iPhone 7 Review
When a new iPhone appears, you always wonder whether it’s a good investment or not. As you can expect, the new iPhone 7 does come with some really interesting features and design, but at the same time it also provides some more of the same which isn’t exactly great.
Design
The design for the iPhone 7 is pretty much the same. There are a few distinct changes though like the removal of a headphone jack which makes the product completely waterproof. It’s great to have a fully waterproof product, but the main challenge here is that you have to use wireless headphones provided by Apple. It’s an investment that not everyone might be willing to do. The phone is still made out of metal and there is only one new option aside from the regular ones, which is the new Jet Black with a glossy finish. This one gets all fingerprints so it’s not exactly the best option for everyone.
The other new color is black and it replaces the space gray. That being said, the size and shape are pretty much the same with the previous models. I like the fact that the antenna bands are curving around the ends. The camera region is also more rounded this time around. They aren’t massive changes, but the results are great because of it!
Water resistance
The iPhone 7 has a classification known as IP67. It’s the latest feature offered by Apple and it’s very good. iPhone 7 does a stellar job with its waterproofing system and you will certainly be more than impressed with the results here. Overall, this product offers maybe the best water resistance on the market for any phone. It’s well worth the investment for that reason alone.
Also, the screen and speakers are pretty much the same, although during my tests I saw that the speakers are a little louder than before. It’s a good addition to be honest and you do receive plenty of value through this minor change.
Camera
The camera is still 12MP, but the fact that it has an aperture of f/1.8 and a six-element lens is very good here. The results are better here since you can capture videos with a better low light performance. Advanced image processing chip that provides increase in energy efficiency by 60% and in the processing speed – 30%. In reality, it just means that the iPhone 7 can take perfect shots: automatics almost never fails to set exposure and skillfully sets the focus. Even the zoom performance is slightly improved here and you can see the details when you zoom in a little bit. The front facing camera has 7 MP and it comes with body detection, wide color capture, and auto-image stabilization. Elsewhere, it has Retina Flash, the front-facing camera records in 1080р, while the rear can handle 4K. Smartphone has come close to the level of the middle mirrorless cameras – not for nothing that the system allows to shoot in RAW. Even without the optical zoom and the second telescope lens (which received the iPhone 7 Plus) the iPhone 7 is still delights. Also, the flash is new – now for the artificial lighting at low light conditions responds 4 LEDs instead of the two as in the past generations. Flash size was greatly increased as well as brightness and Apple claims about the unprecedented natural light stream. Anyhow, in my honest opinion it’s more than enough for average user.
OS and Performance
The 2GB of RAM are good for apps and games, the device works seamlessly due to them and the OS is optimized as always. I found iOS 10 to actually work better than its previous version and the new apps are very interesting. According to Geekbench, the iPhone 7 is around 30% faster than its predecessor and that is very good if you wanted more performance from your device.
The new A10 chip delivers great graphics performance though and this is where it shines the most in my opinion. Games do receive a noticeable framerate boost thanks to that. The processor consists of four cores, two main and two energy-efficient. The first clocked at 2.34 GHz, but the energy-efficient chips are cut to 1.05 GHz. The system determines by itself which group of the processors to use depending on the amount of the resources needed for the task. But with existing apps it is impossible to achieve the upper limit of the performance. Games, graphics editors, web-surfing – the smartphone doesn’t feel any overload with these.
Battery life
Another advantage of the model – the increased battery capacity. Due to the abandonment of the 3.5 mm jack and reducing power consumption, the autonomy of iPhone 7 was greatly increased. The battery capacity of 1960 mAh surpasses its predecessor by 210 mAh and provides an increase by up to two additional hours of active use. The smartphone is really rarely needs charging also because of system optimization. Will it last an entire day? It does come down to how you use it. Usually it should be able to last for 24h or even more if you are not an avid user. Based on my experience it will indeed last you around 24-36 hours but you shouldn’t be a call-heavy user.
Conclusion
Overall, I found the iPhone 7 to offer a very good value for money. It’s a very good product and it does bring in front some stellar phone features. The removal of a 3.5 mm jack is bad, but then again the waterproofing, camera, battery and better performance make up for it. Should you check it out? Yes, it’s a nice and worthwhile phone that you should check out! I would personally recommend matte finish, because glossy black will be always covered with your fingerprints and the scratches are much more visible.