iPhone 7 Full Review

The iPhone 7 is the oldest iPhone (along with the iPhone 7 Plus) still sold by the company, and unsurprisingly it’s also now the cheapest iPhone on offer through the firm’s official website and stores. No longer is the iPhone 7 considered a flagship smartphone in Apple’s stable, or even just one tier down, instead it’s now the entry level option, which is great news for those in the market for a cheap iPhone. While it may have been replaced by two separate generations of iPhones, with a lower price tag and the latest iOS 13 software on board the iPhone 7 is still very much a viable option for those looking for a slice of Apple’s smartphone pie. When the iPhone 7 arrived it wasn’t all that different to the iPhone 6S, feeling more like another incremental ‘S’ variant update rather than a whole new device. The iPhone 7 did offer up a brighter, more colorful screen, a waterproof design, dual speakers, and a boosted 12MP camera over the 6S it replaced, and Apple changed the home button from a clickable entity to one that responds to pressure, lost the headphone jack and included a 256GB storage model (though now only offers it with up to 128GB). Some of that felt pretty alien back in 2016, but the iPhone 7 paved the way for the far different iPhone X the following year and then the arrival of the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR.

Design

• Water resistance brings confidence in robustness of device
• Same design as previous two years
• Headphone jack removal is inconvenient

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

Performance

• New A10 Fusion processor offers huge, industry-leading performance
• Music playback still excellent in all forms
• iOS 10 is a bit more complex, but usable
• Now has iOS 12

Battery life

• Battery life improved, but not by enough
• Charges fairly quickly from dead, but topping up can be harder
• Improved performance when watching video

Camera

• New color capture does work well
• Low light performance now excellent
• 12MP resolution is still perfectly fine for smartphone snaps