Gadget review: The new iPhone 6 – slim, slick and addictive

I was never an iPhone fan, until I got my iPhone 4. I never got addicted to a phone until I upgraded to the new iPhone 6. Pretty fast, somehow, I was hooked. (By the way, the official launch in Romania is tonight, and the new iPhone 6 is on sale at telecom operators on Friday, October 31). There are some features and upgrades that can be highlighted and that would partially explain why I like the new iPhone, but there is also something I can’t put my finger on – I got attached to the phone quickly (and you will later see, there is also something you can put your finger on!). I guess the sleeker, nice design helped get attached. The bright colors and the image depth might have had something to do, too. Perhaps it’s also the big leap from the 4’s small screen, to the 6 model’s much bigger screen (I did not even see the iPhone 6 Plus, which is even bigger). Well, the 6 is a bigger iPhone than the 4 and the 5, but it is comparable in size with other smartphones on the market, and it is not so big that it’s hard to handle (I was a bit afraid of that). It fits nicely in hand, and I did not even feel the need to get a cover for it, like I did with many of my smartphones so far. Somehow, it gives the feeling it’s not that fragile, and handling it will not lead to any dangerous situation (though this needs some further testing). The feature I like the most at the new iPhone is the ability to unlock it just by placing the thumb on its (now bigger) main button. It does offer the possibility to use one’s fingerprint to unlock it, and even to download apps (and pay for them), instead of always writing down your iCloud password – which I always hated (long and complicated password). Some people will say it’s not safe to get fingerprinted by your phone, and what happens with your fingerprint once the system stores it ? Well, I am not (yet) one of them. I enjoy doing things faster on my phone, and is this fingerprint thingie helps me, then be it! Now, when I look at my old iPhone 4, and even at the 5, and glance back to the 6, they seem to be in different ballparks altogether. If it wasn't or the nice apple logo on the back, I would have a bit of trouble realizing the 6 is an iPhone – rounded edges, slimmer, different button design…. It’s a good change, I like this change. It was also good they changed the power button from the top of the phone, to the right side – much easier to use. The iPhone 6 is very light and I think one of the slimmest phones in the world (so thin that in order to still incorporate a good quality camera, 8 Megapixels, Apple had to leave it slightly protruding the back of the phone; it does not bother, however). I was happy to see the phone does not heat up, as I was fearing it would. For those not familiar with the iPhone, you cannot remove its battery, it is unibody, which has its ups and downs. It is slimmer and looks slicker, but some devices with a unibody design can heat up. Plus, when the battery’s dead, the phone has to be replaced altogether. But I guess the latter is not such a problem – at the speed of new model launches, users will anyway trade up rather quickly.Battery life span seemed to be better than on my old iPhone and overall acceptable given my continuous use of the phone. But I think smartphone owners nowadays should get used to having a charger with them at all times, no matter the phone brand. Some iPhone 6 users might encounter a technical glitch which stops them from using the phone – completely. A warning about the phone’s temperature and its need to cool down might pop up – or in some (rare) cases, be the first – and the only thing the phone does after being unboxed. Luckily, retailers usually send a new phone pretty fast when such a technical bug appears. Some of my colleagues said the new iPhone looks like Samsung, or some HTC models (with HTC One M8 the closest in design, but better looking, according to my colleagues). I guess at this point, many phones will have similar features to a certain degree. But from my experience with both the aforementioned brands, the iPhone was so far the most stable and easy to use phone I have had, and now it looks much better, too. Another feature that took me aback was the sound clarity on the iPhone 6. A lot of people these days use their smartphone for many other things that simply talking on the phone, but it is in fact an essential feature – if sound and call quality is poor, I might as well buy myself a tablet and play on it, and use my old 2000s phone for calls and texts. The sound is crystal clear on this iPhone, much better, I believe, than on previous models. It runs fast – albeit I only had the 16GB version, and I don’t really use tons of apps to see how it works when clogged with everything – and its 4.7-inch retina display (5.5 inches for the iPhone 6 Plus) does trigger a