While the display may hide an improved panel, it still has the same
specs in terms of size and resolution: a 4.7" unit with a resolution of
750 x 1334 pixels (that's 326ppi). It's a LED-backlit IPS LCD screen
with RGB matrix. It's also 3D Touch-enabled, a technology we first saw
on the iPhone 6s.
The new Retina display is 25% brighter and conforms to an even wider
color gamut (cinema-standard) though few users will notice a change.
Those are the upgrades over the already excellent screen that the iPhone
6s had.
The iPhone 7 offers a maximum brightness of 560nits at the far end of
its brightness slider, which is slightly better than the iPhone 6. If
you leave it on Auto, however, the screen will readily go as high as 660
nits in bright light conditions, which is certainly nice.
The blacks offered by the new Retina screen are deep and combined
with the high brightness, the screen scores an excellent contrast ratio
of 1603:1.
The best part of the new screen is its color calibration. This
doesn't have anything to do with the wider color gamut mentioned above
but rather the accuracy with which it reproduces the most common set of
colors we see in everyday life.
In this respect the iPhone 7 screen offers an average DeltaE of 1.7,
which is class leading and so far, only the Galaxy Note5 and the Lumia
950 family were capable of such an excellent color reproduction. All
individual colors stay well below a deviation DeltaE of 4. So the iPhone
7 screen is among the few phones on the market, which are perfectly
color calibrated to be used professionally in color critical
environment.
Apple offers the so-called Night Shift mode which adjusts the colors
in your device's display to make sure that your eyes aren't exposed to
the bright blue light after sunset. You can choose the exact start and
end hours and your screen will be yellow-ish during that time.
In bright sunlight the iPhone 7 screen faired exceptionally well and remained legible all the time.
The iPhone 7 is equipped with a non-removable Li-Po 1960mAh battery,
which is about 15% beefier than the one of the iPhone 6s. There is also
the new energy-efficient Apple A10 Fusion chip, which combined with the
new battery and optimized iOS 10, should offer a longer battery life
than before.
And in case you need your phone by the end of its charge, the
Low-Power mode, which you can enable manually, should save your iPhone 7
from dying faster once the charge drops below 20%.
The iPhone 7 posted very balanced scores across the board - it can
do about 11 and a half hours of 3G calls or web browsing on a single
charge, while you can watch videos for about 9 hours. The standby
endurance turned out average and thus the final rating of the average 61
hours.
The rating means two days and thirteen hours is how long a single
battery charge will last you if you use the iPhone 7 for an hour each of
telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. Such usage pattern
may not apply to your own use case but we've established it so our
battery results are comparable across devices.
An interesting point to be made is that on the surface these results
may seem like what we got from last year's iPhone 6s. But you also have
got to remember that due to the change of the battery testing
methodology, we conducted the web browsing and video playback tests back
then with a screen brightness of 150nits instead of the 200nits of
brightness that we use now as standard. Hence, if screen brightness
levels were to be equalized, it would become apparent that the new
iPhone 7 indeed offers an improvement in battery life.
The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
The Apple iPhone 7 comes with a bunch of wireless connectivity
features. It supports faster LTE Cat. 9 (up to 450Mpbs down, 150Mbps up)
and has one of the widest LTE band coverage we've seen. Regular 2G and
3G connectivity is all safely covered as well with a multitude of
supported network bands.
The iPhone 7 also supports the latest Voice over LTE (VoLTE), HD
Voice and Wi-Fi calling protocols, but those are carrier dependent
features so not everyone will get to enjoy them.
Naturally, the latest Wi-Fi and Bluetooth standards are dully
covered. There is also support for NFC, but its functionality is only
limited to Apple's region-restricted Apple Pay system.
The iPhone 7 uses a proprietary Lightning connector for wired data
transfers, charging, and audio. There is limited USB Host support - you
can attach some certified accessories or access your digital camera
storage via proprietary adapters sold separately. You can pair a
Bluetooth keyboard to the phone should you need this sort of peripheral.
Now that there is no 3.5mm audio jack on board the phone, you can use
the provided Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter to continue using your favorite
pair of wired headphones with the iPhone.
Or you can get Apple's new wireless AirPods. The most interesting
thing about them from connectivity point of view is that they come with
an extra chip Apple calls W1, which makes Bluetooth pairing much faster
and easier.
It's a proprietary chip but we may see other certified MiFi Bluetooth
headsets come with it down the road as well. We'll have to wait and
see.
Apple iOS 10
Apple unveiled iOS 10 last June. As part of the new update Apple
refined the lock and home screens, the notification and control centers,
the 3D Touch experience, Siri, and improved the system apps.
Since the beginning the iOS user experience has successfully revolved
around a few basic premises anyone can pick up quickly and iOS doesn't
bring any changes in that direction.
First - the homescreen. All apps go there and you can group those in
folders. There are no widgets on the homescreen, there is no separate
app drawer either.
The new addition to the homescreen is the fixed leftmost Today page,
which now supports various widgets, including the mandatory Spotlight
search. But more on the Today page later.
The homescreen • All apps are there • A folder • The Today pane • Spotlight search
Second - the Notification Center. It's a page you bring down from the top and it has all your notifications.
Notification Center • Today page in Notifications • Notification settings • Notification settings
Third - Control Center. You slide out this pane from the bottom and
it packs quick toggles and quick shortcuts. You can swipe the contents
of the pane left and right to get to music controls and HomeKit menus.
The Control Center
Fourth - the Settings menu. Every setting is packed in there, just
like with any other mobile OS. It isn't the best organized settings menu
we've seen as there are quite a few inconsistencies, but it does the
job.
Now that's out of the way, join us as we explore some of iOS 10
features in more detail trying to see what's new and what's gone for
good.
Apple has redesigned the lockscreen and even though it seems
familiar, it has lots of new features. It now supports pick up to wake
and the phone lights up every time you take it in your hand.
There is an easier way to access the camera now - just swipe left. If
you swipe right, you'll find your Today widget page. At a time when
Android has just gotten rid of the lockscreen widgets, Apple is keen on
bringing them back.
The new lockscreen • quick camera access • Today page • PIN • You need to press for unlock
The screen may wake up automatically, but it doesn't unlock when you
laying your finger on the Touch ID sensor. Instead, you'll need to press
the Home button to go further. This ensures you have the opportunity to
interact with the widgets and notifications on your lockscreen but many
users will find this new way inconvenient. Luckily, you can enable Rest
Finger to Open option from Accessibility -> Home Button. The Today
page on the lockscreen, along with the Notification and Control Centers
can be disabled.
Speaking of the Notification Center, it has been redesigned with new
bubble-like notifications. The Today page is also available here.
The notification screen shows all your recent notifications that you
can 3D Touch to expand and see additional options. A notification can be
expanded into a card where you can see a lot more content and even
images and videos. iMessage, for example, will not just show the message
but when expanded show the entire chat that you can scroll through and
reply to as if you are in the app. You also get more than two options
when you expand a notification now, which is handy. This works within
the Notification Center, on the lockscreen, and if you are in another
app.
The Control Center is now comprised of three panes - one with toggles
and one with music controls. Its design also features bubbles. There is
a third Control Center Tab if you are using the new Home app -
shortcuts for your home appliances.
Unfortunately, the Control Center is still a rather sad place that
prioritizes unnecessary functions and no customizability. For one, you
can’t get to the Settings menu by longer pressing of the toggles.
Secondly, neither AirPlay and AirDrop, nor Night Shift deserve the prime
time location that they get on the panel, and should have been reduced
to smaller buttons. And finally, the four toggles at the bottom can be
3D Touched for additional functionality but you cannot add or replace
any of them. This is rather frustrating as there was ample scope to turn
it into something truly useful here.
Notification Center • Control Center • Control Center
Let's talk about this new Today page we've mentioned so often. It's
like a homescreen with a list of widgets and you choose which ones
should be present. The top is always the Spotlight search field, and
then you can put weather, calendar, Siri app suggestions, and whatever
widgets your apps are offering.
The Today screen shows you the clock as well as all your widgets.
Widgets have also been updated in iOS 10 and look similar to
notifications. They support two sizes now, the default compact size and
an expanded size you can get to by tapping Show More. A developer can
choose to show additional information this way by expanding the widget
to a much larger size. Adding and removing widgets works the same way it
did before, and the Add Widgets screen will show all your widgets that
are present on the device from the installed apps.
Today • Today • Adding widgets • More widgets • Disable Today within Touch ID settings
The Today page is the leftmost page on your lockscreen, homescreen,
and Notification Center. If you prefer, you can disable it altogether.
The 3D Touch functionality got implemented into even more places
across iOS and Apple is fighting well for its last year innovation. It
may have started as a gimmick, but its usefulness is growing with each
update.
You can use the 3D Touch on various app icons to reveal quick
actions. But now Apple has expanded those quick actions with system apps
by showing an additional row of favorites, quick contacts, recent
music, and other relevant app-specific content. When you 3D Touch an
icon that has a widget, the widget now appears along with a list of 3D
Touch options. You can also 3D Touch folders now to rename them and see
the apps inside that have a pending notification.
Using 3D Touch across the interface
Naturally, pop-up preview of pictures, web links, messages, mails, notes, and photos, is available.
Popping content with 3D Touch
You can now force press on notifications (both in the Notification
Center or the pop-up ones) and expand them into actionable balloons.
Apple calls those Rich Notifications. This means you can chat on Viber,
respond to messages, or mails, straight from those 3D Touch bubbles and
then return to what you were doing without ever leaving the app.
A notification • Replying with 3D Touch in a bubble • 3D Touch overview of a conversation
Siri has gotten an update, too. It is now opened to developers. What
does this mean? Well, you can call an Uber via Siri. Or send Viber text
and photos. Or send money through a Money app such as PayPal. If an app
is compatible with Siri, you can now ask Siri for specific third-party
app actions and it will do it.
Lyft and Siri
Lastly, you can now finally uninstall some of Apple’s own apps from
the phone. Well, maybe not fully uninstall, but they do get hidden. You
just have to press and hold on them to remove them like third party
apps. Not all apps can be removed but the list of ones that can be
removed is longer than those that cannot, and other than basic apps like
Phone, Safari, App Store, Clock, Messages, Photos, Camera, Settings,
Wallet, Find my iPhone, and Health, all the other apps can be removed.
This frees up some memory but not a lot. Once you remove them, you can
get them back by going to the App Store and searching for Apple's apps.
Apple did a good job refining the interface and there are enough new
features to enhance the user experience without complicating it. You may
never use some of those and you will still get to experience the iOS in
its full beauty. But if you do, you may find it easier to just force
press on something or ask Siri to do stuff instead of you. It's nothing
ground breaking, but it's definitely moving forward.
Performance
Apple has equipped the iPhone 7 with a new-generation A10 Fusion
chip. It has a quad-core CPU, a first for the iPhones, with two
high-performance cores running at 2.34GHz and two power-saving ones. The
high-performance ones run about 40% faster than the A9 chip and two
times faster than the A8. The other two are more power-efficient cores
and require only 20% of the power needed for the high-performance cores.
There's a new GPU inside as well. It's a six-core one and is 50% faster than the A9's GPU and draws just 66% of the power.
Finally, the iPhone 7 uses 2GB of RAM, while the iPhone 7 Plus will offer 3GB.
The guys over Chipworks have been working hard to decrypt the new A10
Fusion chip and what's interesting is that they can't find the two
low-power cores. In fact, those are not available to anything but the OS
itself. No benchmark or game can use those; in fact, the benchmarks
can't detect them at all - they show the CPU as dual-core.
Chipworks are still guessing the position on the chip of those two
cores, but their placement is not of importance right now, but the fact
that they are exclusive to the iOS and can't be found by anything else.
So, as far as the processing performance is concerned - all benchmarks
use the two high-performance A10 cores ticking at 2.34GHz.
And speaking of CPU cores, meet the most powerful mobile processor
core in the world to date - the one inside Apple A10 Fusion. It runs on
2.34GHz, which is among the highest clocks we've seen, but it also
offers the best performance right now. The new A10 core offers double
the processing power of the Snapdragon 820's Kryo (OnePlus 3), double
the Cortex-A72 performance (Huawei P9), and 40% increase over the CPU
Twister core inside the iPhone 6s, 6s Plus, and SE.
GeekBench 4 (single-core)
Higher is better
-
Apple iPhone 7
3488
-
Apple iPhone SE
2514
-
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
2509
-
Apple iPhone 6s
2380
-
Samsung Galaxy S7
1854
-
Huawei Honor 8
1720
-
OnePlus 3
1719
-
Sony Xperia XZ
1578
-
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
1471
-
Apple iPhone 6
1465
-
Samsung Galaxy Note5
1332
-
Huawei nova
842
But how about two of those? Well, the dual-core A10 processor is more
powerful than any other dual, quad, hexa, octa, or deca-core processor
on the market. It's 40% better than the quad-core Kryo (S820, OnePlus 3)
and the dual-core Twister inside the iPhone 6s generation, and just a
hair on top of the latest Kirin chipset inside the Honor 8 (4x A72 + 4x
A53).
GeekBench 4 (multi-core)
Higher is better
-
Apple iPhone 7
5654
-
Huawei Honor 8
5447
-
Samsung Galaxy S7
5245
-
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
4234
-
Apple iPhone SE
4158
-
OnePlus 3
4045
-
Apple iPhone 6s
4001
-
Sony Xperia XZ
3868
-
Samsung Galaxy Note5
3754
-
Huawei nova
3105
-
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
2465
-
Apple iPhone 6
2459
Chipworks hasn't yet determined the exact GPU model, but it confirmed
it's indeed a six-core unit (just like the PowerVR GT7600 six-core GPU
inside the iPhone 6s). We know Apple promises a 50% performance bump, so
let's see.
The 1080p offscreen tests which help us determine the raw performance
put the A10 GPU on top of any other GPU we've tested so far. The 3.0
test gives the A10 GPU about 20% more power over the Adreno 530 in the
OnePlus 3 and 30% over the latest Mali-T880MP12 inside the
Exynos-powered Galaxy Note7. It is also 50% better than the PowerVR
GT7600 inside the iPhone 6s, as promised.
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
-
Apple iPhone 7
61
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)
49
-
OnePlus 3
46
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)
40
-
Apple iPhone SE
39.6
-
Apple iPhone 6s
39.5
-
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
39.5
-
Samsung Galaxy S7
38
-
Samsung Galaxy Note5
21
-
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
18.6
-
Huawei Honor 8
18
-
Huawei P9
18
-
Apple iPhone 6
17.7
-
Sony Xperia X
14
-
Huawei nova
10
The 3.1 test gives the A10 GPU 30% more power over the Adreno 530 and
50% sharp over the Mali-T880MP12 (Note7) and PowerVR GT7600 (iPhone
6s).
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)
Higher is better
-
Apple iPhone 7
43
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)
32
-
Sony Xperia XZ
31
-
OnePlus 3
31
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)
28
-
Samsung Galaxy S7
28
-
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
27.9
-
Apple iPhone SE
26.8
-
Samsung Galaxy Note5
15
-
Huawei Honor 8
10
-
Huawei P9
10
-
Sony Xperia X
9.2
-
Huawei nova
6.3
The iPhone 7 runs on a sub-1080p resolution, which gives it an
advantage over the flagship competition running at 1080p or 1440p. The
iPhone 7 reaches the 60fps refresh-rate cap on both tests, so there is
nothing the phone can't handle not today, and not for the next couple of
years to come.
GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
-
Apple iPhone 7
60
-
Apple iPhone SE
59.2
-
Apple iPhone 6s
53.6
-
OnePlus 3
45
-
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
38.6
-
Apple iPhone 6
29.2
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)
29
-
Samsung Galaxy S7
27
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)
27
-
Huawei Honor 8
19
-
Huawei P9
19
-
Samsung Galaxy Note5
15
-
Sony Xperia X
15
-
Huawei nova
10
GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)
Higher is better
-
Apple iPhone 7
60
-
Apple iPhone SE
58
-
Sony Xperia XZ
32
-
OnePlus 3
30
-
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
27.9
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)
16
-
Samsung Galaxy S7
15
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)
15
-
Huawei Honor 8
11
-
Huawei P9
11
-
Sony Xperia X
10
-
Samsung Galaxy Note5
6.7
-
Huawei nova
6.5
BaseMark ES 3.1 is a super-heavy GPU benchmark that only flagships
can finish without crashing or taking an hour or two. The iPhone 7' GPU
not only topped that one by a mile, but it also received another gold
medal by BaseMark for being the best device in their database so far!
Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal
Higher is better
-
Apple iPhone 7
1547
-
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
916
-
Apple iPhone SE
882
-
Apple iPhone 6s
879
-
Samsung Galaxy S7
732
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)
727
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)
629
-
OnePlus 3
625
-
Huawei Honor 8
345
-
Huawei P9
341
-
Samsung Galaxy Note5
316
-
Sony Xperia X
251
-
Huawei nova
138
Next, it's time to run the compound benchmarks, which compute CPU,
GPU, RAM, storage, UX performance among others. You bet the iPhone 7
topped the BaseMark OS II 2.0 test with a huge gap between the
second-best phone - the two Galaxy Note7 models. The device also
received a Gold medal for being the best device in BaseMark OS II 2.0
all-time chart taking the first place! A respectable moment of awe
silence goes here.
Basemark OS 2.0
Higher is better
-
Apple iPhone 7
3416
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)
2676
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)
2432
-
OnePlus 3
2365
-
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
2261
-
Apple iPhone 6s
2195
-
Apple iPhone SE
2163
-
Sony Xperia XZ
2151
-
Samsung Galaxy S7
2128
-
Huawei Honor 8
2099
-
Huawei P9
2068
-
Samsung Galaxy Note5
1880
-
Sony Xperia X
1714
-
Huawei nova
1218
Finally, AnTuTu 6 pretty much confirms the BaseMark OS 2.0
conclusions - there isn't any better smartphone than the iPhone 7 right
now.
AnTuTu 6
Higher is better
-
Apple iPhone 7
179386
-
OnePlus 3
141764
-
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
137420
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Exynos)
134660
-
Samsung Galaxy S7
132084
-
Samsung Galaxy Note7 (Snapdragon)
130111
-
Apple iPhone 6s
129990
-
Apple iPhone SE
123961
-
Huawei P9
98069
-
Huawei Honor 8
94892
-
Samsung Galaxy Note5
81615
-
Sony Xperia X
77537
-
Huawei nova
65021
Apple has done it again - it made the best mobile chipset from which
others can only learn from. Its dual-core processor, even without the
help of the tiny energy efficient cores, beats any other processor out
there. The A10 GPU is equally impressive acing every graphic benchmark.
The iPhone 7 is the fastest and most powerful smartphone in the
world. It runs cooler than any other flagship even at peak performance
though along the edge around the power key there is a zone that gets
quite hot at times when the phone is under load but it's still within
reasonable limits.
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Well, it's not as easy as that. The iPhone 7 is in many ways a better
phone. We can see some of the issues we had with the last iPhone sorted
and, no, we are not claiming credit for it - simply acknowledging the
fact.
Apple doubled the storage capacity on all three flavors, so it
finally starts at 32GB, the other two being 128GB or 256GB.
Unfortunately, fast or wireless charging still doesn't mean anything to
Apple, which is a shame in 2016.
There are two other visible changes to the iPhone 7's unibody design:
the camera hump is bigger but also more discreet and, of course, there
is no audio jack.
The Jet Black iPhone 7's glossy finish looks amazing and evokes fond
memories of the iPhone 3G and 3GS. It is only available for the 128 and
256 GB models, which suggests Apple considers it the premium color
option.
The Taptic Engine works nice and creates a nice illusion of a real
click. You can even configure the force of the feedback. It may take a
few days to get used to the new clicks, but once you do, and trust us -
you will, you'll hardly miss the old physical feedback.
Of course, we wouldn't have objected if the pressure-sensitive Home
was the only way to ensure waterproofing but we can see both Samsung and
Sony making waterproofed phones with physical keys.
The new Retina display is 25% brighter and conforms to an even wider
color gamut (cinema-standard) though few users will notice a change.
Those are the upgrades over the already excellent screen that the iPhone
6s had.
It's a proprietary chip but we may see other certified MiFi Bluetooth
headsets come with it down the road as well. We'll have to wait and
see.
