Which iPhone should you get?

You’re happy with what you’ve got

You don’t need us to tell you this, but obviously never feel pressured into upgrading if you don’t feel any particular need to.

You’re still in contract with a decent phone

If you’re locked in a carrier contract and you have an iPhone 5 or later, or even an iPhone 4 or 4s, you might be looking to buy out the remainder of your contract so you can upgrade. If it’s just a few opt for the 6. (That is, at least, until the Apple Watch arrives…)

You both have and are happy to use an iPad as well

The iPhone 6 Plus could conceivably replace both an iPhone and an iPad for some people, but it’s a bit of a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ device, without the portability of an iPhone or the generous screen size of the iPad. If you already have and use an iPad – and imagine you’ll be happy to do so in the future – then pairing it with a smaller iPhone makes sense.

You want to keep your iPhone always with you in your pocket

The iPhone 6 Plus isn’t particularly pocket-friendly – you probably want to keep it in a jacket pocket or bag rather than trousers – but the iPhone 6 is fine. A little large, to be sure, but the thinness helps make up for that. months and you have a concrete reason to upgrade your handset, it might be worth it, and of course it’s worth finding out how flexible your carrier will be, but if the phone is still doing its job well, it’s usually sensible to wait until you’re properly out of contract before opting for an upgrade.

You’re on a budget

The new iPhones cost a lot of money, there’s no getting around it. If cash is tight, the iPhone 5s, 5c, 5 and even 4s all run iOS 8 and are still all perfectly reasonable at worst. Don’t dismiss them just

You just want it!

You might just be excited about the shiny, new, very different iPhone – and that’s okay!

You have giant hands

If you have particularly big hands and thick fingers, you might find pecking at the tiny tap targets on the iPhone 5s frustrating. The iPhone 6 will give you a bit more breathing room, but the 6 Plus would give you more still; app buttons might not be all that much bigger, but if you type a lot, the bigger keyboard will help.

Your vision is impaired

Switch the iPhone 6 Plus to Zoomed mode, and everything is presented at jumbo size. Sure, iOS has many other, arguably more sophisticated accessibility features built in, but sometimes you can’t because they’re not new – be sure to check out second-hand options.

You don’t want a bigger iPhone

Although we came to appreciate and even love the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus’ bigger screens, they’re not for everyone. We’re fascinated to see what happens next year – whether Apple will give us a complete 4, 4.7 and 5.5-inch ‘iPhone 7’ line-up or whether it will ‘pull a 5c’ with the 5s – but until then, if you want a phone that nestles into your hand, get a 4s, 5, 5c or 5s depending on needs and budget. beat the very obvious option for improving legibility: just make everything a whole lot bigger!

You want one, do-everything device

Sure, we called the iPhone 6 Plus form factor a bit of a jack of all trades, but it can be a good thing, too. It didn’t click for us like this, but we’ve seen lots of reports of people who just pack an iPhone 6 Plus now when they head out in the morning, leaving an iPad and MacBook Air at home.

You strongly value battery life

We’ve already said that it’s still not transformational, but there’s no doubt that the iPhone 6 Plus’ battery can take away some of the anxiety from actually using an iPhone during the day. It will mostly last a full day with moderate-toheavy use, or even a couple if you’re not hammering it as hard.

You want to benefit from better low-light photo performance

Only the iPhone 6 Plus has optical image stabilisation, which helps reduce the camera shake that can cause blurry photos in low light.

You watch a lot of videos on your phone

The huge screen makes videos a huge pleasure to watch, and the iPhone 6 Plus is light enough not to make holding it a chore.