Also, battery life improvement was very much expected. The resolution barely increased (for the 6), the GPU is more powerful, and the battery is larger. If everything else besides the screen size stays the same or gets more efficient, and the battery increases linearly, too, then the increase in battery life should be positive.
I was always under the impression that this is why screen size initially was increased, to cover the space needed for a larger battery. The side benefit of course being, look we have big screens.
I haven't found a site that breaks out power usage by hardware features in a phone, I have seen sites on how apps can affect it. Would be interesting to know jut which parts of the phone are the worst consumers of power
Android has an embedded energy monitor. On my Nexus 7, the screen consistently uses >60% of the whole, even though the tablet spends most of its time in idle (with the screen turned off) and I keep wifi turned on the whole day, including during commute when it connects to dozens of APs.
EDIT: Oh, and I also listen to podcasts and music over bluetooth for hours/day. It hardly seems to make a dent.
The screen is the number one power draw, though I think it's true that generally the larger the device the larger the battery and that more than cancels out the larger screen. See iPad vs. iPhone battery life for example (but remember to include/exclude 3/4G for fair comparisons).
> Also, the battery was increased beyond the power needed for the extra display.
Yes but that makes sense. Horizontal phone size 5S->6+ increased by ~69%, screen size increased by say 65%. Overall phone volume increased by ~58%. If battery was 50% of the 5S volume and volume of electronics hasn't changed in 6+, the battery volume has increased by 116%. Some of these assumptions are likely off and the volumes slightly inaccurate but the point should stand.
Apple says the 6 plus gets 12 hours internet usage compared to the 10 hours on iPhone 5S