iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launch day: Teardowns, drop tests, long lines, and more

This morning, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus go on sale around the world. Those four million of you who pre-ordered an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus should hopefully receive your new, curvier, large-screen smartphone today. If you opted for queuing up outside your local Apple store, I hope you managed to get your hands on an iPhone before they ran out of stock. While I’m sure most of you bought a new iPhone 6 or 6 Plus becauseyou wanted a new phone, there are other people out there — evil technophiles — who rushed home to disassemble Apple’s latest masterpiece, or to drop it on concrete to see just how tough that non-sapphire screen is.

Yes, just a few hours after the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus went on sale, we have the first teardowns and drop tests. Read on for some glorious photos of the iPhone 6′s innards — and some very impressive drop test results.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus teardowns

Like clockwork, our friends at iFixit headed over to Australia to get a new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus before the rest of the English-speaking world woke up. Neither teardown revealed anything particularly exciting — but it’s notable that both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus received fairly high repairability scores (6 and 7 out of 10 respectively).

The teardowns reveal that the iPhone 6 has a fairly small 1,810 mAh battery — up from 1,560 mAh on the iPhone 5S. The iPhone 6 Plus, however, has a monstrous 2,915 mAh (11.1 Wh) battery — larger even than the Galaxy S5′s 2,800 mAh. This is why, despite having a larger screen, the iPhone 6 Plus has superior battery life to the iPhone 6. (Still, we wonder if Apple could’ve put a larger battery in the iPhone 6, but chose not to.)

Otherwise, both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus seem to have the same complement of chips and components. There’s the same A8 APL1011 SoC, the same Qualcomm MDM9625M modem, the same NXP M8 “motion coprocessor,” the same NXP NFC module and secure element.

Read: Apple’s A8 SoC analyzed: The iPhone 6 chip is a 2-billion-transistor 20nm monster

The iPhone 6 Plus, other than its obvious size, display, and battery differences, only really has one other feature that the iPhone 6 lacks: a rear camera module with optical image stabilization (OIS).

Overall, iFixit is pleased with the design decisions and repairability of both phones. The screen on both the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus is fairly easy to replace, as is the battery. You’ll still need a proprietary pentalobe screwdriver though.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus drop tests

As a lover of technology, I personally find it a bit upsetting that people buy state-of-the-art gadgets, only to rush outside and intentionally drop them on the floor. Still, if you’ve just bought an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, I guess it’s kind of helpful to know how rugged your device is — maybe it’ll help you decide whether to put a case on your new phone or not.

Anyway, here are two videos of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 being drop tested:

It’s obviously hard to proclaim any kind of authoritative result from two videos, but it does seem that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are pretty resistant to drop damage and smashed screens. The first video is particularly impressive — but the second video, where an edge impact smashes the screen, makes you wonder if the first guy just got lucky.

Also, I’m impressed at how high-tech drop tests are nowadays — look at the number of cameras that the first drop tester uses! Marvel at the apparatus that the second drop tester uses to ensure a fair and balanced meeting with its maker.

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Apple store lines around the world

Amusingly enough, the first iPhone 6 drop test was actually carried out by a “young bloke” in Australia, who unboxed his new fondleslab in front of a TV reporter — and then let it fall unceremoniously to the floor. You’ll be glad to hear that his screen did not smash.

And finally, here are some photos of Apple fans lining up around the world.

Remember, these guys will probably be queuing up yet again next month for the new iPad Air… and then a couple of months after that, for the new Apple Watch.

Author: By Sebastian Anthony

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