Apple's iPhone 6s Plus is the biggest, fastest iPhone that Sprint has ever offered. Sure, it's the same size as last year's iPhone 6 Plus ($90.24 at Walmart) , and it's the same speed as the smaller iPhone 6s ( at Amazon) . But the bigger screen on the 6s Plus benefits even more from faster Sprint network performance than the iPhone 6s does. That, along fast hardware and excellent camera performance, helps make the iPhone 6s Plus our Editors' Choice on Sprint for larger smartphones.
Our main iPhone 6s Plus review lays down most of the facts about this super-sized smartphone, including whether you should choose it over the iPhone 6s. We reviewed the phone on AT&T, which is slightly different than the Sprint/T-Mobile/Verizon unit in that it includes one frequency band (Band 30) that Sprint doesn't use. The phones are otherwise identical, and the AT&T model will work equally well on Sprint.
Network Details
The real news is how the iPhone 6s Plus ($127.00 at eBay) , like the iPhone 6s, is much faster on Sprint's network than previous generations of iPhones were. Sprint has a very unusual LTE network setup, which combines three broadly separated frequency bands called Band 25, Band 26, and Band 41. Band 41, which Sprint calls "Spark," has relatively short range from its towers, but huge capacity, especially if your phone is able to create very broad channels for LTE data.
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The iPhone 5s ( at Amazon) supports bands 25 and 26, but not 41. The iPhone 6 supports Band 41, but only one 20MHz channel at a time. The iPhone 6s Plus raises that to two channels, and as you can see in the table below, maximum download speeds increase by about 50 percent. (Upload speeds and latency remain the same.)
You'll only see these advances where Sprint has turned on two-channel carrier aggregation. That's currently in about 80 metro areas, although Sprint hasn't announced which ones. The blog Sprint 4G Rollout Updates posted 39 of the locations; they include most of the country's major cities other than New York.
Even if you can't take advantage of those faster Spark speeds, you'll have a better Sprint experience on the iPhone 6s Plus than on the 6 Plus because the new Qualcomm MDM9635 modem recovers from dead zones more quickly than the last generation did. Another Sprint note: Yes, the iPhone 6s Plus supports Sprint's Wi-Fi calling feature.
From left: Galaxy Note 5, iPhone 6s Plus, Moto X Pure
Sprint customers have several other large smartphone choices. The flagship Samsung Galaxy Note 5 ($696.00 at Verizon) and Galaxy S6 edge+ both have the same top-of-the-line LTE speeds as the iPhone 6s Plus does, and the Note 5 adds a handy pen for taking notes. The Google Nexus 6P ($149.95 at B&H Photo Video) is a less expensive contender—while it still has top-notch specs, its $499 price saves you $250 over the iPhone 6s Plus. For even less, the Moto X Pure is an excellent option.
But price isn't about to sway most iPhone buyers, who are looking at the 6s Plus because of Apple's superior app ecosystem, proprietary services, and support network. If that describes you, the most important fact is that yes, this is a considerably better iPhone than last year's, and it will give you a better experience on Sprint. That makes it worthy of our Editors' Choice.
The iPhone 6s Plus for Sprint can tap into LTE speeds that previous iPhones could only dream of.
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