iPhone 7/7+ Verge Review

[Doobeedoo]

Won't buy the phone, but bad stuff mention, none would bother me. Jet Black maybe cause I like that one the most and I hate using cases. As far as headphone jack, I'd probably use one provided, if not possibly with dongle for ones that I have and are excellent.

 

BUT, what I don't get is, they said they removed it, among other reasons, is that it takes to much internal size, ok, but they could've, maybe, added second same port so you can charge and listen to music at the same time? Oh well. Don't care too much about it, just my pov.

Maybe in future there won't be ports, wireless charging is already a thing and wireless ear plugs so, yeah. We'll see.

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, ShadowCaptain said:

I am not sure where you got that its slower? i believe the A10 is more powerful than the A9X in the iPad pro which wipes the floor with any smartphone, even close to competing with a surface pro 4 i5 - the A10 is possible even on par

The camera is not gimmicky, not to those of us that value having a good quality camera in our pocket, - if it takes good photos and 4k video, it replaces an RX100 style camera, and means for casual shooting I dont need my big gear

 

Geekbench heavily favours arm. In the real world, an i5 is definitely faster than an A9X, plus there are things the x86 instruction set does inherently much better than any arm cpu.

27 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

I know, it was just a quick analogy to show that the A9X is more powerful than the snapdragon CPUs

 

I hate sythetics anyway but yeah there is no way the A10 will be slow!

 

examples here etc

http://www.techgrapple.com/helio-x20-vs-snapdragon-820-vs-exynos-8890-vs-apple-a9-vs-apple-a9x-vs-kirin-950/

But we're not necessarily comparing it to SDs here... I may have spoken too soon because I don't have the numbers at hand (I misread the original post) but the A10 definitely has some catching up to do if it wants to threaten the exynos and helio socs. Not that performance matters too much at this point, since things are probably as snappy as they can be already and nobody will use their phone for video editing any time soon, but when you're asking for top price you'd better have top features... which the iphone 7 clearly doesn't have, even if performance turned out to be on par with the competition.

 

I'm not saying it's bad to have a good camera, but I don't see it as a selling point.

[TheRandomness]

3 hours ago, huilun02 said:

Maybe next iPhone won't have a screen

No, it'll be a glass brick. 

[ShadowCaptain]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

but when you're asking for top price you'd better have top features... which the iphone 7 clearly doesn't have, even if performance turned out to be on par with the competition.

I'm not saying it's bad to have a good camera, but I don't see it as a selling point.

 

How does it not have top features?

(probably) the best smarphone camera for stills and video

Image/video stabilsation

Better battery life than before (seems good)

up to 256gb of storage if needed

Great display (decent  PPI and cinema colour spec)

Touch ID

Apple Pay

Stereo speakers

Water resistance

Arguably the best app store

Fast performance

Nice build quality

Airplay/Airdrop

Apple watch integration

Continuity

Apps in imessage/widgets

 

I could go on and on listing good features of the iPhone

 

ok no headphone jack, no less customisation than android - thats about the only 2 downsides

 

 

[Sauron]

3 minutes ago, ShadowCaptain said:

 

How does it not have top features?

(probably) the best smarphone camera for stills and video

Image/video stabilsation

Better battery life than before (seems good)

up to 256gb of storage if needed

Great display (decent  PPI and cinema colour spec)

Touch ID

Apple Pay

Stereo speakers

Water resistance

Arguably the best app store

Fast performance

Nice build quality

Airplay/Airdrop

Apple watch integration

Continuity

Apps in imessage/widgets

 

I could go on and on listing good features of the iPhone

 

ok no headphone jack, no less customisation than android - thats about the only 2 downsides

 

 

Where do I even start? No expandable storage, no replaceable battery, no proper nfc, no dual sim, no oled, no 1080p, no jack (which would be just fine if instead of removing it completely they had put in a different, digital port or if it had wireless charging), no wireless charging, no radio. I'm not going to count software features because there are tradeoffs, but on the hardware side it's quite lacking. Once again, that is not to say that it's unusable by any stretch, but it just offers less.

[ShadowCaptain]

Just now, Sauron said:

Where do I even start? No expandable storage, no replaceable battery, no proper nfc, no dual sim, no oled, no 1080p, no jack (which would be just fine if instead of removing it completely they had put in a different, digital port or if it had wireless charging), no wireless charging, no radio. I'm not going to count software features because there are tradeoffs, but on the hardware side it's quite lacking. Once again, that is not to say that it's unusable by any stretch, but it just offers less.

Dont need expandable storage with crazy cheap icloud, and 256gb phones - its nice to have yes, but equally no messing around with file browsers (yay)

Replaceable battery, not easily but most modern phones dont have this, and it IS replaceable if you have to, that said most iPhone batteries last a good 3 years of normal use (from me, family and friends experience) 

the 7plus is a 1080p display, its not OLED, but so what? its a very colour accurate, bright, high PPI LCD - 

I agree, no proper NFC, but we have airplay, airdrop etc which do work well, and we have apple pay, but yesh NFC would be good

 

No radio.. no but .. im sure not many people are effected since we have internet radio

Wireless charging would have been great, then you could charge and play simultaneously

 

Software features cannot be ignored when looking at a device! its 50:50 hardware and software, - just because a few numbers are lower, or it misses a few things does not make it a bad device not matter what you think

You dont have to like it, be a fan, or want to buy one, but you talk about it in a way that you think nobody should ever buy one - when the features I listed are exactly the features I am looking for in a phone

Plus I prefer iOS being simpler to use, I have android devices and the OS annoys me

[79wjd]

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Where do I even start?

1. No expandable storage,
2. no replaceable battery,
3. no proper nfc,
4. no dual sim,
5. no oled,
6. no 1080p,
7. no jack (which would be just fine if instead of removing it completely they had put in a different, digital port or if it had wireless charging),
8. no wireless charging,
9. no radio.

1. irrelevant to most users with most people streaming anyway

2. also, irrelevant to most users

3. okay

4. VERY niche

5. oled would be nice, but burn in is still a thing and the iPhone display already looks great.

6. Again, irrelevant at the display size 

7. Okay

8. Okay 

9. who cares?

 

And how can you just ignore software? Software is a giant part of the game. iOS was/is a huge reason why I switched to an iPhone in the first place. 

[dtaflorida]

The list of bad is not actually that bad. Aside from the missing audio port the rest of it is either negligible or an extension of the missing audio port bullet point. And by negligible I mean vanity points that have more to do with showing off to other's that you have a new expensive phone than anything else.

 

I need to touch and feel this new home button. Can you rest your finger on it without pressing it? or is it really just capacitive like many android devices that have dedicated non-screen buttons? I had a tablet that would use haptic feedback when the navigation was touched, so if its much like that, I'd still prefer a real home button. Maybe the taptic engine is good enough to erase that past experience... we'll see. 

[Commodus]

I think some people are a little too eager to defend the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, but at the same time... some of the criticisms don't play out in the real world.

 

Take the absence of generic NFC for data transfers, for example.  How often do people use that, even when they know their friends have NFC?  It's handy for transferring settings to your new phone, pairing with a few cameras... and that's about it.  Mobile payments seem to be where the technology really gets its use, and Apple has that covered.

 

And really?  FM radio?  That matters if you're buying a $100 phone in a market where data is prohibitively expensive for most people... not for someone buying a $650 flagship phone.  Go download TuneIn Radio and you can likely listen to your favourite station online.

 

[o0Martin]

41 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

5. oled would be nice, but burn in is still a thing

Burn in actually isn't an issue people should worry about with OLED smartphones. 

Although there is still the issue (And this is the main issue with OLED monitors too right now) that blue-emissive pixels degrade at a faster rate than red and green, leading to bad colour balance over time. BUT because phones spend a lot of time on standby it's a much much smaller issue than with monitors, and the effect takes 3-5 years to actual matter on monitors, even longer on phones, and by the time it does effect the device 99% of people probably would have upgraded, that's why OLED is becoming so common on phones/tablets and not monitors. 

 

But yeah I agree most of those 'negatives' that were listed aren't a big deal. OLED is nice for an always on display and great contrast, as for all the other things other than wireless charging and the headphone jack I don't really care.

No radio? 

[dtaflorida]

3 minutes ago, o0Martin said:

Burn in actually isn't an issue people should worry about with OLED smartphones.

I have a Galaxy S with and AMOLED screen that I use as a digital clock that has really bad burn in.

 

The iPad I have on the wall doing much the same thing is fine tho.

[o0Martin]

3 minutes ago, dtaflorida said:

I have a Galaxy S with and AMOLED screen that I use as a digital clock that has really bad burn in.

 

The iPad I have on the wall doing much the same thing is fine tho.

Well that is a 6 year old device, and if by using it as a digital clock you mean it sits there with the display on and only shows the clock, then it's no wonder an old AMOLED panel would suffer burn in and a non OLED iPad would not 

[GoodBytes]

9 minutes ago, Commodus said:

Take the absence of generic NFC for data transfers, for example.  How often do people use that, even when they know their friends have NFC?  It's handy for transferring settings to your new phone, pairing with a few cameras... and that's about it.  Mobile payments seem to be where the technology really gets its use, and Apple has that covered.

 

And really?  FM radio?  That matters if you're buying a $100 phone in a market where data is prohibitively expensive for most people... not for someone buying a $650 flagship phone.  Go download TuneIn Radio and you can likely listen to your favourite station online.

 

I agree with the NFC, but I don't agree with the rest.

TuneIn requires internet. Microsoft pulled it's FM Radio app from Windows 10 Mobile in the anniversary update, and lots of people complains, and it is not helped that there is no UWP API to make your own app, you need to made a Windows Phone 8 app, and no dev really wants to touch this platform. But anyway, some of the people complains that I read are: that it is useful when you travel and you have data/cellphone connection, but you can still get radio when you are not in your car/RV. Great for emergencies, for those without data plans or limited amount per month. Or when they are on the go (say, running), and wants to listen to something else than what they have as music, or the news for a moment (and again, with limited data plans or not data plans at all, or close to reach limit). Another thing mentioned and affect more people, is that many gyms now have TVs on the cardio machine area, and to listen to it, you tune your FM radio to a specific frequency and you get to listen to the TV. Like this, you can have different channels and people can hear what they watch. So even if you had TuneIn, and the data package for this, you can't listen to it.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

40 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Where do I even start? No expandable storage, no replaceable battery, no proper nfc, no dual sim, no oled, no 1080p, no jack (which would be just fine if instead of removing it completely they had put in a different, digital port or if it had wireless charging), no wireless charging, no radio. I'm not going to count software features because there are tradeoffs, but on the hardware side it's quite lacking. Once again, that is not to say that it's unusable by any stretch, but it just offers less.

Explainable Storage - A redundant feature that is increasingly becoming a performance bottleneck for the phone.

Replaceable Battery - If there is ever a case where you need a battery for "free recharging", then perhaps you are using your phone for the wrong reasons. The phones' lifespans are limited as it is; the main NAND will fail sooner than the battery, in most cases.

NFC - I stand my my original statement that it is completely useless in the context of smartphones. Want the functionality? Get some customizable key cards; a much much more practical solution.

Dual Sim - This matters to... who, exactly? Even with dual-sim, you end up doing quite a few swaps, so the benefit there is ultimately moot.

OLED - Not exactly a mature tech; image retention is still a problem, also the color accuracy is still a bit off with the blue pixels being short-lived.

1080P - At this point, you probably only want this because the number is so catchy. The PPI (DPI) is where it matters, and it is already more than good enough for the iPhones.

3.5mm - While I understand that audio is by definition analog, that is no excuse to have a hanging analog cable with you... move on!

Wireless Charging - Hey! Charging docks are a thing! USB power outlets are a thing! Both more secure and much 'cooler' (hence safer) options!

Radio - I can count with one finger the amount of people who even bother to turn it on in the car. For the 2% that care, we have internet radio for crying out loud!

[GoodBytes]

7 minutes ago, dtaflorida said:

I have a Galaxy S with and AMOLED screen that I use as a digital clock that has really bad burn in.

AMOLED well, OLED technology has advanced a lot over the years, and is no longer really an issue these days. I won't say it is solved, but image retention is difficult in a real world situation to have.

[zMeul]

48 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

1. irrelevant to most users with most people streaming anyway

2. also, irrelevant to most users

3. okay

4. VERY niche

5. oled would be nice, but burn in is still a thing and the iPhone display already looks great.

6. Again, irrelevant at the display size 

7. Okay

8. Okay 

9. who cares?

 

And how can you just ignore software? Software is a giant part of the game. iOS was/is a huge reason why I switched to an iPhone in the first place. 

1. have you actually tried streaming while on the go on a 3G connection? I'd rather shoot my dick off

2. any type of fast charging or wireless charging will turn your battery into mush; or are you one of those people that change their phones faster than they change their underwear

3. nice in theory

4. my main carrier data plan is a fucking nightmare; my 2nd carrier allows me to use HSPA data for few $ a month (I got a SIM with my internet contract)

5. PPI over panel type

6. who actually gives a shit?!

7. big one - personally I don't use my phone as a media player

8. I'd take slow wired charging over anything else

9. on the go when your data connection is utter shit, I'd like me some radio

[suicidalfranco]

13 minutes ago, Colonel_Gerdauf said:

Explainable Storage - A redundant feature that is increasingly becoming a performance bottleneck for the phone.

Replaceable Battery - If there is ever a case where you need a battery for "free recharging", then perhaps you are using your phone for the wrong reasons. The phones' lifespans are limited as it is; the main NAND will fail sooner than the battery, in most cases.

NFC - I stand my my original statement that it is completely useless in the context of smartphones. Want the functionality? Get some customizable key cards; a much much more practical solution.

Dual Sim - This matters to... who, exactly? Even with dual-sim, you end up doing quite a few swaps, so the benefit there is ultimately moot.

OLED - Not exactly a mature tech; image retention is still a problem, also the color accuracy is still a bit off with the blue pixels being short-lived.

1080P - At this point, you probably only want this because the number is so catchy. The PPI (DPI) is where it matters, and it is already more than good enough for the iPhones.

3.5mm - While I understand that audio is by definition analog, that is no excuse to have a hanging analog cable with you... move on!

Wireless Charging - Hey! Charging docks are a thing! USB power outlets are a thing! Both more secure and much 'cooler' (hence safer) options!

Radio - I can count with one finger the amount of people who even bother to turn it on in the car. For the 2% that care, we have internet radio for crying out loud!

TL;DR: everything apple doesn't do is a gimmick

[Sauron]

39 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

And how can you just ignore software? Software is a giant part of the game. iOS was/is a huge reason why I switched to an iPhone in the first place. 

I'm not really interested in having a 15 page discussion when I have already expressed my opinion, but the reason I didn't talk about software is that I can't point to objective flaws and advantages. A lot of it still is down to personal preference, and that is why I can't really argue with someone who says they prefer iOS to the point of wanting to buy an iPhone only to have it. I would miss file browsing, customization and a few more things that other people may find completely irrelevant, or would prefer not to have. Likewise, features like airplay, icloud etc don't matter to me in the slightest because I have no apple ecosystem whatsoever to integrate them with. If you must have iOS you don't have a choice (save between the normal and + iPhone versions) and the whole discussion becomes meaningless unless I can point out a cataclysmic flaw that makes the phone unusable, which is not the case.

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

2 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

TL;DR: everything apple doesn't do is a gimmick

Ok, thank you for that hyperbole. Now what is your point?

 

Also, did everybody magically forget Samsung's phone strategy of throwing whatever it can find to the wall, and religiously begging for something to stick?

[79wjd]

15 minutes ago, zMeul said:

1. have you actually tried streaming while on the go on a 3G connection? I'd rather shoot my dick off

2. any type of fast charging or wireless charging will turn your battery into mush; or are you one of those people that change their phones faster than they change their underwear

3. nice in theory

4. my main carrier data plan is a fucking nightmare; my 2nd carrier allows me to use HSPA data for few $ a month (I got a SIM with my internet contract)

5. PPI over panel type

6. who actually gives a shit?!

7. big one - personally I don't use my phone as a media player

8. I'd take slow wired charging over anything else

9. on the go when your data connection is utter shit, I'd like me some radio

1. That doesn't change the fact that a a growing number of people (and a lot at that) don't even have music/video locally on their phones. Plus, most people don't have anywhere near enough music to fill a 32gb iPhone anyway. 

2. Most people don't keep their phones for long enough for the battery life to matter. My iPhone 5s's battery is still great after three years of use. And again, you can replace the battery in the iPhone -- the argument to have "replaceable" batteries is so you can swap them on the fly -- which isn't something more than a handful of people would ever do anyway. 

3. agreed 

4. You're in a VERY niche minority that uses more than one SIM, ever. 

5. Yes, but once you reach a certain level, a higher PPI does nothing but draw more power and put more strain on the GPU. An OLED would benefit an iPhone FAR more than a higher resolution would. A higher resolution is largely irrelevant. 

6. People who want bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers.

7. Also irrelevant to most people since most people only use one pair of headphones with their phones (thus, leaving an adapter on them permanently isn't an issue), and most people don't frequently charge their phone and listen to music at the same time. 

8. Wireless charging would still be a nice feature to have. 

9. Or locally stored music. A radio antenna would just be a waste of space. If you happen to be in the fraction of a percent that would use radio, then I'm sure there's something you could buy. (or a different phone that is targeting a niche market)

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

1. That doesn't change the fact that a a growing number of people (and a lot at that) don't even have music/video locally on their phones. Plus, most people don't have anywhere near enough music to fill a 32gb iPhone anyway. 

2. Most people don't keep their phones for long enough for the battery life to matter. My iPhone 5s's battery is still great after three years of use. And again, you can replace the battery in the iPhone -- the argument to have "replaceable" batteries is so you can swap them on the fly -- which isn't something more than a handful of people would ever do anyway. 

3. agreed 

4. You're in a VERY niche minority that uses more than one SIM, ever. 

5. Yes, but once you reach a certain level, a higher PPI does nothing but draw more power and put more strain on the GPU. An OLED would benefit an iPhone FAR more than a higher resolution would. A higher resolution is largely irrelevant. 

6. People who want bigger numbers for the sake of bigger numbers.

7. Also irrelevant to most people since most people only use one pair of headphones with their phones (thus, leaving an adapter on them permanently isn't an issue), and most people don't frequently charge their phone and listen to music at the same time. 

8. Wireless charging would still be a nice feature to have. 

9. Or locally stored music. A radio antenna would just be a waste of space. If you happen to be in the fraction of a percent that would use radio, then I'm sure there's something you could buy. (or a different phone that is targeting a niche market)

Another take on things, other phones which cost the same or less, have more features, with the same build quality (if not better).

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Another take on things, other phones which cost the same or less, have more features, with the same build quality (if not better).

All flagships are similarly poorly priced. You'll get no argument from me then flagships offer a poor value relative to what else is available. But that's an entirely different argument. Plus, unlike most Android phones, iPhones actually maintain their value -- so you can easily go and resell it the next year for pretty close to what you paid for it. 

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

All flagships are similarly poorly priced. You'll get no argument from me then flagships offer a poor value relative to what else is available. But that's an entirely different argument. Plus, unlike most Android phones, iPhones actually maintain their value -- so you can easily go and resell it the next year for pretty close to what you paid for it. 

At the end of the day, if you get an iPhone, you pay more for less.

[patrick3027]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Geekbench heavily favours arm. In the real world, an i5 is definitely faster than an A9X, plus there are things the x86 instruction set does inherently much better than any arm cpu.

But we're not necessarily comparing it to SDs here... I may have spoken too soon because I don't have the numbers at hand (I misread the original post) but the A10 definitely has some catching up to do if it wants to threaten the exynos and helio socs. Not that performance matters too much at this point, since things are probably as snappy as they can be already and nobody will use their phone for video editing any time soon, but when you're asking for top price you'd better have top features... which the iphone 7 clearly doesn't have, even if performance turned out to be on par with the competition.

 

I'm not saying it's bad to have a good camera, but I don't see it as a selling point.

Take any benchmark except those exclusively based on multi-core performance and the A10 blows every competition out of the water.

 

The A10 gets 178,397 points on Antutu. Let's compare that to the Android side:

That's a 25% higher score for the iPhone 7.

 

On, Geekbench 4, single core is 3233 and multi-core score is 5363 for the A10.

For the Exynos 8893, the single-core score was 2536 while the multi-core was 8110.

The SD 820 scores 2306 on single-core with a multi-core tally of 5403.

A Helio X25 scores 2060 on single-core and 5317 on multi-core.

 

 

[Colonel_Gerdauf]

Just now, Dabombinable said:

At the end of the day, if you get an iPhone, you pay more for less.

That is debatable at best. You do not buy a phone for the amount of features that it has, but rather how useful the phone itself is to your use case. As much as some people would love to deny it, the iPhone wins most of the time from a purely practical standpoint. As mentioned earlier, a good amount of these features that Android that (that iPhones do not) are either tacked on solely for the sake of marketing, or rushed to the door out of impatience. Remember when people were loudly screaming that Android phones had Adobe Flash support where Apple were "too stupid to allow such a fabulous technology"? Take a look at where that went.