Christopher Mims from the Wall Street Journal wrote this:
Given the size of its current battery, a little back-of-the-envelope math reveals it’s more than reasonable that if the iPhone 6 were as thick as the iPhone 4, the iPhone 6 could have double its current battery life.
Rene Ritchie, writing for iMore responded:
It sounds great in theory, but if you take an iPhone 6 as thick as the iPhone 4 and start to imagine how heavy it would be, you can start to see where it breaks down.
Apple was deliberate when they pointed out the iPhone 6 was actually lighter than the iPhone 4. They did that because, while thinness is nice and certainly improves the feel of the phone in both the hand and the pocket, it’s lightness that matters. Lightness improves usability.
Read the rest of Rene’s post. It’s spot on.
Christopher Mims from the Wall Street Journal doesn’t care how heavy his phone is; he has unpaid interns carry it for him.
Plus, many people don’t NEED more battery yet, if the 6 was the thickness of the 4, they’d be forced to carry a bigger, thicker phone for a benefit that they don’t care about. Between chargers at every place I spend much time and my typical use the 6 I had rarely got low. The 6S Plus never does.
It’s good to be reminded that with a bigger battery comes greater weight but there are those who would happily make the trade-off vs. greater size, else they would go with the Plus. When adding a battery case, you are not only adding more battery anyhow, but more weight with the case material and more size/awkward shapes. It also doesn’t need to be “double thickness.” Even adding an extra millimeter or two of thickness with a larger battery would add hours to those power users who constantly run low (or out) without making it a lead brick. The argument in this article should be noted but it’s ultimately rather weak. An extended life version of the regular 6 or 6S should be an option for those who can’t seem to put their phones down but prefer the width-height size over the Plus. I bet the weight would still be in the ballpark of the Plus and that doesn’t seem to bother people. Cases are ultimately a larger, heavier and way less elegant solution than making a version with a slightly larger battery.
I think this tradeoff becomes more obvious in the iPad line. Does anyone actually want a 7.9″ iPad because it has a smaller screen? Is that a feature? Probably a few people, but most of us care instead that it’s cheaper or about half the weight (290g vs. 650g).
Now that the iPad Air has such a reduced (400g) weight, it’s almost squeezed the mini out of existence except for the price difference.
To put things in perspective, the Kindle Paperwhite is 205g. Just frickin’ amazing.
there is no way in hell apple would ever make an “extra battery version” of the iphone. they make one model (two different sizes) that is the end-result of all their compromise decision making. to over a second version thats only different in having a thicker battery would be the detriment of their overall process. and theyd get shredded for its mere existence.
no, it’s one design — whether that design has more battery or not. maybe the next one will?
The iPad mini 4 is amazing, though if they had a way to cut it by 100g… that would hurt even less when I fall asleep while reading and drop it on my nose. 🙂