Much has been said about the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus way before they’ve been released and we looked at the reactions as a sign that Apple continues to shape the direction of the smartphone industry that same way it did when it first introduced the very first iPhone to the world.
The iPhone 7 Plus is new and (relatively) improved, as any other generation of phones are released each year. Whether those improvements are enough or not remains to be a decision of the individual buyers based on their personal experience and needs.
What we are trying to attempt in this review is to provide an objective assessment on the long list of features that it offers and whether they remain true as Apple claims it.
before heading off to the full written review, check out our unboxing and hands-on of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus:
Table of Contents
In terms of design, there’s not really a lot that has changed on the iPhone 7 Plus compared to the iPhone 6s Plus. There were a number of cosmetic changes and since the Plus version has only been recently introduced (since the iPhone 6 Plus), this is the first time we’re really seen physical enhancements.
However, the dimensions, screen size and over-all profile remained the same. Perhaps the biggest distinguishing feature of the iPhone 7 Plus would be the dual-camera setup from the back. Of course, there’s also the re-positioning of the antenna bands, the absence of the 3.5mm port are the biggest signs that it is the newer model. And of course the new black and jet black colors.
Everything else looks and feels the same. The power button is on the right, volume controls and lock switch are on the left, lightning port and speakers at the bottom. The 3.5mm audio port up top is gone and if you need to plug an earphone, the lightning port is the way to go. Apple changed the earphones with an lighting plug and if you want to use a different one, there’s a lightning to 3.5mm adapter that came with the box.
This approach is perhaps the biggest contention among critics and reviewers. The move seems counter-productive and the inclusion of an adapter seems like a step backward instead of forward. The issue of compatibility to 99.99% has been raised and the tendency to loose that adapter is very likely are legitimate cause for concern.
On the other hand, we understand the position of Apple that the analog plug had to go and be replaced with a more modern one like the lightning port. Besides, there’s still wireless connectivity via Bluetooth which should address the problem of compatibility with other headphones.
We may call these refinements but we cannot, in all our conscience, concede that these are real innovations as Apple claims them to be.
The IP67 rating for water and dust resistance is a much welcome improvement, perhaps the single biggest significant (and perhaps life changing for many iPhone users) feature for the iPhone 7 Plus.
The physical home button has also been replaced with a non-mechanical part, much like the trackpad of the Macbooks. There’s no more clicking and that’s been replaced with haptic feedback. The taptic engine has been given more space to offer better Force Touch experience but also to provide the haptic feedback for the home button. While we’ve had experience with a similar home button on our HTC One before, the haptic feedback seems a bit off since it feels like the vibrations are coming from a different part of the phone and not around the button you’re pressing.
The speakers at the bottom is paired with a second one that’s positioned at the earpiece. This adds more volume and stereo sound support.
Among all the colors introduced, we especially like the matte black polished finish of the Black variant and while the Jet Black also looks good, it’s very prone to smudges and hairline scratches aside from being very slippery on the hands.
Not much can be said on the display. It is still the same 5.5-inch display size and same old resolution of 1920×1080 pixels (401ppi). The panel has been improved for better colors gamut and 25% brightness (500nits to 625 nits) although we could not really see the difference with our naked eye. We also noticed that the display of the iPhone 7 Plus is a bit warmer and shows a more greenish tinge to it.
The screen to body ratio is still at 67.7% since the display size and the dimensions of the unit remained the same. Perhaps Apple has already settled with 401ppi as the ideal pixel density of the iPhone 7 Plus as this is what they’ve been employing for the last couple of years.
In terms of design and protection, we do not see any difference between the iPhone 7 Plus and the iPhone 6/6s Plus although it is possible Apple introduced better screen protection on the iPhone 7 Plus (we reviewed Apple’s releases and there was no mention of improvement on that end).
Nevertheless, the display on the iPhone 7 Plus looks really good, very crisp and bright. The 5.5-inch display size is just about at par with some flagship devices these days (Galaxy S7 Edge, Huawei P9 Plus) although our biggest complaint since the Plus sizes were introduced is that the body of the handset itself feels a bit bigger considering the display size.
The iPhone 7 Plus came with iOS 10 right out of the box. If you’ve downloaded iOS 10 earlier this week, you should be familiar with the updates introduced with it. The user interface remained the same compared to the previous major versions but there were a lot of refinements and new features that came with it.
If you’re not familiar with iOS, the UI is simple and flat with all the apps lined up in a linear homescreen. You can group apps into folders for easier access and classification. There’s a widget home screen when you swipe to the left, a quick settings window when you swipe from the bottom and a notifications window when you swipe from the top corner of the screen.
Apple has also put a lot of efforts in making the Messaging app more expressive and feature-rich. It now looks like a chat app rather than an SMS app.
Even the native camera app has been heavily improved with features that compliment the dual-camera setup at the back and photo organizing features (Memories). Some of the functions of the camera are not yet included in this release of iOS 10. Apple claims they will be available when iOS 10.1 is released this October.
Of the dozens of new features that came with iOS 10, the best one we think that really matters a lot is the ability to remove/uninstall the native built-in apps that used to just take up space (we don’t want to call them bloatwares but technically, they are).
Check out our article on 6 coolest features of iOS 10 here.
The iPhone 7 Plus has a new and improved camera with the rear having a dual 12MP f1.8 sensor and a front facing camera with 7MP sensor. It comes with optical image stabilization too so videos should look smoother or less shaky.
While we’ve seen many other smartphones that use a dual-camera set up before, the one on the iPhone 7 Plus does it slightly differently. One has a wide-angle lens (28mm) and the other is telephoto (56mm).
Here are some sample shots taken with the iPhone 7 Plus alongside the iPhone 6s.
Low-light performance of the iPhone 7 Plus is also better with the f1.8 aperture. Here’s a sample comparison between the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 7 Plus:
The horse figure in the middle is completely dark with no more details left. The lamp on the right is also a bit darker. Also notice that there is a noticeable banding in the photo above.
Notice the same horse figure in the center still has details in it and the lamp on the right side is a bit brighter.
The quad-LED True Tone flash on the iPhone 7 Plus allows for a wider levels of brightness when shooting in low-light. This helps reduce too much flooding of lights and varying levels of intensity/temperature.
Here are video clips we took using the rear camera.
The iPhone 7 Plus has the ability to isolate subjects and create a nice bokeh effect of the background. This is just a software feature that’s not yet included in the latest version of iOS 10. Apple promises an update sometime in October to enable this (iSO 10.1).
The absence of a 3.5mm keeps on bugging us but with the earpods now sporting a lighting port, that should not be a huge inconvenience. What will really bug you is that you will have to bring another set of earphones with 3.5mm jack, only because everything else still lives in an analog world.
Another improvement introduced on the new iPhone 7 Plus are additional speakers up at front to compliment the old one that’s placed at the bottom end. This resulted to better audio quality when speakers are used for music or video playback although it’s nowhere near the depth and quality compared to the ones delivered by the likes of the Nexus 6P or the HTC One M9.
Based on Sound Meter app, the iPhone 7 Plus registered 84dB at top volume which is not that much compared to the 83dB produced by an older iPhone 6s. Where the iPhone 7 Plus did better was the positioning of the second speaker making it sound much better than its predecessors.
Like clockwork, Apple introduced a brand new chip for the iPhone 7 Plus. The A10 Fusion is the first quad-core processor by Apple, replacing the dual-core A9. The A10 Fusion is composed of a two pairs of dual-core processors with each pair switching between them depending on the tasks required by the system. The high-powered pair is responsible for crunching heavy tasks while the low-power pair is used when on idle or for basic tasks such as email, chat and the likes.
Similar to Qualcomm’s big.LITTLE technology, this switching feature of the A10 Fusion provide better performance and battery management. This means better battery life for the iPhone 7 as shown in our battery test.
The iPhone 7 Plus is certainly fast and snappy but the performance improvements over the iPhone 6s isn’t noticeable for most of the usual tasks. If you’re going to play a lot of hard-core games, like the recently released NBA 2k17, the iPhone 7 Plus should give you better gaming experience and better battery life.
In our Antutu Benchmark tests, the iPhone 7 Plus scored 168,145 points, the highest score we’ve gotten by far.
The cosmetic changes introduced on the antenna bands was just that. It didn’t really improve the signal reception of the phone compared to its predecessor. Call quality is good, voice quality is clear and fairly loud and there’s additional support for more LTE bands (carrier aggregation can go up to 450Mbps).
The rest of the usual stuff are present, like WiFi and Bluetooth but NFC is still locked to just Apple Pay and cannot be used for instant pairing with other devices.
The iPhone 7 Plus has a slightly larger battery capacity and Apple promises about an hour or two more battery life compared to the iPhone 6s Plus. In our WiFi video loop test, the iPhone 7 Plus got 8.5 hours of playback time. With local video playback at 50% brightness, 0% volume and WiFi turned off, the iPhone 7 plus got 10.5 hours of video playback.
In our daily use, we could muster an entire day of moderate use but once you’re heavy on LTE, it doesn’t really last an entire day.
Unfortunately, the iPhone 7 Plus does not support wireless charging or even just fast charging features.
The iPhone 7 Plus is a mixed bag of goodies. On one hand, you have options for bigger storage, better performance, better camera and water resistance. On the other hand, you’re stuck with basically the same old design for the last 3 years minus the 3.5mm audio port.
If there’s a compelling reason to really upgrade to the iPhone 7 Plus, that would be because of the water-resistance. For others, it would be as simple as getting the jet black color.
If you have an iPhone 6 Plus, then it makes sense to upgrade to the iPhone 7 Plus as there’s a significant upgrade between the two. However, if you’re coming from an iPhone 6S Plus, the iPhone 7 Plus might not be a huge deal. If you’re a first time iPhone user and you have the money, the iPhone 7 Plus is a good option. If you’re on a tight budget, the iPhone 6S Plus with it’s reduced retail price (only Php25,800USD 440INR 37,271EUR 419CNY 3,202 here) and iOS 10 update is still a much better option.
Apple iPhone 7 Plus key specs:
5.5-inch Retina HD display @ 1920×1080 pixels, 401ppi
Force Touch
Apple A10 Fusion chip 2.3GHz quad-core
3GB RAM
32GB, 128GB, 256GB internal storage
4G, LTE-A up to 450Mbps
Single-SIM (Nano)
WiFi 802.11ac with MIMO
Bluetooth 4.2
GPS with aGPS, GLONASS
NFC (Apple Pay)
Dual 12MP f/1.8 rear camera with OIS, six-element lens, flicker sensor, quad-LED TrueTone Flash
7MP Facetime Camera
Stereo Speakers
Fingerprint sensor
IP67 Water and Dust Resistance
Apple iOS 10
2,900mAh Li-Ion battery
158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3mm (dimensions)
188 grams (weight)
Colors: Silver, Gold, Rose Gold, Black, Jet Black (128GB and 256GB only)
What we liked about it:
* Better performance
* Better camera
* Water-resistance
* Bigger storage
What we did not like:
* Missing 3.5mm audio port
* Home button takes time to get used to
* Same old design
* Dual-camera is a bit gimmicky
* Expensive
The Apple iPhone 7 will be available in the US and key markets starting September 16 starting at $649PHP 38,087INR 55,003EUR 618CNY 4,724 (around Php30,400USD 518INR 43,916EUR 493CNY 3,773) for the base 32GB variant. There’s still no exact date when it will be released in the Philippines but our best guess is sometime in the middle of October.
Check out their Widget City’s listing for iPhone 7 here and iPhone 7 Plus here.
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Archie says:
There’s a youtube video on how you can have an audio jack by drilling thru your iphone 7. The sad part is tumutulong na nga yung nag-upload e siya pa ang sinisisi ng mga sumunod sa kanya, so sad.
Bogs says:
matagal ba icharge ang phone nato?
Wha® says:
sana naman merun cellular data short cut/widget pra mas madaling pag access. ????????
Megan Davis says:
Iphone 7 is indeed very fast I can watch better videos and maximizes it. iPhone is still faster and more smooth. Thanks for this review.
yhasmine lee porras says:
please give me a iphone 7 plus,,because i have no cellphone because im poor please give me 1 iphone