Best way to buy an iPhone 6 Plus on Verizon?

Unless she has gigantic hands she should probably just go with the regular 6.

I'm not as enamored with the 6 Plus as when I bought it. I think it's a bit too big.

 

Both. There isn't a comfortable way to hold it one handed. It feels too gigantic to use as a phone and I end up putting it on speaker. It seems thin, but once you put a decent case on it, it's huge and heavy. It feels like we've come full circle with cell phones back to this:



The regular 6 seems to be the right size for most people. It's big, but not too big.

 

If she plans to upgrade phones every 2 years, the subsidized phones will typically be cheaper. If your mom will hold a phone for 4 years, the other options save money.

There is a slickdeal to be had if she can wait for iPhone6S. It's best to buy in line with Apple's renewal cycle... just buy the subsidized iPhone6S around October. In 2 years, the trade in value will be close to or even exceed the subsidy price. You can have a brand new iPhone7S for free.

The Bestbuy deal now will ensure you have a iPhone6 going into renewal during iPhone7S release. It will be 4 phones old and the trade-in value will be shit, probably around $70...

 

the 6 plus really needs a redesign. i'm not sure what apple was thinking keeping the same exact design with the bezels for a larger phone.

the note 4 ends up being a smaller phone even though it has a bigger display

 

Slightly taller due to the fingerprint sensor. Slightly thinner and lighter. I'm not seeing a big difference in size or much in the way of design mistakes vs. the Note 4.

 

I would go the opposite way and say software is the problem. The UI is not intuitive which is uncharacteristic for Apple... you have to double tap to shrink the screen making unnecessary clicking the trade-off for larger size. I honestly don't know what the solution is but was surprised Apple didn't come up with something more impressive.

Note4/Android gets away with a little more because of the 3 buttons on the bottom, which works well for 50% of apps. But the other 50% are still annoying as hell, like reaching the nav at the top of the browser. The Samsung shrink screen is less elegant and more finicky than Apples.

 

People buy the giant sized phones like the Plus or Note because they want the increased functionality of a quasi-tablet screen without having to buy a separate tablet…which means that they're not really using one hand most of the time anyway. I see people using both the Plus and the Note on the subway every day and they're almost always using them tablet style for apps: two hands.

 

dont forget there's also a stylus inside that note. the fact that the note is smaller with a stylus compartment and larger screen makes the 6 plus seem quite larger than it needs to be.

 

It's slightly taller, but also slightly thinner and slightly lighter, so I'm not seeing what you're getting at in terms of size. Internals look pretty efficient…

 

basically what i'm saying is that it's larger than it needs to be. apple can definitely cut back the size of the phone if they wanted to if they'd just redesign it away from the original iphone design. it'd be more comfortable for the users.

 

The only thing they could really do differently for height is eliminate the physical fingerprint sensor/home button and have the same functions built into the screen itself. That's apparently something they're looking at in R&D.

 

They could make the top bezel smaller than the bottom, hence why khaid said redesign the original iphone design.

These phones aren't for me as I mainly use my phone for brownsing while eating lunch, but height is a major concern for me when buying a phone. Currently my GS5 is a tiny bit too big for my liking and the buttons being off the screen don't help with balancing it one handed. All phones seem to be getting taller because people don't seem to complain about it. Form factor wise, the current Moto X seems like the perfect phone for me. On screen buttons, 2mm shorter than my GS5, same width all while having a 0.1" larger screen. Too bad about the phones other draw backs. LG G2 was even better, but LG have gone in the wrong direction on size for me.

Anyhow, the point is that you get a smaller screen for the same phone height with the current iphone designs. Couple this with having to shuffle from the bottom of the device to the top for regular use, it makes them a lot less ergonomic to use, especially one handed. Yes, the iPhone 6 isn't a problem, but the screen is also quite small compared to the competion. If they redesigned the bezels and/or UI/button layout, they could offer a 5" screen in the same sized device, just look at the GS4 and LG G2.

 

The orange area is the total height difference. The yellow area is the total screen size difference. IMO, it's obvious that the difference is very minimal AND that the best way to gain screen space while reducing overall size would be what Apple is already looking at: moving the physical button/fingerprint scanner functions into the screen itself. If you look at the history of the Note design, that's the area that Samsung reduced through shrinking the button size.

 

And how about compared to a device with the same screen size that has on screen buttons and doesn't care about top/bottom bezel symmetry?



The difference is not minimal unless you discount the smaller screen size and compare on device size alone. From my experience I have decided that I will not buy a device taller than 142mm and even then I would prefer on screen buttons despite their few draw backs. Surely even for full time two handed phone users there is a similar upper limit on all dimensions. Unfortunately, since the iPhone 6 Plus release, competition believes they can extend height a lot more since customers don't seem to care about it. Previously only Sony and HTC had such horrible designs.

 

Not sure I could live without fingerprint unlock at this point... although I wouldn't mind if the button was on the back of the phone for a quick index finger swipe. The Note4 already has the VO2 sensor there.

 

Looks like they all have top/bottom bezel symmetry to me. LG's bottom bezel is the only one that doesn't provide the user with an exterior function, so there's your design difference. It's not arbitrary on Apple's part.

 

The difference in top/bottom bezel is similar to the Nexus 5, it's there, the metal look part with the logo is slightly larger than the top itself, then there is the bezel around the screen in black which matches the sides.

EDIT: I measured the difference after scaling the above image to size in illustrator. The top bezel is just under 10mm and the bottom is 13.7mm. It is 11mm for just the silver part of the bottom bezel. I also confirmed that the other two phones are indeed scaled correctly and the difference does look larger than the slightly angled image you posted. Photos are difficult to use for accurate comparisons.

Yes I agree with fingerprint sensors being a wonderful thing. The touch variety, not swipe. But why must this mean that the top bezel grow with the bottom ala the GS6? From leaks it looks like they're keeping the note line fairly slim top and bottom with the Note 5, but that is not yet confirmed. Also, it's still way too big for me. It's like the Galaxy S series is seen as small enough already so they don't have to be so frugal. What happened to the mentality they had with the GS4? The thing was no larger than the GS3 while fitting in a larger screen.

Without trying out such a design properly I'm thinking that a design like the LG G2 with the fingerprint sensor on the back would be ideal for my needs. Just make it a little thinner with a soft touch back, add a modern SoC and camera as well as an OLED 1080p screen and it would be the perfect phone for me. I could live without the screen change since form factor is becoming more important than just about anything else on a phone for me.