I touched it,
I put my hand around it and I touched it
I felt a sudden tingle when I I touched it
A sparkle, a glow
I knew it…
It wasn’t accidental, no,
I knew it
I touched it…
I touched it…
And suddenly… nothing, nothing, nothing is the same!

Doug is in full “new gadget mode.”

I cycled (not jogged) over to my nearby AU shop and tried out the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. At the risk of sounding like a drunk-the-kool-aid fanboy, I really love the iPhone 6 Plus.

First a few notes about the iPhone 6 versus the iPhone 6 Plus. If it were just the iPhone 6, and you have a perfectly good iPhone 5 (like I do) I might just wait another year. The iPhone 6 is incrementally better. It’s a bit bigger, so you get an extra row of icons. It’s a bit heavier than the iPhone 5, but not so much that I noticed. And it’s thinner. And it has the touch ID button, which the iPhone 5 doesn’t have. And it has a better camera too (e.g. the slo-mo video processor). So it is nicer for sure. But like I said, incrementally so.

If you are still using an iPhone 4S I would say the iPhone 6 is a huge improvement and by all means upgrade. If you have an iPhone 5S I would say there is maybe nothing overwhelmingly compelling about it because that phone already has the touch ID and other improvements. If you have an iPhone 5 I would say “it depends” – on how gadget crazy you are, and the condition of your iPhone 5.

However, if you have an iPhone 5 and you’ve been feeling cramped in your screen space then the iPhone 6 Plus is like wow.

Here they are both in one hand. (You can click all the photos to see them full size.)

Both fit very comfortably in the shirt pocket of the shirt I’m wearing today. And the iPhone 6 Plus did not feel heavy at all, which was my main concern, since it weighs 50% more than the iPhone 5. I think the fact it is thinner than the iPhone 5 helps. The main points for me are:

The screen is amazingly clear and beautiful.

The camera is much better, and has optical stabilization.

You can just see so much more. You don’t feel “cramped” at all.

And it is obviously faster than my iPhone 5, which is obviously faster than the iPhone 4S I was using this summer.

Here are some screen views, shot with my iPhone 5. Are they beautiful, or what?

In case you’re wondering if more really is displayed, or if it is the same content as on the iPhone 5 but larger, it’s easy to compare. That last screenshot is of a blog post. On the iPhone 6 the first line reads, “Mon is at it again. Instead of fighting with Monta over the” – and then the line breaks.

On the iPhone 5 the same post reads, “Mon is at it again. Instead of fighting with” and then the line breaks.

So more content is shown per line on the iPhone 6 Plus.

Top to bottom also, both pictures are visible completely on the iPhone 6 Plus, as well as the tags below it. On the iPhone 5 the view gets cut off about half-way through the 2nd photo.

So there is more vertical content on the iPhone 6 Plus too. Just more of everything.

I can see possibly using this instead of an iPad. In fact, I wonder how much the iPhone 6 Plus might cannibalize iPad Mini sales.

Yet it is comfortable. And fits in my shirt pocket. And doesn’t seem too heavy.

One question I have is would I look like a dork talking on the phone with something that large? (See unflattering photo below.)