Fantastic battery life, great display for watching videos
Expensive handset with few updates, made our hands and wrists ache
While the iPhone 7 may not have enough new features to warrant an upgrade from the 6S, the larger iPhone 7 Plus could have enough to persuade you. Its battery life is staggering, the camera is a great addition and the pressure-sensitive home button and 3D Touch features make it a good all-rounder, albeit not a great one.
Read more: iPhone 7 review
We can almost copy and paste our views on the iPhone 7 Plus from our review of the iPhone 7. The dimensions are identical to the iPhone 6S Plus, but the iPhone 7 Plus is lighter than the 6S Plus – 188g versus 192g. The iPhone 6 Plus, by comparison, is thinner and lighter than both at 6.9mm (compared to 7.1mm) and 129g. Both the iPhone 6S Plus and iPhone 7 Plus have 12MP rear-facing cameras but the iPhone 7 Plus's front-facing camera has been upgraded from a 5MP to a 7MP sensor.
Again, like the with the iPhone 7, the headphone jack has been removed on the iPhone 7 Plus, leaving the Lightning port. This lack of a headphone jack is inconvenient but Apple stresses it made the change because listening to music through the Lightning port improves the quality.
It does, but it’s marginal. Plus, this marginal improvement doesn’t counter for the fact you have to carry around an adapter at all times, this adapter adds a significant bulk to the headphones when plugged in, and you can’t listen to music and charge your phone at the same time.
Apple's iPhone 7 Plus, like the iPhone 7, is available in matte black and jet black. The former adds a real sophistication to the device and we were surprised how much a simple colour can add to our opinion of a handset. The latter, conversely, seems like a good idea but scratches easily and makes the phone too slippery for our clumsy hands. The iPhone 7 Plus is also available in silver, gold, and rose gold. Prices start at £719 for 32GB, up to £819 for 128GB and £919 for 256GB.
On March 21, Apple added a red model to the lineup, as part of its 10-year partnership with AIDS charity (RED). The (RED) Special Edition comes in red aluminium and is available from March 24. Prices start at $749 for a 128GB model.
The iPhone 7 Plus' 5.5-inch screen has an IPS LCD, touchscreen, with 16M colors, and with a resolution of 1,080 x 1,920 pixels it has a pixel density of 401PPI – the same as the iPhone 6S Plus. The iPhone 7 Plus does add a wide colour gamut display but this addition makes a small difference when the phones are placed side-by-side.
Elsewhere, more apps are embracing Apple’s 3D Touch and this feature feels more natural once you’re used to using the pressure-sensitive sensor home button. We’ve found ourselves gradually using 3D Touch for Citymapper, for example, or when posting to Instagram.
The display on the iPhone 7, and iPhone 7 Plus are both more responsive too. 3D Touch is not a feature we love, nor do we dislike it. Our only criticism is that we quite often enable 3D Touch actions when trying to copy a link or move an app and we’re still not used to the level of pressures needed for both.
Like with the iPhone 7, with the headphone jack removed there is more room for a larger battery (2900mAh up from the iPhone 6S Plus' 2750 mAh battery) and the taptic engine.
This taptic engine means the traditional home button is replaced by a touch sensor that responds with a vibration when you press it. This takes a little getting used to but it’s strange going back to using a button once you are, and the taptic response is missed. A subtle shift in behaviour which Apple excels at.
This taptic engine ‘clicks’ when you set an alarm, and vibrates when playing games which is similar to using a PS4 or Xbox controller but is a lot more subtle and nuanced. It’s a nice touch when using certain apps, but is little more than that.
Elsewhere, the iPhone 7 Plus offers IP67 water resistance. On paper, this isn’t as resistant as Samsung’s handsets – and Apple notes it's resistant, not waterproof – but tests have shown the iPhone 7 range can hold its own when submerged, and as a result may perform better than Apple has suggested. For existing iPhone owners, this is welcomed but for non-Apple users, it’s another feature that is playing catch-up.
As with the iPhone 7, the pressure-sensitive Touch ID sensor takes a little getting used to but once it becomes the norm, it feels strange using a previous, button version. It doesn’t add much to the phone, and the haptic feedback is so subtle it’s not a game changer.
There is also no noticeable speed difference between the Touch ID sensor recognising our fingerprint compared to the 6S, which was a marked improvement on the 6, and iOS 10 has sped this up for older models anyway.
Apple's iPhone 7, and 7 Plus, ship with iOS 10 installed and it really gives the battery a boost having an OS designed to run as efficiently as possible with the hardware.
To look at, iOS 10 wasn't as drastic a change as iOS 7 was, but Apple did say the latest software was its 'biggest update' in its history and iOS 10 does come with features Apple fans have been calling for, for years. Others bring the software more in line with Android.
Photos and the keyboard, for example, have been made more intuitive thanks to machine learning. This means that iOS 10 can now recognise faces in photos and group them together. Elsewhere, it provides more accurate typing suggestions that learn from the user's behaviour. iOS may be restrictive in terms of tweaks that can be made as well as the access it grants to non-Apple software and systems, but it is still the most simple operating system to use and by stripping out some of the options, it makes it feel much more natural than some versions of Android.
Other notable features in iOS 10 include the ability to delete Apple's default apps – meaning Stocks, iBooks, iCloud don't have to clog up space, redesigned Apple News and Apple Music apps, larger emoji, smart messages and a bedtime alarm.
Explore all of the new features in iOS 10.
We’ve previously preferred the smaller 4.7-inch iPhones; they felt like a significant size increase when we moved from the 4-inch 5S and took some getting used to. However, we’re now ready to step up again with the iPhone 7 Plus to take advantage of its extra features, namely the dual camera. The camera bump is still extremely unsightly but the photos the phone takes are great – on the whole, at least.
The smaller of the two new models has the same 12MP sensor on the rear but it has an aperture of f/1.8 and a new six-element lens. Apple has also added optical image stabilisation to the iPhone 7, along with body detection, a Quad-LED True Tone flash, and wide colour capture.
The front-facing camera has gone from a 5MP to 7MP, and also comes with body detection, wide colour capture and auto-image stabilisation. Elsewhere, it has Retina Flash, the front-facing camera records in 1080p, while the rear can handle 4K.
On the rear is a dual, 12 MP camera with apertures of f/1.8, f/2.8, optical image stabilisation, phase detection autofocus, two times optical zoom and quad-LED, dual tone. On the front is a 7MP, f/2.2, face detection and HDR.
Photos in low-light are markedly better than on the iPhone 6S. The camera lens helps capture more colour, detail and light even on a grey day, and taking photos of small objects up close is a joy. Especially a close-up shot of tiramisu – perfect for showing off on Instagram.
As with the camera on the iPhone 7, we couldn’t mimic some of the effects seen on Apple’s marketing photos and the action shots leave something to be desired, but generally we’re fans of this improved snapper.
The camera isn’t the reason to upgrade, however. It’s a bonus compared to the handsets fantastic battery life. After two weeks with the device, we are staggered by the battery life, in a positive way. Read more: iPhone 7 review: much-needed improvements at a cost
For years we’ve tolerated batteries that die by mid afternoon with even a small increase in use above ‘standard.’
Working in an office with poor mobile signal, causing our phone to waste charge repeatedly trying to get onto a network, and streaming Spotify for an hour or so meant we would often have to plug our iPhone 6S Plus in by around 2pm if we weren’t going straight home from work. We found ourselves carrying charging cables and power packs on days out ‘just in case’ and got ‘battery anxiety’ if it dropped into the red.
Other the past two weeks, we haven’t needed to do any of these with the iPhone 7 Plus. We’ve spent days streaming music, replying to messages, playing games on the 40-minute bus rides to and from work and making calls to contacts and the phone didn’t need to be charged at all – not in addition to the daily, overnight charge which is the norm for many modern phones.
On average, the phone lasts from 5.30am – when our alarm goes off – until we get into bed at around 11pm, and even then it still sits at around 30 per cent. During tests, the longest the iPhone 7 Plus lasted was from 5.30am until 1pm the following day. It’s a shame this has to applauded so much; it should really be the norm, but anyone who has ever had an iPhone will appreciate how impressive this is.
This may be in part due to the fact the battery is new. However, our previous 6S Plus, used as a comparison, was only a month old at the time of review so the battery life on the iPhone 7 Plus was still mightily impressive.
The iPhone 7 Plus does feel massive in our hands and isn’t comfortable to use one-handed, but watching videos on the larger display is great and once you’ve used the larger handset for more than a couple of days, it’s extremely difficult to drop back down to the 4.7-inch model. In fact, it makes the latter feel like a toy phone. This extra size does add a weight increase compared to the iPhone 6S and our wrists ached, and still occasionally ache, after a long period of use; around 20-30 minutes.
There is enough about the iPhone 7 Plus to warrant an upgrade, even from the iPhone 6S. The extra size allows for a larger battery and this is the standout feature of this handset.
We’re not sure the boost in battery is proportionate with the amount you’ll pay for the device, but couple it with the improved camera and overall sturdiness of the device and it comes increasingly close.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
