iPhone 6S Teardown Suggests Battery Might Be An Issue

Ahead of the the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus hitting store shelves in the UK, industry experts iFixit tore down the former to see what really lies beneath its snazzy new exterior and found battery life might be lacking.

The analysis found that the iPhone 6S is powered by a significantly smaller battery than many other premium phones, with only a 1715mAh unit inside (pictured left).

To put that into perspective, Samsung’s Galaxy S6 features a 2,550mAh battery, and the Sony Xperia Z5 Premium has a 2,900mAh battery, meaning Apple is somewhat behind when it comes to its juice.

Under the hood

This is also lower than the capacity in the iPhone 6, which packed in a 1810mAh battery, but Apple says that the iPhone 6S will offer up to 14 hours of 3G talk time and 10 days of standby—the same as in its older brother.

This reduction appears to be due to the inclusion of several extra hardware features that Apple has had to pack into the iPhone 6S, including the new Taptic Engine, which powers the 3D Touch responsive interface, and was found to take up quite a large space.

In terms of size, the 6S is slightly larger than its predecessor, the iPhone 6 (138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm compared to 138.1 x 67.0 x 6.9 mm), and at 143 grams, is also 14g heavier than its older brother.

The teardown also found that the display assembly in the iPhone 6S weighs in at 60g – 15g more than the iPhone 6, thanks in part to the additional capacitive sensors, (including the new backlight flash feature) that Apple has built into the display backlight.

Overall, iFixit gave the iPhone 6S a ‘reparability score’ of 7/10, meaning most of the maintenance that might be needed is fairly straightforward – but does require some specilaised tools, so make sure to keep your device safe!

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