The iPhone 6S is the best iPhone I have ever used and one of the best phones I have ever reviewed.

Here is a little backstory for those new to The Tech Dump: I have not used an iPhone for over a year now due to general dissatisfaction with where Apple was going with its mobile platform.
Over a year later, I have the beautiful rose-gold iPhone 6S in my hands to review and the difference in just one year is astonishing. The new phone is a return to the form and makes a strong case for why people should switch to the iPhone.
Performance
The iPhone 6S packs a punch with an upgraded two gigabytes of RAM and a faster Apple A9 processor. The pair makes for a buttery-smooth experience that has been lacking in the last few generations of the iPhone. Despite two GB being low as compared to other phones, the brand new optimized iOS 9 uses the RAM more efficiently than previous releases.
I have not tried any graphics intensive apps, but none of my usual apps tripped the phone up at all, whether it be my favorite puzzle game Threes!, Facebook or Twitter. I have never used an iPhone that feels so good to use and I cannot stress that enough.
The improved TouchID fingerprint scanner is blazing fast, almost too fast, which sounds like an odd complaint. TouchID on the 6S is so fast that the user almost cannot see the lockscreen if he or she uses the home button to wake up the phone. It practically unlocks straight to the home screen as soon as the button is pressed — insanely fast. Sometimes I want to see my notifications and the scanner is so fast, I almost cannot do that. But the speed is still amazing and if you need to see notifications on the lock screen that bad, just use the sleep/wake button instead.
One of the coolest new features that will only be improved on over the years is the 3D Touch display and the quick functions you can launch straight from the app icons without having to open the app first. This leads to the camera being quicker than ever to access, and the shortcut also allows you to choose which camera you want before you open the app. If you want to take a selfie, just use to shortcut to access the selfie camera. It is just that simple.

Right now the shortcuts are mainly for Apple’s apps, but one of my favorite functions was the quick option to Shazam songs. Instead of opening the app and waiting for it to load, I picked the “Shazam Now” option and the app is immediately listening to the song playing. More and more uses for the 3D Touch technology will become available as more and more developers find clever uses for it. The feature adds a new level of interaction with the phone and is one of the features with the most potential.
The newly released iOS 9 gives the phone stability and features that lay the groundwork for the future of iOS. Apple’s aim to integrate Siri even deeper in the operating system is more apparent than ever.
The Spotlight Search feature has been moved back to the left of the main home screen and has been titled “Siri Suggestions.” The new area holds suggested contacts, apps and news, along with, nearby locations broken up into categories . Over time, I never got the sense that Siri was learning what I needed to use at different times of day. The contacts section is mainly people you speak to often and apps suggestions are based mainly off of how many times you open each app. Perhaps if I spent more time with the phone, Siri would get better, but for the most part I ignored the screen. It works, but it simply is not helpful. I anticipate Apple is going to develop the screen better in future updates, but at the moment it seems like a beta feature.
The new Taptic Engine that controls the vibration is also a feature that needs to be worked on.
The new sliding motor controls how the phone vibrates. It creates an even more intense vibration, but cuts down on how loud the vibration sound is. It also cuts down on how loud the phone on a hard surface is because the motor moves back and forth rather than in a circle. The way I see it is, if you put your phone on vibrate, you do not want to hear it. The vibration motor allows for strong vibrations without any of the noise and that is outstanding.
Overall I had an incredibly positive experience with how the phone performed and with iOS 9 squashing most of the bugs that plagued the operating system before, the phone feels better to use than it ever has.
Hardware
Usually I talk about the hardware and build quality first, but the phone is widely unchanged from last year’s model as this is the “S-Cycle” release.
There are a few important subtle changes that need to be addressed. This year, in order to avoid any more Bendgate scandals, Apple has used a new alloy in the metal that makes the phone slightly heavier. I happen to enjoy the added weight because the phone feels more solid than before. The glass on the front has been replaced with a glass that is supposed to be stronger than sapphire glass which hopefully will cut down on cracks in the future.
The metal back feels amazing and the curves on the side conform perfectly to my hand, making it the most comfortable phone I have ever held without a case. The comfort without a case is important because people are going to want to look at the brand new rose-gold color. While it is a very pink rose-gold, Apple is marketing it towards everyone. I personally think the color is a welcome change and if I was to buy an iPhone, I would buy the rose-gold.
The speaker on the bottom is about as average as you would expect. It is plenty loud, but you won’t be listening to any music for long periods of time on it.
The one qualm I have with the design is the white bands that wrap around the back of the device. The metal back is so nice to look at, but the antenna bands take away from the look. I would much prefer a solid metal back similar to the iPod Touch. I know that the inclusion of the bands is to increase the connectivity with mobile towers, but I am hoping that in the iPhone 7, Apple figures out a way to make them less apparent.
Besides the bands, the iPhone is one of the nicest made phones on the market.
This includes its camera.
I did snap a couple of shots to see how the Live Photos work and to see the camera quality overall. I will post a couple of examples, but disclaimer, I am nowhere near as good as anyone else with a camera.
The camera takes great photos, which is what you expect with the iPhone these days, but it is not as big of a jump in quality this year. It is definitely better, but it is not as drastic as I was expecting.

The biggest camera upgrade was the selfie camera. Now the front-facing camera is five megapixels up from 1.2. In addition, the screen also acts as a flash that flashes based off of how much light is present in the area. Some of the lighting was odd in a couple of the test shots I did, but they are a vast improvement over the photos from before.
Worthy of the Upgrade?
One of the questions I know I will get is “Should I upgrade from the iPhone 6?” I don’t know the answer to that because I never used one for more than a few minutes. What I can say is that you will be happy with this phone, should you decide to upgrade.
If you have any iPhone older than the 6, I recommend the upgrade. The iPhone has come very far in the past few years and users of older iPhones will be blown away by the quality present in this year’s model.
I give it a 9.5 out of 10.