I was enjoying Gruber’s review of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus until I got distracted at the ~2000 word mark (not a typo!) when I saw:
[…]but it feels like a new device, bigger than the iPhone but smaller than the iPad Mini. One size doesn’t fit all, and a 5.5-inch display is just too big for my taste.
WEIGHT
- iPhone 5S: 112 grams
- iPhone 6: 129 grams
- iPhone 6 Plus: 172 grams
That stirred my 40+ year quest for the perfect portable video player for when you’re flat on your back or slightly inclined and need to hold the device above your head. I’ve been using a 5th generation iPod Touch in that role for nearly 2 years, and especially compared to options of 10, 20, 30 and 40 years ago, it’s outstanding and pretty darn close to perfect.
Gruber included the right numbers for an iPhone review, but that’s just entertainment reading. Pocket bulk is a big deal to me regarding a phone so I knew sight unseen the iPhone 6 Plus would be too jarring of an upgrade from the iPhone 5, especially when the iPhone 6’s 4.7″ screen was already bigger than the iPhone 5’s screen.
But in terms of the 40+ year quest it was an incomplete set of numbers so I added a couple more:
- iPod Touch 5th Gen: 88 grams
- iPhone 5 (what I have today): 112 grams
- iPhone 5S: 112 grams
- iPhone 6: 129 grams
- iPhone 6 Plus: 172 grams
- iPad Mini*: 341 grams
*model w/cellular, that seems like the farer comparison to the iPhone 6 plus but the cellular guts only add 10 grams to the Retina Mini’s weight.
From experience 7″+ screens have been too unwieldy for comfortably holding above your head with one hand for any duration. I’m guessing the yet unannounced iPod Touch 6th generation will be the 4.7″ screen model and that stripped of the extra casing/antennas etc necessary will shed ~20% of the iPhone 6’s weight to weigh in somewhere between 100-110 grams.
I definitely preferred the Touch to the iPhone 5 for holding it above my head to watch video, but that was more about the shape of the phone and thickness of the case than weight. It seems like the iPhone 6 casing is much closer to the iPod Touch’s than the iPhone 5’s, so outside of battery wear concerns I’m not sure it would warrant the purchase of a separate Touch for video viewing.
On the other hand while the iPad Mini has nearly 4x the bulk of the 5th generation Touch, but the 5.5″ iPhone 6 Plus has less than twice the bulk and would weigh even less if there was a slimmed down, non-cellular version. I don’t expect Apple to release such a version, but if it did, I’d be very interested to try it out for 40+ year quest purposes.