iPhone 6 Plus: 5.5-inch Retina HD display, optical image stabilization, bigger battery for $299

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Smartphones, Corporate News, Handhelds

The iPhone 6 wasn’t the only larger smartphone that Apple announced today at the We Wish We Could Say More event—meet the iPhone 6 Plus. Featuring a 5.5-inch 1080p Retina HD display, the iPhone 6 Plus is the biggest smartphone that Apple has released to date. It’s got a display that’s a full 1.5-inches larger than that of the iPhone 5s. Be sure to check out the details on the iPhone 6, since the iPhone 6 Plus has a fairly similar feature set.  However, there are a few key differences other than size.

The iPhone 6 Plus display has the same 16x9 aspect ratio as the iPhone 6, 5s, and 5c, but packs in more pixels due to the 1920x1080 resolution. The result is a 401 pixel-per-inch density, resulting in 185% more pixels than the iPhone 5s. That means it’ll be a lot sharper. It’s also thinner at 7.1 millimeters, compared to 7.6 for the iPhone 5s.

Battery life may be the most important improvement on the iPhone 6 Plus, as all that extra space on the inside makes room for a beefier battery. The result is about a 20% battery improvement when compared to the iPhone 5s.

Landscape view is another differentiating feature. Similar to the iPad, the iPhone 6 Plus can be held horizontally, introducing a different customized view. Home screen icons will rotate, and apps like Mail, Calendar, Messages, and Stocks will show an optimized landscape view. Another custom view is Display Zoom, which allows you to increase the size of home screen icons to make them larger, or you can take advantage of all the new screen real estate and allow for extra rows of icons on each page of your home screen.

As far as pricing goes, the iPhone 6 Plus starts at $299 for the 16GB model. $399 will get you 64GB, and $499 will net you the new 128GB storage size. The device will go on sale on September 19th in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, and Singapore, and you can pre-order it on September 12th.