but if you engage with the game’s strong social angle, there’s a great racer in here to enjoy.

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OS X Yosimate review

What is OS X Yosemite?

OS X Yosemite aims to tie Macs, iPhones and iPads, like one big happy Apple family. The Cupertino-based company has had many of the ingredients in recent years, but OS X Yosemite completes the recipe and gives it a darn thorough cooking. Missing elements, such as AirDrop support across iOS 8 devices and Macs, have been introduced, as well as numerous new features 

Indeed, with added functionality such as the ability to make and take calls from your iPhone from your Mac, and the addition of iCloud Drive, this is a larger update than last year’s Mavericks. And remember, Yosemite is free.

But despite all that, the thing most people will notice is how it looks.

SEE ALSO: OS X Yosemite tips and tricks

OS X Yosemite – The New Look

We assume Apple simply ran out of time with Yosemite’s predecessor, Mavericks. While iOS 7 introduced a refreshingly new, Ive-inspired look, Mavericks was more of a tinker under the bonnet – an oil change rather than a full service. Yosemite catches up and the lineage is obvious. It adopts the same ‘flatter’ appearance, simplifies and adds generous lashings of transparency.

The effect varies from app to app, but the basic idea is OS X Yosemite takes the colour of your desktop background (or webpage in Safari) and reflects that within the window you’re viewing. It’s not transparent in a ‘see-through’ way; it takes the colour and makes it diffuse – the nearest real-world reference is that it's like looking through frosted glass. This kind of change inevitably raises concerns about usability, but they’re largely unfounded. We’ve had no problems with unclear actions or interface elements arising from this.

The transparency effects and a change in font, the same one as in iOS 8, give OS X Yosemite a much-needed freshness. It’s also brighter. Yosemite adopts a similar colour palette to that introduced in iOS 7 – a fact reflected in app icons and even folders.

We also like the many ways Yosemite tightens things up and uses space more efficiently. The best example is how many title bars (not all) are now removed. The traffic-light buttons – the three ones in the top left of every window – are still there, but they sit along proper interface elements, making use of space previously wasted. This means, for example, that the address bar in Safari is now on the same level as the traffic light buttons. It gives you a little more space and it looks cleaner and neater.



OS X Yosemite – From iOS with Love
It’s not just the interface that has a strong iOS influence; many features are lifted wholesale from iOS. The best example is the Notifications Center. which looks, feels and works just as it does in iOS 8. This includes support for third-party extensions and widgets, plus the ability to replace and remove the default ones with those of your choosing. Third-party support is patchy at present, but it’s bound to pick up – it already has on iOS 8. There’s still no ‘clear all’ option notifications, though. 

Yosemite also picks up the third-party extensions support added to iOS 8. Third-party extensions work across the whole OS and fall into four categories: Actions (edit or view content in another), Finder (integrate with Spotlight search), Share Menu (share with other apps) and Today (widgets). They’re a useful addition, though we haven’t seen many examples yet – developers are only now starting to roll out Yosemite updates. Yosemite also adds Family Sharing, which makes it easier for parents to manage family accounts and share purchases, and iCloud Drive.




iCloud Drive is a belated admission that Apple’s previous iCloud system was too restrictive, even by Apple's standards. Instead of files being cocooned within individual apps, iCloud Drive organises them into folders in much the same way Dropbox does. By default iCloud Drive apps have their own folders, but you can access them and open the files in any compatible app.

Other iOS inspirations are subtle, such as the way the address bar in Safari hides the full URL until it's selected, in favour of the domain or – in the case of verified websites – the name. These kind of changes might upset purists, but there’s sense in them. Hiding the URL makes it harder for phishing sites to ‘spoof’ domain names, as they can’t hide the real domain with overly long and complex URLs.



The final iOS-like flourish is a significant upgrade to Spotlight. Just as in iOS 8, it pulls in search information from numerous other sources (Maps, Wikipedia, iTunes, Bing etc.), but it’s also gained a new, larger preview window. The new window gives you previews of the results and organises your search results by category (i.e. Bing results and files on the Mac are separated) and it puts what it thinks is the most relevant result at the top. It’s a useful improvement and, just like iOS, it’s integrated into the search bar in Safari, too.

OS X Yosemite – Continuity and Handoff

This is where the integration between Macs and iOS moves to a different level. Continuity, the collective name for a number of features such as AirDrop and Handoff, elevate OS X Yosemite and iOS 8 from solid, useful updates to must have ones. 

Handoff is likely to see more use. It lets you quickly pick up whatever you’re viewing on one device and switch to another. Most of the core apps, such as Safari, Mail, Maps and Pages, support it. On Yosemite it’s represented by an icon in the far left that pops up whenever a Handoff opportunity is available. 

We’ve found the most useful application is simply opening web pages from other devices on a Mac — i.e. viewing a website on an iPhone and then opening the same page on a laptop — but it’s also useful when composing emails or working on documents. It’s also open to third-party developers to exploit, though none have yet.

There are a few requirements for Handoff beyond iOS 8 and Yosemite, such as being logged into the same iCloud account, having Bluetooth 4.0 on each device and them being in range, but the feature works flawlessly. These are the same requirements for other Continuity features, such as the ability to make and receive iPhone calls on your Mac, and the Air Drop file transfer system.

Air Drop is very useful, particularly now you can finally transfer files to and from Macs and iOS devices, but its the phone call integration that’s the real kicker here. It’s a brilliant feature — just minutes before I reached this section of the review I took a call on my Mac while my phone was upstairs charging and it worked flawlessly. 

In our iOS 8 review we found audio quality and consistency of this feature was a little off, but in the final version of Yosemite there are no problems at all. Moreover, provided you don’t live in a mansion you can be reasonably assured that your phone will always be in range of your Mac, saving you a lot of unnecessary rushing about and missed calls.

Another aspect of the Continuity universe is the ability to send and receive SMS messages (not just iMessages) in the Messages app. Sadly this requires an iOS 8 update that’s still in beta (it’s due 20 October) so we haven’t been able to test it, but it’s the final piece in what are the most transformative features for any Apple devotee. They’re best argument yet to own an iPhone/iPad and a Mac together.

OS X Yosemite – Other Things to Consider

We haven’t included a section on setup and installation purely because it’s so simple. The update is available through the Mac App Store — it’s a little over 5GB — and took around 30 to 40 minutes to install on a 2013 Macbook Air. It’s good practice to back things up before you update, but we’ve had no problems in two separate updates.

The system requirements for Yosemite are the same as Mavericks, which means you can install and run Yosemite on any of the following systems:  iMac (Mid-2007 or later), MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later), MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later),(15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later), MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later), Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later), Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later), Xserve (Early 2009).

Finally, a short word on performance: it’s fine. We’ve been using Yosemite on a full-time work laptop (a 2014 15-inch MacBook Pro) since the very first beta with no serious problems. Those we did have were compatibility issues that have since been cleared up. If you’re running Mavericks you’ll have no problems. Owners of older Macs who aren’t running Mavericks already may want to wait for more user feedback, though. 

Verdict

The nature of annual system updates like this is that the differences are inherently incremental. This is good in one respect, as it avoids jarring, revolutionary changes that put off users (see: Windows 8), but it also eliminates the sense of surprise and ‘new-ness’.

OS X Yosemite, however, feels like the most ‘new’ Mac update since Apple switched to the annual, free update model. The new look and feel plays a large part in this, but it’s the Continuity features and the tight, effective integration with iOS that really sells it.

The bottom line is neither Microsoft nor Google currently offers a mobile and desktop experience as coherent as this. That could all change with Windows 9 and future Android and Chromebook updates, but right now Apple leads the way.

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What is the iPhone 6 Plus?

Having stuck to it's guns for so long Apple finally ceded the point – people want bigger phones. The continued success of plus-sized Android models like the Galaxy Note series and upcoming Nexus 6 has backed Apple into a corner. And when that happens it tends to come out all guns blazing.

And that's just what it's done with the iPhone 6 Plus. The 6 Plus is like the iPhone 6, but much bigger. There's a little more to it than that.  The main difference remains that huge 5.5-inch screen, but there are a few other small differences. But why has Apple decided to super-size the iPhone now?  The growth in phablet sales has something to do with it, but so does the companion device that Apple recently announced – Apple Watch. With an Apple Watch on your wrist you won’t need to pull the iPhone 6 Plus out of your pocket or bag all the time. 

The iPhone 6 Plus displays all the hallmarks of Apple’s key strengths. Outstanding screen, quality fit and finish and a great all round camera are present, but there’s no escaping how big it is. It will feel enormous to current iPhone 5S owners who will initially baulk at its heft, but anyone concerned by its size shouldn't write it off. Read on to find out why.

iPhone 6 Plus: Design

The iPhone 6 Plus looks huge compared to some other 5.5-inch phones like the LG G3. LG worked hard to make that phone as compact as possible and achieved something of a miracle. It's a lot smaller than the iPhone in everything barring slimmness.

Apple, on the other hand, has used the same design that the iPhone 6 possesses and it doesn’t work quite as well with the larger size.


The main problem is the large top and bottom bezel. They’re big and they make the phone look chunkier than it could be. The effect is offset by the fact that the iPhone 6 Plus is very thin at just 7.1mm. It also comes with a typically accomplished quality design. The glass and aluminium back merge seamlessly together and the iPhone 6 Plus feels great in your hand.

It’s well balanced and light too at just 172g. You’ll happily hold it for hours and that screen is perfect for browsing the internet or watching movies on the hoof. 


Its size means getting to the more inaccessible sections of the screen with one hand can be a struggle and can result in some straining digits. Apple has thought of this issue and has added a feature to the iPhone 6 Plus that brings the top of the screen closer to your thumb. 

image: 

Tap the home button twice and the active area of the screen drops, giving you access to icons, address and search bars. Unlike on the iPhone 6, which is much slimmer, this doesn’t resolve all the issues caused by a big phone. You’ll still find it a bit of a stretch to get to the sides of the screen unless you’ve got big hands, especially when texting.  Most people will need to use both hands to be comfortable in this scenario. Still, it’s an elegant solution that makes using the iPhone 6 Plus much easier than we expected.

Just as on the iPhone 6, the 6 Plus has the power button on the right hand side, about an inch and a half from the top. It’s reachable but it would have been better if it was a little lower down. It’s the same story with the volume buttons on the left.



Despite the slightly awkward location of the side buttons the iPhone 6 Plus handles well even when you’re using it one handed. It feels like a premium product – no-one can quite match Apple’s superb build quality. The iPhone 6 Plus manages to feel both solid and soft at the same time.

There is one area where Apple couldn’t quite get everything to fit smoothly into the body of the 6 Plus. The camera is a little raised from the back so it can fit the sensor with the addition of optical image stabilisation. It only comes out slightly and the edges are chamfered, so it looks good and doesn't snag on material as you put it in your pocket.


They better be large pockets, though. The 158.1mm tall, 77.8mm wide and 7.1mm thick body fits into tight jeans, but not with much to spare. Its thinness helps it slide into pockets, but it is larger than some other phones that come with the same size screen.   

For that reason the iPhone 6 Plus isn’t quite the design triumph we’ve come to expect from Apple. It’s very well made and feels great in hand, but is just a bit too big. LG has shown with the G3 that a 5.5-inch screen can be fit into a body that feels more like a phone than a phablet. It feels as if Apple could have tried harder to make a bespoke design to this size, rather than zapping the iPhone 6 with a growth ray.  

So, if you’re happy with the size of your current iPhone, or if you struggle with larger phones, then you should go for the iPhone 6 as opposed to its bigger brother. It’s a lot more pocketable and big step up from the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5S.

If you do opt for iPhone 6 Plus, though, it’s well worth considering Apple's leather case. It adds very little bulk and provides a super grippy surface to ensure you don’t fumble your phone. The larger phone is little slippery thanks to its curved corners and greater width. 


Finally, we need to address the issue that has gone viral – the bendable iPhone. Apple has responded by claiming that there have only been nine cases so far and we believe it. We’ve had both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in tight jeans while cycling and for more than a week in day-to-day use. We’ve experienced no sign of bending at all. 

Time will tell if this is a valid complaint or not but in our experience they appear as solid, if not more, than many other phones on the market. This has also been verified by independent test. It seems to be a storm in a teacup that has been stoked further by those with an agenda.

iPhone 6 Plus: Screen

Apple is often accused of being behind the times when it comes to screen resolutions. The iPhone 6 Plus comes with the highest resolution display ever on an Apple phone. It’s a full HD screen – 1920 x 1080 – with 401 pixels per inch (ppi). Apple calls it Retina HD but in pure number terms it falls behind of the best android Phone. Both the LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 come with QHD screens, which means a resolution of 2560 x 1440 and 534ppi / 515ppi respectively.

That sounds like a big difference, but it isn't really. You don’t notice the extra pixels much. The Korean phones are sharper than the iPhone 6 Plus but you’ll have to zoom into text or pictures to notice any difference. In most other respects the iPhone 6 Plus has them beaten. The screen is bright and copes brilliantly in bright sunlight. 

Colours are supremely accurate – they remain perfect at every angle and it has the best contrast and black level of any LCD-screened phone. It can’t compare with the perfect blacks that the AMOLED display on the Note 4 can muster, but the natural colours make up for it.

Screen experts DisplayMate also rate the screen on the iPhone 6 Plus, calling it the “best performing Smartphone LCD display that we have ever tested”. This is a very special screen indeed and you’ll love using the extra real estate to play games or watch videos.  

The extra space means that the iPhone 6 Plus comes with a bigger and better speaker than the one on the iPhone 6. It is louder but more importantly it also comes with more depth and low end. It’s still mono, but you’ll happily watch your favourite Netflix series.

One issue that is more apparent with the speaker on the 6 Plus is that the grille is at the bottom right where your index finger is when holding it in landscape mode. The iPhone 6 is narrow enough to allow your finger to curve and not muffle the speaker, but this is more problematic on the iPhone 6 Plus. Considering the size of the top and bottom bezels it’s a shame that Apple didn’t choose to place front facing stereo speakers like the ones found on the HTC One M8.

iPhone 6 Plus: Connectivity

It’s been a while coming but the big news is that the iPhone 6 Plus has NFC (Near Field Communication). It’s limited to Apple Pay so you won’t be able to use it to pair with other NFC enabled devices you might have around the home, like wireless speakers, but Apple Pay has a huge amount of potential.

In other respects the 6 Plus has everything you’d expect from a top-of-the-range phone. You get Bluetooth 4.0, AirDrop (Apple’s feature that lets you easily share content from your phone with other Apple devices) and Wi-Fi 802.11ac. That's a lot faster than the Wi-Fi on the iPhone 5S although you will need an 802.11ac capable router to take advantage of this. 

The iPhone 6 Plus also comes with a comprehensive 4G/LTE chip that covers 20 bands supports speeds up to 150Mbps. This means that it should work well on 4G networks around the world – a useful fact if you're planning on importing one or you travel widely.

iPhone 6 Plus: Performance

Apple's new A8 processor powers the iPhone 6 Plus. It’s an excellent system on a chip (SoC) that provides oodles of grunt for high definition 3D gaming and means that the iPhone 6 Plus is butter smooth in day-to-day operation. 

If you just looked at the numbers you’d be forgiven for believing that the iPhone 6 Plus is a lot less powerful than the Android competition. The A8 is a dual-core processor running at 1.4GHz and is supported by just 1GB of RAM. It sounds paltry when compared to the quad-core 2.5GHz Snapdragon 801 and 2GB RAM of the Galaxy S5.

In fact, the iPhone 6 Plus performs better than the Samsung in some graphic intensive tasks like playing games.  

Interestingly, the iPhone 6 Plus also performs a little better in our like-for-like processor tests when compared to its little brother. The wins are small though, just a few percent points.

In the 3D Mark Ice Storm Unlimited benchmark the 6 Plus scores a hefty 17,740 while it manages 2,871 on Geekbench 3. These are very high scores, on par with the Samsung Galaxy S5, which is the fastest of big-name Android flagship phones, and almost 30% faster than the iPhone 5S before it. 

The biggest benefits of the A8 SoC, though, come from its graphical performance. The quad-core PowerVR GPU from Imagination Technologies is perfect for high intensity 3D gaming. Games look and perform brilliantly on the 5.5-inch HD screen. 

The increased performance comes with some other benefits, too. Touch ID, Apple’s fingerprint recognition feature, unlocks your phone quicker than it does on the iPhone 5S.

The iPhone 6 Plus also uses an M8 co-processor, a tiny processor that keeps track of all data created by the array of sensors. Apple has added a new measurement into the mix, a barometer. This means that the 6 Plus can also recognise altitude, so it knows if you’ve been climbing stairs or hills. Fitness tracking apps can now hook into this information to provide more accurate information about your exercise regime. 

The clever thing about the M8 processor is that it’s energy efficient. Battery life would be compromised if sensor data was constantly processed by the main A8 processor. It means that when you’re not doing much with your phone your battery doesn’t drain as quickly. It restricts phone functions when it knows your phone hasn’t moved for a while and is in an area with no signal. Clever stuff.

One feature that some may find lacking from the iPhone 6 Plus is the digitiser stylus. The Galaxy Note series is famous for it and while some people find it useful many others rarely use it. It is a useful addition and if you like taking hand-written notes, drawing or using a pen rather than a keyboard you might want to wait for the Galaxy Note 4. 

iPhone 6 Plus: Storage and Pricing

Apple has never provided the option of adding a microSD card into its phones and the iPhone 6 Plus is no exception. If you like to store loads of music, games or movies on your phone you’ll need to pay for the extra storage up front. 

It comes in three capacities: 16GB, 64GB and 128GB and that final version costs a fortune. In fact at £789/$949 for the top model the iPhone 6 Plus is the most expensive major smartphone we’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, the 16GB model (£619/$749) only provides around 11GB of storage after iOS 8 takes its cut. This means the 64GB model is the one to get. At £699/$849 it’s not exactly cheap, but 64GB should be enough for all but the most avid mobile media hoarder.

iPhone 6 Plus: Camera

The iPhone 6 Plus has an 8-megapixel rear camera similar to the camera found on the iPhone 6. It comes with the same new phase detection feature for faster focussing that Apple calls 'Focus Pixels' and allows you to change the light balance on the fly. Focus pixels help the iPhone 6 Plus focus a lot more quickly than the iPhone 5S before it. 

There is one important difference between the iPhone 6 Plus and the 6 – it includes optical image stabilisation. It's by no means the first phone camera to use it, we've seen it in Nokia phones in the past and the Nexus 5 last year, but it's the first Apple phone to have it.

What is Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS)?
Optical image stabilisation helps you take good quality photos by using a gyroscope to keep the lenses stable. This comes with some major benefits when you’re shooting. The most important is that you can get sharp, blur-free images even in low light conditions. 

To get the most amount of light possible the shutter speed of a camera is slower in dark conditions. This means that any slight hand movements while taking the picture are exacerbated, leading to out of focus images. OIS particularly helps eliminates some of issues associated with taking phone pictures one-handed, where you're less stable.   

The OIS on the iPhone 6 Plus (right) means less noise and better colours compared to the iPhone 6 (left)

In our test shot in low light conditions (above) the iPhone 6 Plus provides pictures with less noise than the iPhone 6. Those big pixels also mean it’s streets ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S5 in dingy lighting.   

In our test shot on an overcast Sunday afternoon you will notice that the iPhone 6 Plus’s shot is a little brighter and the colours more authentic. 

However on a bright and sunny day the differences between the iPhone 6 Plus and its little brother are negligible. In these conditions the extra pixels of the Samsung Galaxy S5’s camera makes it shine, providing more detail than the iPhones can muster. 

From left to right: iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, Samsung Galaxy S5

In terms of video the iPhone 6 Plus shoots full HD, so it doesn’t quite match the 4K shooting that some other flagship phones offer. It does, however, come with sensational slow motion video capture that now captures 720p video at 240FPS. It’s easy as pie to use and results look fantastic. 

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