iPhone 7 Vs iPhone 7 Plus Review: Should You Upgrade?

“Do I buy the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus?”

For millions of Apple fans, this will be their biggest (and most expensive) tech decision of the year. But it appears opinion is changing. For the first time iPhone 7 Plus demand has exceeded iPhone 7 demand, so are people making the right choice or should they ignore the new iPhones altogether?

Let’s find out...

Note: My thanks to Three UK for the supply of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus samples used in this review.

Design & Size - New Durability, Ageing Design

Looking at the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus what strikes you? Here’s a hint:

• iPhone 6 – 138.1 x 67 x 6.9 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.27in) and 129g (4.55 oz)
• iPhone 6S - 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.28 in) and 143 g (5.04 oz)
• iPhone 7 - 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.28 in) and 138 g (4.87 oz)

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• iPhone 6 Plus - 158.1 x 77.8 x 7.1 mm (6.22 x 3.06 x 0.28 in) and 172 g (6.07 oz)
• iPhone 6S Plus: 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm (6.23 x 3.07 x 0.29 in) and 192 g (6.77 oz)
• iPhone 7 Plus - 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm (6.23 x 3.07 x 0.29 in) and 188 g (6.63 oz)

Yes, this is the third generation of iPhones where Apple has made virtually no major external design changes. But look at little closer and there are some pleasant and important surprises in both the new models.

For starters the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are the toughest iPhones Apple has ever made. They add IP67 dust and water resistance to the tough Series 7000 aluminium chassis introduced last year and both easily survive being fully submerged in water or taken into the shower (more handy than you might think). Other phones have done this for some time, but its an important catch up and Apple has done it well.

Also adding durability is the move to a fixed, capacitive touch home ‘surface’. The old moving home button on previous iPhones was one of the parts most prone to failure (Apple developed Assistive Touch to aid broken handsets out of warranty) and the good news is its capacitive replacement feels great.

An enlarged ‘taptic’ motor successfully simulates the feeling of a press (with three options of vibration intensity). I’ve seen some reports saying it feels unnatural, it doesn’t and you’ll soon forget you ever used anything else. Interestingly, that’s also only half the story.

The other half is Apple has opened up the taptic engine to app developers so they can program it to enable custom vibrations. This could be a gimmick, but the quality of app developers is so high these days that I suspect something fun, clever or even educational may eventually come out of it.

More superficially, Apple has also removed the antenna lines from the backs of both phones which gives them a cleaner look and offered new Black and Jett Black colour options while retiring Space Grey. My advice on Jett Black: Do Not Buy It. In hand it actually feels nicest of all the finishes due to a surprisingly sticky texture that provides grip, but it is both a fingerprint and scratch magnet (something Apple even admits).

As such my experience of my iPhone 7 Plus jett black review sample was that, even handling very carefully, I quickly picked up a multitude of scratches that would break the heart of anyone who spent a lot of money on it (jett black is only available on 128GB and 256GB models). You can put it in a case, but that destroys the point of this head turning finish in the first place. So stick to the other colours or accept the consequences.

And this brings me to my other design related complaint: these phones are starting to look old. Yes they are as well put together as every previous iPhone (despite doubts surrounding the sapphire components) and yes they are somewhat iconic. But there’s also a lack of progression here. Slimmer bezels are needed for more compact designs, they could be more ergonomic in hand like the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge and it all whiffs - rightly or wrongly - of stagnation.

We know big changes are coming in 2017 but until then these new iPhones are not head turners and the iPhone 7 Plus remains far more cumbersome than its needs to be for a 5.5-inch device.

Winner: iPhone 7 - the iPhone 7 Plus is simply far too big for a smartphone with a 5.5-inch display. The 5.5-inch Galaxy S7 Edge is a fraction of the size

Goodbye Headphone Jack, Hello Apple Profits

And yet the controversy of Apple continuing to stick with an ageing design is nothing compared to the controversy over the one big external change it has made: the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack.

The move has been coming (I predicted it 2 1/2 years ago), but does it really do anything to devalue either the iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus on a technical level? Well yes and no.

Before we get into this though, what we must do is cut through the disingenuous message Apple is pushing behind its removal: that it is old technology with inferior audio quality and needs to be removed to enable water resistance.

Firstly yes, the headphone jack is old technology (the phono connector is it based on is over 100 years old) but that only means it is ubiquitous and it isn’t remotely close to hitting the limitations of its audio potential. Why? Because just like Lightning, the headphone jack is capable of reproducing 32 bit audio which contains frequencies even dogs cannot hear.

Companies like LG are taking advantage of this as well as the new V20 comes with a 32 bit DAC. What’s inside the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus? The same as previous iPhones: a 16 bit DAC. So you can see the quality limitations argument falls through completely.

And when it comes to water resistance, Samsung has already set the precedent: the headphone jack remains in the Galaxy S7, Galaxy S7 Edge and Galaxy Note 7 (when not exploding) and all three phones are rated at IP68 - a level above the jackless iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

Of course there’s the counter argument: So what, just use wireless or just use the bundled adapter?

Well for starters wireless headphones are more expensive, Bluetooth is lower bitrate (destroying the quality argument yet again) and it’s another thing to charge. Meanwhile the bundled adapter is a) an inconvenience many will forget or lose - especially as you have to keep taking it off to use your headphones with other audio sources like laptops.

And b) Apple’s bundled adapter contains its own DAC (yes 16 bit and lower quality) than the one in the iPhone so all 3.5mm headphones are receiving slightly truncated audio - great if you have already invested a lot in a premium pair.

To move beyond this you’ll need to wait for third parties to make adapters with higher quality DACs (potentially 32 bit making 3.5mm headphones superior again to Lightning headphones that use the 16 bit DAC through the phone) which will be expensive. Or buy new 3.5mm headphones with the DAC built in, which also raises costs.

So what happens if you give in and buy a new pair of Lightning headphones? (since the EarPods Apple bundles are rubbish) - surely you then win, right? Wrong. You’ll also need adapters, just the opposite way round when using them with all your other devices. Meanwhile if you want to experience full 32 bit audio then you’ll still need to buy Lightning headphones with an expensive DAC in them to bypass the 16 bit DAC in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

Meanwhile there’s an additional question for Lightning jack headphones of reliability. This is because as an all digital connection, Lightning is controlled by software so bugs in iOS updates can cause audio output to crash, or glitch (and that’s already happening).

Yes, it’s a mess and the only company to profit from this situation is Apple who will now charging Lightning licensing fees to millions of headphone companies, which they will in turn pass onto you.

So while in the next few sections you’ll learn about many great new aspects to the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus and strong reasons to upgrade, right now draw a line through the headphone jack excuses and don’t swallow Apple’s claim that removing the headphone jack was about “courage” and “old technology”. It’s a self serving move which is an indulgent step backwards.

More to the point, what would have shown real courage if Apple is insisting on an ‘all digital’ future (overrated given our ears only hear sound frequencies which are analogue) would be switching the iPhone to USB Type-C. This offers the same all digital functionality, support for 32 bit audio and a universal fast charging standard powerful enough to work on phones, tablets and even laptops.

Winner - Both lose

Read more - iPhone 7 Vs iPhone 6S: What's The Difference?

Displays - Ageing Tech Pushed To A New High

And now we come to an interesting contradiction. The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus ditch the headphone jack because it is ‘old’ technology, despite being nowhere near its technical limitations. But Apple has stuck with LCD in its displays despite it being an ‘old’ technology which is clearly reaching its technological limitations.

And yet what the company has achieved here is a revelation:

• iPhone 7 - 4.7-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD, 1334 x 750 pixels (326 ppi), 65.6% screen-to-body ratio
• iPhone 7 Plus - 5.5-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD, 1920 x 1080 pixels (401 ppi), 67.7% screen-to-body ratio

Look at the specs and you see the same 750p and 1080p resolutions and LCD panels which lag behind the 2K OLED panels of Apple’s competitors. But what the specs don’t reveal is Apple has pushed LCD to its very limit to hit new highs these panels have never reached before.

The key to it in this generation is Apple’s adoption of a wide (P3) color gamut and much improved colour management with 25% greater brightness thrown in for good measure. The end result is the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus have the most accurate color reproduction I’ve ever seen. True, they don’t ‘pop’ like OLED screens but they are more natural and seeing the 750p panel on the iPhone 7 in particular perform like this is remarkable.

That said, put side-by-side with the very best OLED displays and you will see the constraints of LCD, which is why Apple is hotly tipped to finally move to OLED with the 10th anniversary iPhone in 2017.

But back in the here and now which new iPhone is better? Easily the iPhone 7 Plus. It’s 1080p panel can match everything the iPhone 7’s 750p panel achieves, but it is also sharper thanks to the significantly higher pixel density.

As for the iPhone’s other major display technology - 3D Touch, there isn’t really much to say. There’s no noticeable improvement compared to the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus and it is still a guessing game as to what elements of the UI support it. The potential for 3D Touch to be a game changer remains, but iOS needs to work out a way of making it more intuitive and less about guesswork.

Winner: iPhone 7 Plus - both phones have surprisingly great LCD displays, but 1080p should be the absolute minimum resolution in a smartphone in 2016.

Performance - Two Rocket Ships

Much as Apple deserves plaudits for eeking out the very best from LCD, it arguably deserves even more credit for the remarkable performance of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus:

• iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus - Apple A10 Fusion chipset: Quad Core CPU, 2GB of RAM
• iPhone 7 Plus - Apple A10 Fusion chipset: Quad Core CPU, 3GB of RAM

There are two takeaways from these specs. Firstly that this is the first time Apple has put quad core processors into its iPhones and secondly that the iPhone 7 Plus has 50% more RAM than the iPhone 7 for the first time.

So how does this pan out? On paper the improvements are impressive. Apple claims a 40% increase in CPU performance over the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus and a 50% boost to graphics. Given the 2016 models still fly, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are rocket ships.

In fact in conjunction with iOS 10, the two phones deliver a level of speed and smoothness (a combination which should never be taken for granted, Samsung) that is unparalleled and I suspect even 2017’s Android flagships will struggle to live with them. Quite simply, nothing slows the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus and I can’t imagine anything doing so for a few years. Apple is so far ahead of the curve here it is arguably overpowering its handsets at this point.

So why does the iPhone 7 Plus have 3GB of RAM? Primarily this is to aid the image processing of its new dual camera (more next) rather than general system performance, but you will find background apps stay in memory slightly longer before they reload and it helps drive the extra pixels in the iPhone 7 Plus display.

As these iPhones age more differences may start to show - especially if iOS 11 can take full advantage of the extra RAM - but right now it’s no big deal.

Elsewhere Apple has upgraded the 4G modem on both phones from 300Mbit to 450Mbit (not that you’ll notice in real life) and Touch ID is just as fast and reliable (but no more so) compared to last year’s models, despite the switch to the capacitive home button.

Winner: iPhone 7 Plus - both new iPhones fly, but in terms of long term future proofing the extra RAM of the Plus gives it a very slight advantage

Cameras - Are Two Better Than One?

The missing headphone jack may be the biggest talking point of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, but coming a close second is their cameras as Apple tries to reclaim the smartphone camera crown it lost to Samsung in recent years.

And it is here where the iPhone 7 Plus steps into the limelight:

• iPhone 7 - Rear: 12 megapixel wide angle sensor, f/1.8 aperture, Focus Pixels, Optical Image Stabilisation, quad-LED (dual tone) flash, 4K video recording. Front: 7MP sensor, f/2.2 aperture, 1080p recording
• iPhone 7 Plus - Rear: Dual 12MP wide angle and telephoto sensors (f/1.8, 28mm & f/2.8, 56mm), Focus Pixels, OIS (2x optical zoom - wide angle only), quad-LED (dual tone) flash, 4K video recording. Front: 7MP sensor, f/2.2 aperture, 1080p recording

There are a raft of changes to both iPhones here: a larger f/1.8 aperture (to let in more light), optical image stabilisation (to reduce hand shake) on both models for the first time, a quad LED flash (two sets of warm and cool light LEDs now), a higher resolution front facing camera and an all new 6-element rear lens which replaces the 5-element lens in the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus.

Then, of course, there is the biggest selling point of the iPhone 7 Plus: its dual rear camera. One is a standard wide angle lens identical to the iPhone 7 and the second is a telephoto lens fixed at 2x magnification to deliver a kind of optical zoom.

So do they come together and once again proclaim Apple as the new camera king? No, but the gap has closed.

The big win for Apple compared to last year is color accuracy and low light. The former is the best I’ve seen on a smartphone camera and it makes great use of the wide color support in both iPhones’ displays. In particular the shots of flowers are dead on with what my eye saw in real life. As for low light, iPhones had been struggling in this area for some time and the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus right a lot of wrongs.

But they aren’t the best in either category.

Firstly in good shooting conditions you will notice in the shot of the garden path that the Galaxy S7 still captures more detail. True there is some oversharpening here (a Samsung image processing trait), but it is clearly crisper. Meanwhile the Galaxy S7 colors - while less accurate (which will annoy some) - are richer and it makes for a more satisfying shot with the iPhone 7 looking washed out by comparison.

Then there’s low light and here the differences between undoubtedly the best iPhone in low light and the best low light smartphones (the Galaxy S7 range, Note 7 and Nexus 6P) become more apparent. For example, in the shot of the street you will see the Galaxy S7 photo inset into the iPhone 7 Plus photo and the S7 is clearly crisper and less blown out.

It is a similar story in the low light shot of the church where the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus produce strong images, but you only notice the detail they are missing when the Galaxy S7 image is cropped onto the far right illustrating additional detail around the hotel sign. The Nexus 6P achieves a similar head-to-head victory.

And what about the iPhone 7 dual camera - compared to the iPhone 7 how much difference does it make? Not as much as you might think. In good light you’ll see from the second version of the flower shot the extra level of zoom the telephoto provides compared to the wide angle, but the original photo wasn’t lacking in detail in the first place and the full resolution crops on both are fairly close.

Meanwhile the dual camera doesn’t really help in low light. This is because the telephoto camera has a small f/2.8 aperture which struggles to take in enough light and it lacks OIS to stabilize it for longer exposures.

And this is where the smart tech behind Apple’s dual camera system tries to ride to the rescue. What happens behind the scenes when you take a 2x telephoto shot is the iPhone 7 actually snaps photos with both the telephoto and the wide angle cameras. It then automatically selects which is best and - guess what? - in low light EXIF data reveals most of the time you’re just getting the wide angle camera’s photo with a digital zoom.

That’s right: in low light you might as well just buy an iPhone 7 and digitally zoom in - or take the standard shot and crop it, like everyone has been doing for years.

Consequently right now the iPhone 7 Plus dual camera feels like something of a novelty rather than a game changer. The telephoto camera is fractionally more detailed in good light than the wide angle with digital zoom, but the reverse is true in low light because - quite frankly - the specifications on the telephone lens make for the worst camera Apple has put on an iPhone in several years.

So where do the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus fit into the wider smartphone competition?

In short, they are very good. But neither phone can topple Samsung’s Galaxy S7 / S7 Edge (which are due an upgrade in February) and in low light they also lag behind Google’s Nexus 6P and 5X (which are due their annual upgrade in October). I stress again, this doesn’t mean the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are bad, they are excellent cameras, but they are not the photographic game changers Apple is marketing.

It’s a similar story with the selfie camera. Shots are a little more detailed with the step up from 5MP to 7MP, but they retain the same f/2.2 aperture which means they still struggle in low light like last year’s models when competitors are pushing f/1.8 and f/1.7 front facing cameras.

On the plus side, video fans will be happy. Adding OIS to both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus wide angle cameras means you get far smoother 4K recording on the smaller model than the iPhone 6S offered last year and Apple’s slow mo and timelapse modes still return some of the best results in the smartphone sector.

Meanwhile I hope there’s still room for improvement on the cameras of both new iPhones. This is because Apple admitted new software for them (complete with a bokeh - background blur - enhanced portrait mode) was not ready for launch. That should soon change as the functionality (and hopefully a few more image processing tweaks) are being fitting into iOS 10.1 which just entered beta testing.

Winner: iPhone 7 Plus - but the dual camera system is not a major advantage over the iPhone 7. At least not yet…

Read more - iPhone 7 Vs iPhone 7 Plus: What's The Difference?

Battery Life And Charging - Minimal Upgrades, Major Differentiators

So while the dual camera system is not the big differentiator between the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus many expected, what does remain heavily in the latter’s favour is battery life.

These official figures come down to a substantial difference in the two phones’ battery capacities. The iPhone 7 Plus has a 2900 mAh battery while the iPhone 7 is almost 1,000 mAh smaller at 1960 mAh. The larger display and higher resolution of the Plus do eat up some of the advantage, but it still lasts substantially longer.

So whereas the iPhone 7 is running low at the end of the day following moderate usage, the iPhone 7 Plus still tends to be going strong and may even get you through a second day. With heavy usage you’ll also definitely be topping up the iPhone 7, but the iPhone 7 Plus is very unlikely to let you down before bedtime.

And yet the good news for iPhone 7 users is the gap has closed. This is because the iPhone 7 received a proportionately bigger battery upgrade than the iPhone 7 Plus this year (245 mAh vs 150 mAh) and so the 4.7-incher does have more staying power than the disappointing iPhone 6S. It is no stamina king and the iPhone 7 Plus, Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge (in particular) all have it beat, but I still welcome the improvement.

What is less desirable though is Apple’s decision to keep ignoring both native fast charging and wireless charging.

The former leaves me incredulous as Apple still refuses to supply a range of smartphones starting at $650 with the fast charging plug it ships with all iPads (which can cut charge times by almost 50%). While no wireless charging is disappointing firstly because many rivals have had it for years and secondly because the removal of the headphone jack was the perfect moment to give customers an alternative charging method so they could easily use wired headphones and charge their phones without needing a $50 accessory.

Apple must do better here, and at least the rumors suggest that in 2017 it will…

Winner: iPhone 7 Plus - far longer lasting, but the lack of slow charging and wireless charging on both phones makes topping up battery life more arduous than it should be.

Storage And Price - Apple Steps Up

So Apple’s charging technology may remain behind the curve, but it has at least stepped up to the competition (and actually stepped ahead) when it comes to native storage.

• iPhone 7 - 32GB ($649), 128GB ($749), 256GB ($849)
• iPhone 7 Plus - 32GB ($769), 128GB ($869), 256GB ($969)

Yes, it is finally goodbye to the worthless 16GB model and Apple has doubled storage at every price point to keep the upsell appealing to customers. It’s a great move. No there still isn’t microSD, but Apple will never adopt it so if that is a deal breaker for you then please move on.

As for the pricing itself, in the US the iPhone 7 Plus has received a minor $20 price bump across the range while the iPhone 7 is unchanged. That isn’t the case in many other countries though, most notably in the UK and India where models received eye watering increases of 15-29%.

Interestingly, however, the other big factor to consider is Apple’s generosity with the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus lines. These now come in two tiers: 32GB and 128GB for $100 less than the equivalent iPhone 7 models. Given than means you can get a 128GB iPhone 6S Plus for the same price as a 32GB iPhone 7 Plus and the 6S retains the headphone jack, it will be a tempting proposition for many.

Winner: iPhone 7 Plus - its extras are worth the additional $120 (especially when spread out over a two year contract) but only just.

Bottom Line

2016 sees Apple at its most boring and yet also its most provocative.

Of course ‘Boring’ in the context of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus is not necessarily a bad thing. Three generations of the same design is getting a little old, but these are superfast, beautifully made devices that make the very best of their LCD displays and they are the longest lasting iPhones yet. The cameras are also a modest step up from the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, even if they don’t reclaim top dog status from Samsung.

Less welcome is the ‘provocation’. Rivals have managed to increase battery life (the Galaxy S7 had a 450 mAh jump from the Galaxy S6) and add water resistance without losing the headphone jack and you’re being pushed into an era where you will have to pay more for decent headphones due to their need for an integrated DAC and/or Lightning licensing.

Meanwhile the dual camera on the iPhone 7 Plus isn’t the game changer many expected with low light shots in particular typically ditching the telephoto lens due to its small aperture and omitted OIS in favour of just digitally zooming into images from the wide angle camera. That’s not a revolution and Apple has cut corners with the telephoto camera which iOS 10 updates will do well to conceal. Dual cameras are the future of smartphone photography, but the two cameras need to be more evenly balanced if they are to fulfil their potential. 

So which new iPhone would I recommend you buy? Customers are right: it is the iPhone 7 Plus, but only by a whisker. The sharper display and longer battery life are tangible differences while the extra RAM should give it more longevity and the dual camera has advantages - even if they aren’t as great as expected.

All in all, I would suggest iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus owners skip the new iPhones and I think that’s also true for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus owners. There’s simply not enough here to warrant the substantial cost of an upgrade, even if both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are impressive in isolation.

Besides major changes are coming to the iPhone range next year and you’ll want to be free to upgrade then. In the meantime the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus find Apple at its ‘Most Apple’ in all the very best and very worst interpretations this phrase can mean.

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