Samsung Gear S2 Review: On the Right Track

Samsung has been going at it in the wearables game for a while now, and their past attempts has been somewhat underwhelming. With the Gear S2, they finally have a watch that I think is at least worth checking out.

It looks like a watch

Out of the box, Samsung has already gotten one thing right this time round. It looks like a watch, and a well-built one at that. Which is good news considering the “basic” Gear S2 costs S$448, and the more svelte “Classic” version costs S$548.

With a metal body, glass front, and a tiny bit of ceramic, the Gear S2 feels solid, and premium. The rubber strap, not so much. While the design blends in well with the watch’s body, I still wished that the Gear S2 has ability to take in standard watch strap, something that is only available on the more expensive Gear S2 Classic.

As someone who prefers smaller thinner watches, the Gear S2 took a bit of time to get used to. Though comparing to other smartwatches, it’s pretty petite already. Its design is very discreet too. Most people didn't even realised I was wearing a smartwatch until I lifted up my hand, and started interacting with it.

A circular watch that makes good use of its circular design

On the Gear S2, most people wouldn’t even know the bezel rotates until you tell them. Let them try it, and see the look of amazement on their faces. This is one of the best feature of the Gear S2 in my opinion. While I have not been using a smartwatch daily prior to this, I played with most of them in the past. The Pebble, the Moto 360, the Apple Watch. The interface and navigation method on those devices (particularly on the Apple Watch) feels cumbersome in comparison to the Gear S2.

With the rotating bezel, it made navigation around the system so much easier. Firstly, you no longer have to swipe on the tiny but gorgeous 1.2” 360 x 360 resolution AMOLED screen for navigation. Which means my not-so-thin fingers won’t block the screen. Secondly, it is faster compared to swiping through page by page. After using the Gear S2, it makes you wonder why other manufacturers haven’t adopted the rotating bezel design yet.

Intuitive user experience

On top of the rotating bezel, the user interface is nicely designed too to suit the circular design, as well as the rotating bezel navigation. The user interface while usable with the touch screen alone, feels like it was built for the rotating bezel, the back button, and the home button. Most of the time I only touch the touchscreen to select an option.

As weird as it sounds, this feels nicer than relying on software buttons or gestures. It feels solid. It feels like I am interacting with the watch directly.

And boy does it feel direct! The OS is snappy and fast most of the time when it comes to navigating around the OS. There are some delays and pauses from time to time, but often happens only while the watch is trying to pull information from the phone.

This is where running Samsung’s own Tizen OS gives it a slight advantage to customise the OS to their own liking. But as you will read more about later when we talk about third-party developers support, how this turns out to be a double-edged sword.

Getting in Sync

To use the Gear S2, you need Samsung’s Gear Manager app which you can download from the Galaxy Apps store for Samsung devices, or the Play Store for other Android devices. You read that right. It works with Android devices running version 4.4 KitKat and up, and has more than 1.5GB of RAM.

I am using the Gear S2 with the Galaxy Note 5 for this review.

You use the Gear Manager app for adjusting most everything, from what notification comes in, and to sending media from your phone to the Gear S2.

Using the app, you can look for Gear apps, watch-faces, etc, in the Gear App Store. Being Tizen, the apps availability are very limited as expected. Even some of the apps that Samsung said would be available hasn’t shown up yet. I haven’t found anything that was actually worth downloading in my time with it.

Starting with the basics

On the bright side, the watch itself is actually pretty capable on its own. Your home page is pretty much just your watchface. Swipe down for a few quick settings for brightness, do not disturb, etc. To the left, lives all your notifications. To the right, your widgets.

For widgets, you can customise those to your needs. Things like a music playback control, steps counter, weather, alarm clock, heart rate monitor, etc. You add a new one by just scrolling all the way to the right, and hit that + icon.

Knock Knock, Who’s there?

For notification, it mirrors pretty much whatever shows up on your phone, as long as you’ve allowed that app to show notification on the Gear S2 in the Gear Manager app. However, you are only able to take action on a handful of them like SMS (provided you are using the default Messaging app), Emails (provided you are using the default Email app), WhatsApp messages, Line Messages, and FaceBook Messenger for example.

For someone like myself who rarely use the apps above, the option that I see the most is just the “Show On Phone” button. If you have “Smart Lock” enabled (which you should) or you don’t have any security set on your lock screen, once you tap the “Show On Phone” button, it goes into that notification on your phone automatically. It takes a bit longer than I would have liked, but works well enough in most instances.

For phone calls, you can easily answer or reject calls as well. The catch is that since the Gear S2 doesn’t have a speaker, answering a call would still require you to take out your phone, or be connected to a bluetooth headset. When rejecting a call, you are given the option to reply with a preset template message as well, which is pretty handy.

It’s time to get moving

Part of the appeal of a smartwatch, is that it can monitor your activity level more conveniently since you always have it on your wrist. With a pedometer and a HRM (heart rate monitor), the Gear S2 can track just how active you have been throughout your day. If need be, the Gear S2 even notifies you if you’ve been inactive for too long, to motivate you to be more active.

Personally, I’m not a fan of micromanaging every aspect of my life. All I need tracking of are my jogs, and for that the Gear S2 is kind of pointless. Unless you are using S Health or Nike+ for your fitness tracking, you are out of luck here (endomondo user here). All I was able to track are my steps, and my heart rate after the run, something I could already do on the Note 5 without other added peripherals.

Since I have to bring my phone out to track using endomondo in the first place, the Gear S2 becomes redundant. It was able to guess that I was jogging without me telling it which was nice I guess, even though it wasn’t 100% accurate.

However, for someone who uses a bluetooth headset while jogging, and uses S Health or Nike+ to track their jogs, the Gear S2 is going to be great. But chances are, it's not. Unless you are willing to change your activity tracker of choice, and buy a bluetooth headset (both of which I am unwilling to do), the Gear S2 is not going to do much for you.

Cleaning it up

As with most smartwatches these days, it comes with a bit of dust and water resistant qualities, which is pretty much a prerequisite in my books. It is rated at IP68, and it seems to be holding up to that claim. I brought it out for jogs, wiped it with a wet cloth afterwards, washed my hands with it, and pretty much what I expect a normal watch to be able to go through.

So far so good, and the rotating bezel still works as well as it did on day 1, which is definitely a good sign.

The best feature of the Gear S2 houses its biggest flaw

S Voice is a bit of a mixed bag at this point in time. The ability to lift up your up and speak a “wake up command” to activate S Voice makes the watch a lot more useful. I have mine set to “Okay Gear” and it activates the feature very consistently.

I can use it to shout out a quick command like “Call Alex”, and it’ll make the call. By the time I pull out my phone, it’s already dialing the number and all I have to do is put it to my ears. I use it to fire off simple messages as well from time to time, but the downside is, I had to switch to Samsung’s default Messaging app on the Note 5 to do that.

Other commands works surprisingly well too. I can tell it to “measure my heart rate”, and it’ll do just that. I can tell it to “Play Music”, and music will start playing from my phone. I can ask it to start a voice recording, and it will go into the voice recorder app for me. I can even ask it questions, and it will do an online search for me. There are some things that it can’t do, like setting up a reminder for example, but it does a lot of things well enough.

The downside? It’s rather slow. After launching the S Voice which is pretty much instantaneous, and after saying what you want to, it takes a bit of time to process that voice into text. It then takes a bit of time to send that query, and then a bit more to get a reply. The speed alone is enough to dissuade me from using it too often. Holding up your wrist while you wait for an answer isn’t “user-friendly”.

Hurdles and Hoops

Since the watch runs Tizen OS, it means that it lacks the app catalogue that Android wear already has. With Android Wear, it is a lot more convenient too when it comes to third party apps. Let me explain what I mean.

I wanted to install the Maps, and navigator app by Samsung on the Gear S2, and going into the Gear App store works just fine. But then since it’s powered by Here maps, it asked me to install it. However on my phone inside the Galaxy Apps store it says that the app isn’t available for my device. I had to go to the Play Store, and install the app myself.

Talking about apps, there are pretty much close to zero third party apps that I found useful in the app store at the moment. Even some other applications shown off during the announcement has yet to show up like Twitter for example.

The thing is, looking at Samsung’s past smartwatches, it is a little hard to place faith in the company that they will continue the support of the watch for as long as they can.

Good battery life

The Gear S2 comes with a built-in 250 mAh battery, which is pretty tiny by any standard. The good news though is that the Gear S2 has pretty decent battery. For my usage, I charge it every 2 days with about 45% of battery left. 3 days of use is probably possible for me, but I didn’t want to risk running out throughout the day.

(On 40% brightness, with “wake-up gesture” and “voice wake up” feature on.)

The battery life of course can’t be compared to something like the Pebble, but 2-3 days of use seems okay to me for a smartwatch with such a nice display too. That, plus the battery life has been really consistent in my time with it. The inclusion of wireless charging was a nice touch too.

Extras

There are some nice things that comes with the watch as well such as the availability of Wifi for when bluetooth range isn’t enough for you. Say if my phone is charging in my room, and I’m out of range of bluetooth since I’m in the living room, the watch will use Wifi to relay the notifications to the Gear S2. Though this is probably common with other Android wear watches too.

-----

Conclusion

This is undoubtedly one of the best smartwatch in the market right now. It has a really nice design, great build quality, intuitive user interface, good battery, and some useful functionalities. It is a little surprising that Samsung was able to make a watch that not only looks nicer, but is easier to use too compared to Apple.

As a smartwatch, the Gear S2 does what it was made to do, compliment my mobile experience. It saves me a bit of time every time I use it. Instead of taking out my phone to check every single notifications, I do so on my wrist, and only take out my phone if I need to reply any. Instead of taking out my phone from my pocket to skip a song, I just use the watch to change to the next track. With the Gear S2, I can put my phone in silent mode, leave it in a bag, and not have to worry about missing any notifications. I can charge my phone in my room while watching TV in the living room, and still be notified. 

It also provides a bit more functionality like health tracking, stop watch, calculator, voice recorder, some third-party app, etc, and those can be accessed using my voice easily. But the thing is, Android watch does the same too, and then some.

The main things that the Gear S2 has going for it, are its design, and its intuitive user experience. In other aspects like ecosystem, compatibility, it loses out to its Android Wear counterparts. If you are already using an Android device, an Android powered smartwatch still makes more sense. No need to rely on third party solutions like Here Maps when Google Maps works great already. No need to do Yahoo searches when Google is still the best at search. No need to use the slower S Voice when Google Now works better.

In the pursuit of using Tizen OS and separating itself from Google's own Android Wear offerings, Samsung made some choices that sacrificed user experience for the sake of getting clear separation from Google. No one wins in situations like that, certainly not us consumers.

Whether it is worth the money Samsung is asking for will be entirely up to how much you are willing to pay for a bit more convenience, and a bit of time saved. The same could be said for any other smartwatches in the market right now actually, but that is a discussion for another time. What we have here, is a very capable smartwatch that goes toe to toe with the likes of Apple and Google despite its flaws. And that, gives me hope for the future of Samsung devices.

Sony Xperia Z5 Review: Same Same, But Different

Yup, you read it right. Yet another Sony Z-series flagship phone review. In case you have forgotten, here's a quick reminder. While the Xperia Z3+ was announced in late May (if you don't count the Z4), the phone only arrived in Singapore early July. So after just little over 3 months, I now have the Xperia Z5 in my hands. And nope, I have no idea what the folks over at Sony were smoking.


Theoretically, Sony's typical 6 months upgrade cycle means that they are able to reiterate, and improve upon their devices very quickly. Whether they are actually able to do that, is another question entirely. The Xperia Z3+ for one was a mixed bag. While it improved in a few areas, it went backwards in others. Resulting in a side step rather than step forward. Perhaps that's why it is called the Z3+ rather than the Z4. So does the bigger number this time round really mean a much better phone? Let's find out.

The Best Looking Xperia Yet

The Xperia Z5 is a beautiful device to look at. The green one that I have bought looks stunning, and so do pretty much all the other colour options. Sony's Omnibalance design has withstood the test of time, and this is the best looking Xperia smartphone to date. The green frosted glass back looks and feels great to the touch (I'll take matte over glossy finishes any day).

The bumpers at the 4 corners of the device blends in nicely with the side of the device too, along with a very subtle Xperia logo on the bottom left hand side.

While the device is nice to look at, using it is another story. The blocky device and thin sides makes it a little harder to pick up off a table-top. When holding it in hand, you can clearly feel that the back glass is a little sunken in compared the the sides. That rough edge doesn't feel nice in the hand at all.

Then there is the volume rocker which is placed below the sleep/wake button. It is nearer to the dedicated 2-stage camera button rather than the sleep/wake button. Using the device with my right hand, the volume rocker feels awkward. A situation that can be improved by moving the rocker a little higher, and nearer to the sleep/wake button. Using the device left handed feels more natural. While my index finger is on the power button, my middle and ring finger rests nicely on the volume rocker.

Fast, Accurate, & Well-positioned Fingerprint Sensor 

The sleep/wake button also doubles up as a fingerprint sensor at the side of the device, which is actually a pretty great place for the sensor actually. The position of the button means that my finger is going to be there anyway. I set up both my thumb and index finger on both hands, and that pretty much has me covered.

The reading and unlocking of the phone seems just as quick as Samsung’s offerings too, and seems just a tad more consistent. The trick to making it more reliable is to make sure that when you are setting up your fingerprint, try to replicate real life usage as much as possible.

Visual & Aural: Good, But Not Great

On the front of the device, you have a 5.2” Full HD LCD display. Just like on the Z3+, the 1080p display still looks good enough on a screen this size. Colours looks pleasing and accurate to me as well. I did find the brightness a bit on the dimmer side though, and when viewed at extreme angles there seem to be a bit of colour shifting. Minor, but worth noting. It’s a nice looking display, but far from the best in the market.

Also on the front, are the front firing stereo speakers which are nicely hidden at the top and bottom of the device. I actually found that on my unit the top speaker sounds a tad louder than the bottom for some reason. Also in terms of volume and clarity, it is no where near what HTC has to offer on their One M9.

I also did a quick comparison with the Galaxy Note 5 as well. The Note 5 sounded not only louder, but also clearer as well despite only having a single firing speaker. But, being front mounted means that when it comes to playing games, watching videos, it’s going to give a nicer experience just by being positioned in the right place.

A Familiar Powerful Performer 

When it comes to performance, the Z5 uses the same Snapdragon 810 processor as its predecessor, the Xperia Z3+. While it is a powerful 64-bit Octa-core chipset, it has been known to get warm a bit quicker than older Qualcomm chipsets. I have used several smartphones with the Snapdragon 810, and while they do get warm more easily, it didn’t felt like a huge issue. The heat tends to emanate from the top region of the device, which isn’t a position our hands are normally at anyway.

So does the device get warm? Yes. It does so easier than the Galaxy Note 5’s Exynos 7420 chipset, and just as easily as the Xperia Z3+, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. Is it too warm? Most of the time no. It only got really warm during the initial setup while I was installing apps at the same time.

Being the top of the line processor as of now from Qualcomm, the Xperia Z5 handled games with ease as well. But I do see inexplicable lag throughout the system pretty often. Janky animations, scrolling, swiping, etc. It probably has more to do with Sony’s launcher and poor optimisation rather than a lack of processing power. A minor annoyance that I have been seeing on far too many Android devices.

On the Xperia Z5 though, the UI lag seems a little bit more severe. Occasional frame drop when scrolling through the home or app pages, stutter when swiping away an item in the recent apps menu, etc. Things that felt smoother on the Z3+ and Z3 Compact I had. Hopefully these will be fixed with future updates, but as it is, it’s unacceptable for a flagship device in 2015.

Inching Towards Stock Android, But Not Quite There Yet

Continuing on the UI front, Sony has been toning down their UI customisation over the years and adopted a more stock Android-like look and feel. The Xperia Z5 is no different. It still has some Sony’s "flare" in it, which can be either good or bad. Some of it are useful, some of it pointless. But one thing Sony (and in fact other Android OEMs) has not pared down on, are bloatwares.

In Sony’s case, it is a lot of them, including Sony’s own. I say this when reviewing most Android devices from various manufacturers, both large and small, and I will keep saying it. I understand that they have to find a way to make money off their devices, but shoving bloatware down consumer’s throat isn’t the way to do it in my opinion.

Bigger Battery > Thinner device

So with a combination of a not so frugal Snapdragon 810 processor, Sony’s software, and a 2,900 mAh battery capacity, how does the phone match up against Sony’s claim of “up to 2 days battery life”? It doesn’t.

Sure it is completely possible to get up to 2 days of battery life for light usage in stamina mode, but that should not be how they market the Xperia Z5. If you use your phone like a smartphone, you are going to be charging it daily. The good thing is that it will most likely last you a day of use pretty easily, which is still a pretty admirable performance.

(Z5)

In one of the days I got 3 hours 20 mins of screen on time, a total of about 19 hours of use (including sleep) before I hit 3%. This is without the use of Stamina mode, and with moderate to heavy use. Playing a bit of games, taking a lot of photos outdoors, testing the camera, etc. The camera probably impacted the the battery life the most on this day though.

I would say on average use, it has about the same battery life as on the Z3+, but being a newer device, it would be nice to have more improvements. If only they had kept the same battery size as on the Z2 instead of shrinking the battery size with every generation.

Fast Charging Sort Of Available

If you ever find yourself low on power and need to quickly top up your phone, I have 2 good news and a bad one for you. The first good news is that like the Xperia Z3+, it supports Qualcomm’s QC 2.0 (Quick Charge 2.0) which lets you quickly top up your phone’s battery. The second good news, is that since it’s using Qualcomm’s tech, it will support quick charging on third party QC 2.0 charging adapters too. And those, are relatively cheap and easy to find if you need a couple of extras.

The bad news? The retail package in Singapore doesn’t include one in the box. Which is a peculiar situation considering the Z3+ did come with one. For a flagship phone that is retailing at a recommended retail price of SGD $998, that is ridiculous. Even Asus will throw in a QC 2.0 charger if you get the higher end version of the ZenFone 2, and that is a phone that is about half the price of the Xperia Z5.

Great Camera, But Not The Best

Then we get to final piece of the puzzle, the camera. For the last four flagship device in a row, Sony used a similar 20.7 MP Sony Exmor RS camera setup. Thankfully this time round, they are using a brand new sensor. There is no doubt about Sony’s ability to churn out great camera sensors. Just ask Samsung, Apple, LG, and a bunch of other manufacturers. But for mobile photography, I think software plays a really big role too, both in terms of camera UI as well as image processing.

Before I got my hands on the phone, DXOmark ranked the Xperia Z5 as the No.1 smartphone camera in their tests, which looks really promising. But after trying the Z5’s camera for myself, I have to respectfully disagree with their ranking. Of course keeping in mind, different people have different preferences for how photos should look. Or it could be because DXOmark breaks the performance down into different categories, so maybe the Z5 was impressive in one particular area that gave it a huge advantage over the others.

Because in my time with it, after spending some time comparing the images it too with other devices, I would not rate it better than the S6 or the G4. Don't get me wrong, the camera is great. But it's just not the best in the market in my opinion.

Nitty-Gritty

The camera app is still too convoluted, packed with modes that aren’t that useful. I personally prefer a simpler interface for phones. "Manual" mode, doesn't really let you tweak much things at all. I still think that Sony should simplify the app further and make those add-ons (augmented reality stuff) additional installs rather than having them baked-in.

While the fast focus is impressive, and enjoyable to use, its capture speed isn't. After each shot, it has to process the image before you can take the next shot. Sometimes after I take a shot, after the image finish processing, and I want to tap into the gallery to look at the photo, I am presented with a black screen until the image actually loads 2-3 seconds later.

(I am shooting in 8MP Superior Auto Mode as that is the default mode on the phone)

(Fast focus speeds)

The image quality is actually pretty great in day-light. The Xperia Z5 produces natural looking images that are truer to the actual lighting conditions compared to other smartphones I have tested. When you shoot in 8 MP Superior Auto Mode, the phone downsample the 23 MP image into an 8 MP one to produce better looking images.

The good news is that images do look a bit better. More balanced exposure, better dynamic range, better contrast, and a bit better colours depending on the scene that it detects. The bad news is that Superior Auto Mode isn’t spot on all the times. At times you will find images that are over-exposed, or white balance that are way off.

In low-light conditions however, the image quality is good, but not great. Without OIS the camera opted for a lower ISO, resulting in more noise, less details, and heavier-handed image processing. In fact when comparing night shots taken by the Z5 with the Z3+, the Z5's image processing looks a bit overboard when it comes to noise-reduction and sharpening. The consolation is that if you're just viewing the photos on a phone screen, it'll still look pretty decent.

Overall, the camera is a really nice upgrade from the Xperia Z3+. While the images tend to look a bit cooler than I would have liked, they do look more natural. Superior Auto Mode has gotten a lot more consistent too, and better at detecting scenes. When Superior Auto Mode is spot-on, the images looks great.

There are a few annoyances though. First, the Superior Auto Mode isn’t always spot-on. Second, the image processing speed isn’t quick. Third, the camera app contains too much unnecessary modes. If camera is your main priority, there are other Android devices that provides a better camera experience, and low-light image quality.


-----

Jack-of-All-Trades

What we have here is yet another Xperia phone. One that is better than its predecessor in many ways. Sony stumbled upon the original Xperia Z and has stuck to it ever since. Slowly improving on it, making minor adjustments and changes. For people who love the Xperia Z Series, this is going to be a nice upgrade.

The Xperia Z5 does almost everything well. Decent camera, decent screen, stereo speakers, decent battery performance, great design, modern hardware, decent software. It also has the plus side of being IP68 certified. But that’s the thing that worries me, because what Sony needs is not just a good phone, it needs a great phone. The Xperia Z5 does a lot of things well, but it is in a market where a lot of phones does that too, and then some.

For people looking for a great looking device that does most everything well, and is water resistant, the Xperia Z5 is a great choice. For fans of the Xperia Z series, this is the best Xperia Z series phone yet. It is the result of years of improvements and refinements towards the same ideology.

Which is part of the problem with what we have here, the same "If it ain't broken, don't fix it" phone. But the thing is, Sony is clearly struggling right now to make money from their mobile division, and I would definitely consider that "broken". But it seems to me like Sony still isn't doing anything different from before. The specification and design might be a little bit better, but this feels very much like the same company at work.

Perhaps the Z5 Compact, or the Z5 Premium will be better. But at this point, I’m not holding my breath anymore.

Apple iPhone 6S Review: Here we go again

This is the best iPhone to date. The end. 

This is how one does a new iPhone review isn't it? But really, do you need a review to tell you that Apple has the ability to make iteratively better products at this point in time?

But of course, I am still going to do a full review nonetheless for those who are not quite convinced just yet. Despite minimal changes to the design of the phone, something expected of the "S" variant, there are still interesting things going on with the iPhone 6S other than a shiny new coat of paint.

Other than a forcefully branded "S" on the back of the device, you are not going to score any points playing spot the difference. The thick antenna lines on the back still stands out like an ink stain on your favourite white shirt.

The rounded edges still feels pretty slippery especially on the smooth metal finish, something you're going to notice A LOT if you have the bigger Plus model, but more manageable on its smaller counterpart.

The camera still protrudes out slightly, but amongst the current crop of smartphones, it suddenly doesn't feel that bad anymore. A simple thin case fixes this easily. But really, I rather they make the phone thicker, and squeeze in a bigger battery.

Build quality is still superb, something we have come to expect from Apple. It is however slightly heavier, and thicker, something uncharacteristic for a new iPhone considering the diet it has been on for the past 7 years or so. But you're probably not going to notice that unless you have them both side by side.

The weight gain comes from mostly the display assembly instead of the more durable 7000 series aluminium. So, you're going to have to try harder if you're trying to bend it. I am not about to do a drop test, but from the 1 or 2 videos I have seen on Youtube, it seems pretty promising.

So if Apple is going to let the iPhone gain a bit of girth it must be for a good reason, and it is. While the resolution of the display has remained unchanged, what caused the weight gain was the hardware required for Force Touch 3D Touch. Not to be confused with long-pressing, 3D Touch uses pressure to trigger a different intend rather than duration. There is something nice about pressing something a little harder, and watching something else happen. On the other hand, it is extra frustrating when you press harder and nothing happens, and all you can do is try to press harder onto the glass, or try again.

You can use 3D Touch in a number of ways.

Press harder on an app icon to get a list of quick shortcuts into apps.

When you're in an app, you can long press to activate a "Peek" feature. Be it an email, a link, or a photo in Instagram. There, you can swipe up, down, left, or right to trigger more quick actions. If you want to see the item, just press harder to "Pop" into it, if not just let go.

Press harder while using the "swipe to go back" gesture, and you'll be brought to the app switcher. Do a full swipe to switch into the next app quickly, or a half swipe and let go to stay in the app switcher.

While typing, pressing hard will activate a trackpad which lets you move your cursor around for easier text-editing.

Being pressure sensitive, you can make use of the improved Notes app to do drawings. More pressure creates thicker lines, and less creates thinner ones.

Some of the features are genuinely useful, like using the keyboard as a trackpad, or quickly accessing a function within an app on the home screen. Others, like pressing harder to get into the app switcher does improve the experience on iOS too, but it is still not easier than say... lightly tapping on a button on Android.

Peek and pop is one of those that I am still on the fence about. Sure it might be faster, but I am not sure if pressing harder is actually easier than actually just tapping into the item, and then swiping from the left edge to go back a page.

One thing is for sure though, as more and more developers makes use of 3D Touch (especially games), it will make the technology a whole lot more useful. As of now, most of the apps (Google apps) I use does not support 3D Touch just yet, which means I have very little chance to actually use it.

Quick tip: If you find 3D Touch too hard to activate, you can go into Settings > Accessibility > 3D Touch, to change the sensitivity to "Light". I personally found it make using 3D Touch a lot easier.

The screen is not the only thing that got an upgrade on the front. The Touch ID sensor is said to be improved too. In my time with it, it does indeed feel faster than previous iPhones. Though speed isn't the most impressive trait of the sensor, it's the accuracy.

When comparing to the Note 5, the speed differences are negligible to me. But in terms of accuracy, Touch ID wins the round.

Like the non-QHD screen which still looks pretty darn good, other aspects of the phone on paper might seem mediocre at first. You have an Apple A9 dual-core chipset with 2GB of RAM, which seems measly compared to the Note 5's with 4 times as many cores and 2 times the RAM. But then again, we're comparing Fruits and Robots here, and specifications doesn't tell the whole story.

Those are 2 very very beefy cores we are talking about. In fact, when it comes to gaming performance, the iPhone 6S was smoother when playing Need for Speed: No Limits, and faster at loading the game. The same story goes for the operating system as a whole. The iPhone 6S is a very very speedy device, and the specs should be the least of your concerns with the exception of the smaller battery. The iPhone 6S finally comes with Cat 6 LTE capable hardware too, which means faster network connectivity as well.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the iPhone 6S has smaller battery pack compared to the iPhone 6? From 1,810 mAh to 1,715 mAh to be exact. While improvements in battery efficiency means that you're going get similar battery performance as the iPhone 6, it is still cringeworthy to see battery capacity go down. Apple is not the only culprit this year though. For a phone that is a year newer, I would prefer if there were improvements in usage battery life.

Actual battery life might differ depending on how you use the device. I personally have no trouble making it last a day with plenty of juice for spare at the end of the day. Helped by the iPhone's frugal standby battery use.

Onto the software side of things, iOS 9 is as expected, the best version of iOS yet. There are some refinements, some additional features, but really nothing that really jumps out to me as being majorly different other than the ones mentioned above like "Live photos", and "3D Touch". Others like a new Notes app, a smarter Siri, Transit in Apple Maps, Apple News, etc, are all pretty minor stuff that I rarely use, or services that aren't even relevant for the Singapore market. A lot of the changes are actually under the hood, or more to do with improved hardware like the camera for example.

On the rear of the device, you'll find a 12 MP shooter instead of an 8 MP camera like the past 4 generations of iPhones. With the upgraded resolution, we finally get 4K video recording. It comes at a price though. While the iPhone 6's 8 MP camera packs a 1/3" sensor, giving it a larger pixel size of 1.5 microns. On the 6S' 12 MP camera though, you have the same sensor size of 1/3", which mean you get smaller pixel size at 1.22 microns. Remember the iPhone 5S launch? Oops.

The good news is that I haven't seen any indication of poorer performance in low light, and the photos still looks pretty good. The camera UI is still dead simple to use albeit limited functionality. When you have a camera as good as this in auto mode, who need pro mode? Though jokes aside, if you want to get creative, there are 3rd party alternatives to let you tweak settings to your heart's content.

The bad news? The iPhone 6S still lacks OIS (optical image stabilisation) unlike its Plus size brother.

In lowlight conditions, there are a bit more details as expected on a sensor with more resolution to play with. Shutter speed in auto mode was kept at a good level to maintain a relatively sharp image. There are times where I had to retake a shot or 2 due to camera shake though, situations where OIS would have definitely helped.

Images taken indoors looks pretty decent too.

Overall, the photo quality is great as you would expect from an iPhone. The thing is this though, a few years back if someone were to ask me which is the best smartphone camera, I would say the iPhone without a moment's hesitation. It was the easiest smartphone camera to use to capture great looking images, and it does so at a remarkable consistency. Today if you ask me though, I can name you a few Android device that could do the job just as well, if not better.

A quick mention to the 4K video recording, while I don't have any nice samples to share, in my testing the 4K video quality was excellent. Don't believe me, watch this video.

Full resolution images for comparison here: iPhone 6S, iPhone 6, Note 5, S6, G4, Xperia Z3+

Though of course Apple did throw in Live Photos as well in the mix this time round. It's nothing we have not seen before on other devices or services, but being Apple, they made it dead simple to use. The feature is on by default, and when you capture an image, the camera record a little bit before, and after you image capture, compiling it into a "Live" moving photo. You view the photos by using "3D touch" and pressing it a little harder on the screen.

When you are expecting to capture motion, it can create really decent "Live Photos". But a lot of time, I'm just seeing myself lowering the camera. It is something that is fun to use, but has very little practical use.

"I used Mac OS X's Image Capture app to import the photos onto my laptop, and the Live Photos exported as a .mov file. So I guess if you want to make .gif out of them, you sort of can if you're willing to jump through hoops."

-----

Apple's tagline for the iPhone 6S is "The only thing that's changed is everything", but that's not exactly true is it? It's more like "The only thing that's changed is everything inside". While there is a new colour, the design is exactly the same. The processor is amazingly quick, 3D Touch is sort of useful, and the camera has been great too. It's the best iPhone yet, and probably one of the best smartphone money can buy right now.

If you are in the market looking to buy a new smartphone running iOS, there is little to no reason not to get the 6S/6S Plus. If you're coming from the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, then it's a bit less straight forward. While the improvements are nice, I'm not exactly sure they warrant paying extra to upgrade to just yet. 3D Touch is nice, but its uses are still a little limited just yet while developers figure out how to make full use of it.

Like I said at the start, this is the best iPhone to date. But whether it's the best smartphone for you, is an entirely different question altogether.