It’s fair to say that the annual iPhone launch has become the biggest event in the smartphone industry – but with the competition fiercer than ever, this year’s iPhone 7 has a lot of work to do to stay at the top of the pile.
Then there was the controversy surrounding the rumoured removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack – a rumour which proved to be true.
Given the iPhone’s close historical ties to the iPod and Apple’s focus on music, this was seen by many to be a step too far. Some were even predicting that this would be the beginning of the end for the iPhone – however, Apple tend to be the best in the business at encouraging users to accept a major change.
So, how does the iPhone 7 stack up? Is it business as usual, or are the wheels about to come off the iPhone juggernaut?
iPHONE 7: at-a-glance Summary
RRP from £599.99
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Water resistant | No headphone jack |
| Brighter screen, better colours | Screen has improved but lags behind competitors in specs |
| Better camera | May not change your mind if you're not already a fan |
Also consider: Galaxy S7, iPhone SEor Huawei P9
Design and first impressions
Unusually for Apple’s 'tick' cycle, the iPhone 7 isn’t a radical change from the 6 and 6S– indeed, it’s practically got the same chassis as the 6S.
However, while it’s heavier than the 6, it’s actually a shade lighter than the 6S – an impressive feat when you consider the internals have all been improved.
For those of you who haven’t seen an iPhone in the last two years, what you get is a sleek, all-metal body with nicely curved edges. There wasn’t really an awful lot wrong with the older iPhone design, and to be honest it still looks great. As an added bonus, this year’s model now boasts an IP67 rating for water and dust resistance– so should be protected from spills or even an accidental tumble in the bath!
There’s also been a major change, in that the trademark 'Home' button has been dispensed with. OK, so that’s not strictly true, as there’s still a very obvious round bit encircled by the now-familiar Touch ID sensor – but pushing on it while the phone is switched off reveals that it’s a fraud! No matter how hard you press, it won’t budge one bit.
However, this all changes when the phone is switched on – thanks to some sorcery from Apple’s 'Taptic Engine', previously seen on the Apple Watch and recent MacBook models. This gives you physical feedback when you interact with the 'Home button-that’s-not-a-button' to give you the illusion that you’ve actually pressed a moving part.
It’s not the easiest thing to explain – you really do need to have a go to see how it works – and it’s been interesting to see how people have reacted to it around the office.
Some people can barely register that there’s a change, but there have been several “Ooh I don’t like it!” reactions – and even one Agent who likened it to one of those joy buzzers you can buy from joke shops! For me personally, it took next to no time to get used to it, and you can vary the intensity of the feedback effect to find one that suits you. At higher settings the vibration does perhaps transfer to the phone's body a little, but putting the phone in a case would probably eliminate those extra vibrations.
Finally, a word on that headphone jack – arguably the biggest talking point about the iPhone 7 ahead of its launch.
First of all, it’s definitely gone – and how that affects you really does depend on how you use your phone. For me personally, my last three iPhones have all been sold on with the bundled headphones untouched – but obviously, some people use them a lot more.
The phone does come with a pair of Lightning earpods and also a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter, so you can use your existing ones. It also supports most existing sets of wireless headphones – you don’t have to buy Apple’s clever, but somewhat pricey, proprietary Airpods.
Indeed, regular music listeners would do well to invest in a pair of wireless headphones: the main drawback of the combined Lightning port on the iPhone 7 is the fact that you can no longer use wired headphones and charge the phone at the same time.
Hardware
Before we take a more detailed look at the components, here are just the facts:
- CPU: Apple A10 Fusion processor
- RAM: 2 GB
- Internal storage: 32, 128 or 256 GB
- microSD: No
- Battery: 1960 mAh
Connectivity:
- Wi-Fi
- Bluetooth
- GPS
- 4G
- NFC (Apple Pay only)
Those are the numbers – but how does it actually stack up in use? Let's find out...
Processor and memory
Now, specs are a funny one when it comes to the iPhone.
If you just look at the numbers, it always seems woefully underpowered compared to its competitors. Historically, however, the iPhone has always been the one that all the other companies are trying to beat when it comes to speed, smoothness and user experience. So how does the iPhone manage to do this with such humble specs?
Well, it’s largely down to the fact that Apple control everything about the iPhone’s design – both hardware and software. That means they can start with a level of performance that they want to reach, then build everything with that goal in mind. That’s incredibly efficient, and things aren’t so straightforward for Android – where there’s more different manufacturers than there are iPhone models!
In short, Apple can get a lot more performance out of their hardware, so Android phones invariably need significantly more horsepower to compete on the same level. It’s also why Apple don’t really talk up the specs of their phones, and instead prefer to let the device as a whole do the talking.
So whilet the Quad-core A10 Fusion processor and 2GB RAM may sound modest compared to something like a Galaxy S7 or HTC 10, the iPhone 7 easily holds its own when it comes to performance – its 40% faster than the A9 chip used in the 6S and a staggering 120 times faster than the original iPhone!
Screen
- Resolution: 750 x 1334
- Size: 4.7 inches
- Display type: IPS LCD
- PPI: 326
Apple’s display philosophy is another area that often draws criticism, as they’ve stubbornly stuck with their 326 ppi Retina display while the competition has forged ahead, cramming more and more pixels into their 4K screens and beyond.
At first glance, this seems like madness: I mean, surely more pixels is better?
Well, the short answer is yes, you will absolutely get a 'higher quality' display with more pixels per inch. However, the issue is whether or not it makes a difference to the user – and Apple do have a point.
More pixels means more power needed to illuminate the screen, and while there’s some really impressive screen technology out there, once you get past a certain point you start hitting the problem of diminishing returns. While the specs of a screen may be '30% better', in practice the benefit to the user may only be a fraction of that – so it makes sense to trade that off against things like power usage.
There’s also the screen size itself – and honestly, on anything less than a five-inch screen, a 720p resolution is more than enough. Sure, if you want to get eyeball-close to your phone and start scrutinising it for individual pixels, you’ll no doubt find fault – but in reality, most of us use our phones a good 10 to 15 inches away from our eyes. So, while the iPhone 7 does indeed lag behind in playground bragging rights, when it comes to usability there’s not an awful lot to complain about.
The iPhone 7’s screen has also actually improved on its predecessor: it’s noticeably brighter and features deeper colours and a warmer colour balance overall. It’s not the kind of thing you’d really notice on its own, but in a side-by-side comparison with the 6S, the colours on the 7 definitely have a bit more 'pop' about them – I’d even go as far as saying it all looks a bit more 'Samsung-y'!
Another feature of the screen is return of the 3D Touch feature that debuted with the iPhone 6S, allowing the touchscreen to sense different degress of pressure for added functionality. I’ll be honest – while it's undoubtedly clever, I’m still not entirely sure it’s something we really needed.
I’m still getting to grips with it, but it’s not always particularly evident when you should be using it as opposed to doing something like a simple long press. It may just be something that takes getting used to, but for me the jury’s still out. There’s nothing wrong with it from a functional perspective – it works perfectly – it’s just that knowing when to use it is a bit confusing.
Camera
Rear: 12 MP, 2160p resolution at 30 frames per second
Front: 7 MP
The iPhone 7 camera is, at first glance, the same 12-megapixel camera we saw in the iPhone 6S. A closer look, however, reveals a raft of improvements that make this a very capable camera indeed.
Probably the most noticeable improvement is the addition of 'optical image stabilisation', meaning less camera wobble, particularly when shooting video. Previously, this was something only something the Plus models benefitted from – but now it's standard in all versions of the iPhone 7.
The aperture has also improved from f/2.2 to f/1.8 – Apple say this means it will capture 50% more light, which should greatly improve performance in darker conditions. We did a few quick tests, and the low-light performance is indeed excellent, with the camera doing a great job of making the most of any available light.
The flash has also been upgraded from two LEDs to four, making it even better at matching the colour temperature of the environment you’re shooting in. It can also match the frequency of fluorescent lighting to eliminate flickering, which is a particularly useful trick for recording video.
Speaking of video, the camera can record full 4K-resolution video at 30 frames per second, and you can also take photos and record video simultaneously. The front camera is now an impressive seven megapixels, which will make for incredible (if unforgiving!) selfies and can also use the screen as a front-facing flash.
Apple have quietly been ticking off the boxes as far as their cameras go, and the iPhone 7 camera is actually very close in specs to what’s arguably the number one smartphone camera on the market: the Samsung Galaxy S7.
Is it better? Well, that’s difficult to say as we’ve not really seen enough pictures yet – but it’ll be interesting to see what photographers can do with the new iPhone over the coming months!
It’s also worth mentioning the 7 Plus camera, which was arguably the biggest talking point following the unveiling of both handsets. The 7 Plus has a second camera with a telephoto lens, bringing real optical zoom to the iPhone for the very first time and also giving a much-improved digital zoom function and professional-looking depth-of-field effects.
Apple’s demonstration of this technology was certainly impressive – and if you’re a keen photographer, the capabilities of the 7 Plus will surely catch your attention.
Battery life
The iPhone 7 has a 1960 mAh battery, which may not sound much compared to its competitors – but again, it’s all about efficiency.
Less pixels on-screen and less RAM means lower power requirements, and iOS has always been very good at keeping power-hungry background processes in check – so iPhones have never needed the kind of monster batteries you’ll see in top-end Android handsets.
However, part of Apple’s reasoning behind the removal of the headphone jack was to save space so they could increase the battery size – and indeed, the iPhone 7 battery is 15% bigger than its predecessor, which should improve battery live even further.
Certainly, we’ve found battery life to be more than acceptable, and it's interesting to note that some of our Agents have found that older iPhones, such as the 5 and 5S, have seen improvements in battery life since updating to iOS 10 – so it looks like this latest build of Apple’s operating system has made some efficiency improvements…which leads us rather nicely into iOS 10!
Software
The iPhone 7 runs iOS 10, the latest version of Apple’s operating system, which was released just ahead of the phone itself.
Visually, things have had a bit of an overhaul: notifications are a little bit more prominent and some colours have been switched around. The Alarm app, for example, now features a black background – which does make sense when you consider most of us will be setting alarms at bedtime.
The Control Panel has now been rejigged to give you separate sections for phone and media playback controls. This isn’t a massive change, but it does feel a little less cluttered this way – even if you’ll occasionally have to use an extra swipe here and there.
Unlocking the phone has also changed, and admittedly it takes some time to get used to! Instead of swiping to unlock, you now simply press the Home button – with a swipe taking you to a new notifications panel. At face value it doesn’t really make a lot of difference – but it turns out that several years conditioning yourself to swipe the screen to unlock isn’t easy to undo! Touch ID does help a lot, due to the speed at which it unlocks the device, but I still find myself absent-mindedly swiping into my notifications!
One of the biggest changes has been to iMessage, which now supports a whole host new features including notification effects, handwriting and 'Digital Touch', which allows you to send little hand-drawn doodles to your friends.
Of course, you don’t have to use any of these features, and depending on how tolerant your friends are they could perhaps get a bit irritating if you overuse them! However, I know for a fact that Agent Hall really likes being sent messages that are accompanied by a firework display – so I’ll keep doing that for a while yet!
Overall, then, iOS 10 is still iOS – meaning it’s still the mobile operating system everyone else is trying to beat.
iPhone 7: The Verdict
Tim Cook proudly proclaimed the iPhone 7 to be “the best iPhone ever” – but I suspect that the way people actually feel about it will be heavily influenced by 'headphone-gate', which is a bit of a pity.
Certainly for me, the removal of the headphone jack was a complete non-issue, as it’s not something I ever personally used, but I can understand how some users might feel upset that a feature they used a lot has been removed.
However, taking the headphones out of the equation, it’s hard to argue with Tim Cook’s statement – it’s the fastest iPhone ever made, it’s water-resistant, the camera’s improved, the screen’s improved and the new solid-state Home button is a real innovation.
Certainly if you’re an iPhone 6 user who’s been champing at the bit for an upgrade, you won’t be disappointed, and I suspect some Android users could even be tempted to switch thanks to the improved screen, better camera and new water-resistance.
However, things aren’t so clear cut for an iPhone 6S user, but this has pretty much been the case ever since Apple introduced the 4S, so it's not really a new thing.
Overall, then, it’s hard to fault the iPhone 7. It may not look that much different to the 6S, but that’s only because the real improvements have been made under the hood – where it counts.
The best alternatives to the iPhone 7
Not sold on the iPhone 7? Here's our pick of the best alternatives.
Galaxy S7: Samsung really upped their design game with the S6, and the trend has continued with the S7, which is arguably the best Android handset on the market.
iPhone SE: If you're a power user but aren't sold on a big screen, then the iPhone SE is for you. It's got most of the same hardware as the 6S, just wrapped up in an itty-bitty four-inch screen.
Huawei P9: If you want a premium hanset but are a bit more value-conscious, the P9 is a stunningly crafted phone at a much more affordable price.
That's our take on Apple's latest and greatest flagship device – but what do you reckon? Whatever your opinion, share it with our readers in the comments below!