iPhone 7 price
- Price for 32GB starts at $649 (£599, AU$1,079)
- Cheaper than iPhone 7 Plus by $120 (£120, AU$150)
The iPhone 7 price starts at $649 (£599, AU$1,079) for the 32GB model. If you fancy upping your storage to 128GB you’ll need to shell out $749 (£699, AU$1,229) – which is the same cost as the 64GB iPhone 6S when it launched.
Design
- Water resistance brings confidence in robustness of device
- Same design as previous two years
- Headphone jack removal is inconvenient
To start the examination of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus beyond bullet points on a spec sheet, we can look at the design of the iPhone 7. It’s easy to take a potshot here and claim that the iPhone 7 and iPhone 6 have identical designs, but the design is different enough that you can identify either the iPhone 7 or 7 Plus from a distance if you can see the camera or back cover in general. However, if you can only see the front of the phone it’s not going to be easy to tell the iPhone 6 and 7 apart. Just about the only differentiating feature here is that the new earpiece is now slightly wider. We seem to receive requests for continued comparison of design details, and here the iPhone doesn’t have any obvious issues. The ambient light sensor appears to bisect the earpiece, while the front-facing camera is lined up with the earpiece.
The iPhone 7 (black, below) loses the headphone jack and adds in an aesthetic grille instead
What is noticeable if you use the phone is the new solid state home button. While there is a new Taptic Engine to enable this home button, it does take getting used to as the home button is not a one-to-one replica of a physical home button as far as the haptic sensation goes. The Taptic Engine manages to create a facsimile of what a home button should feel like but unlike a real button it doesn’t actually depress so it isn’t quite as accurate as something like the Macbook trackpad in replicating the feel of a real button.
Screen
- 25% brightness boost and more colors are hard to spot
- Sharpness is still far lower than competitors
- Contrast ratio for movie watching could be better
The main change to the screen on the iPhone 7 is the brightness and color, as it’s otherwise identical. The same 4.7-inch 1334 x 750 resolution display is on offer here, meaning that if you hold it side by side with something like the Galaxy S7 Edge, you’ll notice the lack of sharpness.
AirPods
You could, of course, try the new Apple AirPods, which have been developed on a new wireless standard. A quick Public Service Announcement: you DO NOT need to buy these to get audio on the iPhone 7.
Three separate people have told us that that’s what they thought was the case when Apple launched them – that’s something the brand needs to clarify soon.
iPhone 7 vs. iPhone 6s
| Apple iPhone 7 and 6s Comparison Table | ||||
| Apple iPhone 7 | Apple iPhone 7 Plus | Apple iPhone 6s | Apple iPhone 6s Plus | |
| SoC | Apple A10 Fusion 2 x 2.3 GHz Hurricane 2x little cores |
Apple A9 2 x 1.85GHz Apple Twister |
||
| GPU | 6 Core PowerVR GPU | PowerVR GT7600 | ||
| Display | 4.7-inch 1334 x 750 IPS LCD, DCI-P3 | 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS LCD, DCI-P3 | 4.7-inch 1334 x 750 IPS LCD, sRGB | 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS LCD, sRGB |
| Size / Mass | 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm, 138 grams | 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm, 188 grams | 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm, 143 grams | 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3mm, 192 grams |
| Battery | 1960 mAh (7.55Whr) |
2900 mAh (11.17Whr) |
1715 mAh (6.6Whr) |
2750 mAh (10.59Whr) |
| Rear Cameras | 12MP ƒ/1.8 OIS, Wide Color Gamut, Quad LED True Tone Flash |
12MP ƒ/1.8 wide angle, OIS, Wide Color Gamut, Quad LED True Tone Flash12MP ƒ/2.8 telephoto, 2x optical zoom, OIS, Wide Color Gamut, Quad LED True Tone Flash |
12MP with 1.22µm pixels + True Tone Flash | 12MP with 1.22µm pixels + True Tone Flash + OIS |
| Front Camera | 7MP ƒ/2.2, Wide Color Gamut, Retina Flash | 7MP ƒ/2.2, Wide Color Gamut, Retina Flash | 5MP F/2.2 + Retina Flash |
5MP F/2.2 + Retina Flash |
| Storage | 32GB/128GB/256GB | 16GB/64GB/128GB (Launch) 32GB/128GB (Refresh) |
||
| I/O | Apple Lightning connector | Apple Lightning connector, 3.5mm headset | ||
| WiFi | 2.4/5GHz 2×2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, BT 4.2, NFC | 2.4/5GHz 2×2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, BT 4.2, NFC | ||
| Launch Price | $649/749/849 32/128/256GB | $769/869/969 32/128/256GB | $649/749/849 16/64/128GB | $749/849/949 16GB/64/128GB |
Looking at the basics, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus bring at least a few new things to the table that we haven’t seen from Apple before, such as their first SoC with heterogeneous CPU cores. The iPhone 7 Plus brings a second camera with a full-frame equivalent focal length of 56mm, which isn’t really a unique idea but does represent a unique execution, as the G5’s second camera has an even shorter focal length. There’s some irony here as Corephotonics and Qualcomm have been demonstrating almost the same implementation as what we see in the iPhone 7 Plus, but Apple is the first to market here. IP67 means the iPhone is impervious to dust and is capable of sustaining 1 m of water depth for at least 30 minutes, but water damage is never covered by warranty so you shouldn’t push your luck here. Other changes here are more subtle such as the quad LED flash with PWM compensation, stereo speakers, and doubling the storage for all models relative to the 6s last year.
