Apple iPhone 7 Plus
The Good: Dual rear cameras delivers true 2x optical zoom, with a cool bokeh Portrait mode. Battery lasts longer than last year's model, and longer than iPhone 7. Water resistant. Fast. Bigger storage options include 256GB model for serious photographers.
When Apple first made the larger Plus phones back in 2014, the appeal was always about screen size, battery life, and to a small extent, the camera. Really, all the larger 5.5-inch model had that the standard 4.7-incher didn't was optical image stabilization (OIS). This year, the iPhone 7 finally gets OIS -- great for smoothing out shaky-handed pics and videos.
That's just one of the many similarities between the 7 and 7 Plus. Really, they're two variants on the same phone:
Both are water-resistant.
Both have the same fast A10 Fusion processor.
Both have optical image stabilization on the rear camera for better low-light photos.
Both lack headphone jacks.
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iPhone 7 Plus 'portrait' mode does background blur better
The iPhone 7 Plus has a few distinct advantages:
Two rear cameras -- one wide angle, one telephoto -- that can zoom in at 2x or even further digitally. And it can create depth-of-field blur effects, or "bokeh" type effects, with portrait photos in a unique camera mode.
Better battery life, but not by a huge amount.
Larger 5.5-inch 1080p display.
3GB of RAM, instead of 2GB
It's heavier and bigger.
And, of course, it costs more.
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After several months trying both phones, I prefer the 7 Plus. But I spend my life on my phone and run around shooting photos and videos for work-related posts. For me, it's an essential tool, and I justify the extra camera quality.
For a lot of others, the Plus will seem unnecessary. Pick the phone that you can afford, and go with battery packs for charge-ups. But I still feel like I miss that headphone jack, even though I honestly don't find many instances anymore where I need it.
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Two iPhones, straight outta Brooklyn.
CNET
Put another way: Everything we like -- and dislike -- about the smaller iPhone 7 applies to the 7 Plus model, too. (Read the iPhone 7 review here.) Just know that you're paying a premium of $120, £120 or AU$190 when you step up to the 7 Plus at each storage capacity. (Yes, the price has crept up a bit from last year.)
But if you like shooting photos with your phone, it's totally worth it.
Editors' note: This review was originally posted in September 2016. It has since been updated with performance charts, battery life, and tests done with iOS 10.1, as well as comparisons to the Google Pixel camera.
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The iPhone 7 Plus is Apple's most advanced phone to date.
CNET
It's big, though
Samsung and other manufacturers are doing a far better job folding identical 5.5-inch or larger displays into bodies that feel smaller and better in your hand, like the S7 Edge's. But now with cameras that can truly differentiate it from its smaller sibling, the 7 Plus finally has an easy justification for that jumbo size. It's finally the step-up experience the larger phone needed.
But keep in mind that next year's iPhone may solve the size problem, and fold more screen into a smaller body. You might want to consider holding out and seeing what happens in 2017 with that new design.
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Did we mention it's water-resistant?
CNET
How the dual cameras up the ante
I'm not a pro photographer, but I'm trying to get better. James Martin, a senior photographer at CNET, is. He shot with the 7 Plus in the Bay Area, while I took it around and used it for everyday life in New York and New Jersey.
Compare and contrast James' photos from the 7 Plus to 6S Plus to the Samsung Galaxy S7 here.
The dual cameras don't actually zoom, like a point-and-shoot camera with a protruding lens. Instead, the phone switches between the wide-angle camera and the telephoto, from 1 to 2x. From there, the camera app can digitally zoom up to 10x versus 5x on the iPhone 7. For video, it's 6x.
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The camera made these nosebleed seats look good.
Scott Stein/CNET
Digital zoom works better than it used to, but zooming in too far still results in blurry, digitized pics. It can't work miracles. But adding the 2x optical helps frame photos: I found many landscape shots transformed.
I went to the New York Jets' season opener and sat in the cheap seats. And being able to zoom in closer to the game action with less loss of detail was a great change -- all without a big, heavy camera around my neck.
Note, too, that the camera equals the low-light performance of its smaller sibling, which is an improvement over the 6S/6S Plus models. But also note that the Google Pixel's low light capabilities are even better. To compare Pixel vs iPhone 7 Plus, check out this in-depth comparison.
Two iPhones, straight outta Brooklyn.
CNET
Put another way: Everything we like -- and dislike -- about the smaller iPhone 7 applies to the 7 Plus model, too. (Read the iPhone 7 review here.) Just know that you're paying a premium of $120, £120 or AU$190 when you step up to the 7 Plus at each storage capacity. (Yes, the price has crept up a bit from last year.)
But if you like shooting photos with your phone, it's totally worth it.
Editors' note: This review was originally posted in September 2016. It has since been updated with performance charts, battery life, and tests done with iOS 10.1, as well as comparisons to the Google Pixel camera.
geminus48.jpg
Enlarge Image
The iPhone 7 Plus is Apple's most advanced phone to date.
CNET
It's big, though
Samsung and other manufacturers are doing a far better job folding identical 5.5-inch or larger displays into bodies that feel smaller and better in your hand, like the S7 Edge's. But now with cameras that can truly differentiate it from its smaller sibling, the 7 Plus finally has an easy justification for that jumbo size. It's finally the step-up experience the larger phone needed.
But keep in mind that next year's iPhone may solve the size problem, and fold more screen into a smaller body. You might want to consider holding out and seeing what happens in 2017 with that new design.
geminus27.jpg
Enlarge Image
Did we mention it's water-resistant?
CNET
I'm not a pro photographer, but I'm trying to get better. James Martin, a senior photographer at CNET, is. He shot with the 7 Plus in the Bay Area, while I took it around and used it for everyday life in New York and New Jersey.
Compare and contrast James' photos from the 7 Plus to 6S Plus to the Samsung Galaxy S7 here.
The dual cameras don't actually zoom, like a point-and-shoot camera with a protruding lens. Instead, the phone switches between the wide-angle camera and the telephoto, from 1 to 2x. From there, the camera app can digitally zoom up to 10x versus 5x on the iPhone 7. For video, it's 6x.
0aa7plus-sunshine-no-hdr.jpg
Enlarge Image
The camera made these nosebleed seats look good.
Scott Stein/CNET
Digital zoom works better than it used to, but zooming in too far still results in blurry, digitized pics. It can't work miracles. But adding the 2x optical helps frame photos: I found many landscape shots transformed.
I went to the New York Jets' season opener and sat in the cheap seats. And being able to zoom in closer to the game action with less loss of detail was a great change -- all without a big, heavy camera around my neck.
Note, too, that the camera equals the low-light performance of its smaller sibling, which is an improvement over the 6S/6S Plus models. But also note that the Google Pixel's low light capabilities are even better. To compare Pixel vs iPhone 7 Plus, check out this in-depth comparison.
Apple iPhone 7 Plus review
Reflections from a pro
But let's be clear: this phone could be a lot of people's everyday camera, but it's not the same as a pro dSLR, not by a longshot. Apple specifically avoided making claims that it will replace the Canons and Nikons of the world.
Google's Pixel cameras are also incredibly impressive, especially in low light. They also feature astonishingly smooth video stabilization. But the 7 Plus is still among the tops in camera quality. Not head-and-shoulders, perhaps, but up there.
James Martin, who spends his days shooting with just such an SLR, found a lot to like about the 7 Plus's photo chops:
The new sensor has a dramatic ability to capture a wide range of colors, and separates the color well. There's no muddiness or blending of edges, the pixels are well defined, and the colors sharp. The white balance is also noticeably better [than the 6S Plus], and the image depicts a true-to-life representation of the scene.
Rather than exposing for the blacks and blowing out the highlights, or exposing for the highlights and losing the blacks, the iPhone 7 Plus was able to capture a wide range of light and tones. There's a lot of information being recorded in this sensor, and we're hardly losing anything on either the low or the high end. The iPhone 7 Plus did an amazing job of capturing a broad swath of the middle -- without appearing muddy -- while also delivering tones on both the high and low ends.
And how did he feel about the 7 Plus compared to the Samsung Galaxy S7 -- arguably the best phone camera of the first half of the year?
Now in many ways, the "realness" of the iPhone 7 Plus images has solid competition from Samsung's Galaxy S7 camera. In my opinion, the Galaxy S7 often produces images that are more pleasing straight out of the camera. The photos are bright and bold -- images pop with an almost painterly quality. The S7 photos look fantastic, but arguably look less "real" than images coming out of the iPhone 7 Plus. I think of it as the iPhone 7 Plus producing a high-quality film image, while the Samsung Galaxy S7 is most definitely producing a "digital looking" image.
Photos taken with the iPhone 7 Plus
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The other reasons to go Plus: Portrait mode
The 7 Plus can pull off one unique trick via a special "portrait mode," which takes advantage of both rear lenses to create a blurred-background depth-of-field effect that makes photos of friends or pets look like they were shot on a digital SLR, sort of.
The effect is far better than similar tricks on other phones we've seen, but the effect, which mimics the "bokeh" look in SLR cameras, has limits. You have to have certain lighting, and be a certain distance from your subject. And it frames everything via the closer-up telephoto lens, which means wider-angle shots aren't possible.
The camera keeps the blurred and non-blurred photos so you have options, but I find that the mode's a special tool I don't always use. Portrait mode's in beta right now in iOS 10 .1, meaning it's still a work in progress. But so far, it's far better than a similar feature offered on the Pixel phone, which tries to achieve the same effect from a single lens.
Who knows what else Apple will do with those dual cameras? Other new tricks, perhaps, using depth of field? Augmented reality, maybe? It's always tough to bet on potential, but those dual cameras could be capable of more in future software updates.
The iPhone 7 Plus' 'portrait' mode does background...
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Battery life: A minor upgrade
The iPhone 7 Plus lasted somewhat longer than the smaller 7 on our video-loop playback test with iOS 10.1, which puts the phone on airplane mode and doesn't necessarily reflect "normal" phone use. It ran for 12 hours and 6 minutes, versus 10 hours 55 minutes from the iPhone 7. But last year's iPhone 6S Plus lasted about the same duration on the same test running iOS 9.
Apple's new A10 processor goes into power-saving modes that are designed to extend battery life better, and on average I found the 7 Plus handled the average work day better than the 6S Plus. But I still need to top off that battery around 4 p.m. each day to be safe.
There's no disgrace in needing to spare some money when purchasing another iPhone. All things considered, $649 for an iPhone 7 and $679 for an iPhone 7 Plus is as of now an exceptionally difficult request. However, now that you've invested some energy with your new iPhone, you have a touch of purchaser's regret. Truth is stranger than fiction, even with twice as much space, the "insufficient stockpiling" mistake frequently raises its terrible head on Apple's overhauled section level iPhones.
It's baffling for sure, yet there's a gadget that can help and it's much less expensive than the $100 you would have spent for the following iPhone demonstrate up. Look at the SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive.
A few highlights from the Amazon item page:
Free up space on your iPhone by moving photographs and recordings to your iXpand streak
Naturally go down photographs and recordings from your camera
Naturally go down your contacts
Watch well known video on your iPhone or iPad
Planned with an adaptable connector to fit through most iPhone cases
Fast USB 3.0 exchange to and from your PC
Secure record stockpiling over your PC, iPhone and iPad
The exclusion of a conventional earphone jack is a disputable change (and we have an article about managing telephones that have dropped the jack). Apple does, be that as it may, incorporate both a Lightning-connector form of the organization's EarPods earbuds and a Lightning-connector-to-3.5-mm connector for utilizing any earphones with a conventional earphone miniplug; you can likewise utilize Bluetooth earphones as with whatever other telephone.
The absence of an earphone jack can be a bother, however it's not something that would keep us from prescribing the iPhone 7 unless you have other particular needs.
We won't get into the verbal confrontation over why Apple rolled out this improvement, or whether it's great or awful, however various Wirecutter staff members have utilized the new telephones for a few months. Those who've given us criticism on the earphone jack have for the most part said that however it can be a touch of a bother, it hasn't been an enormous arrangement in certifiable utilize. In case you're the sort who utilizes the earbuds that accompany your telephone, you can simply do that; also, in the event that you basically utilize Bluetooth earphones, you won't see a distinction. In the event that you utilize other wired earphones, you'll likely interface the included connector to your earphone link and abandon it there. (A couple Wirecutter staff members have acquired an additional connector—Apple charges $9 for each—to leave at work or in their sack.)
Doubtlessly this is even more a bother than if the telephone had a conventional earphone jack—particularly in the event that you utilize similar earphones with different gadgets, so you need to routinely interface and detach the connector—yet it's not something that would keep us from prescribing the telephone unless you have other particular needs.
We think the iPhone 7 is the best size for the vast majority, however it's worth at any rate considering the 7 Plus. Over the past couple years, various Wirecutter staff members have utilized both sizes (over the 6, 6s, and 7 lines) for amplified periods, and in view of those encounters, we think the 7 Plus is an extraordinary choice for a larger number of individuals than you may expect.
One reason is that the 7 Plus' bigger body means there's space for a battery that is 48 percent bigger than the one in the iPhone 7 (2,900 mAh versus 1,960 mAh). The outcome is that the 7 Plus gives you any longer utilize time: as indicated by Apple, seven hours more talk time (21 versus 14 hours), six days more standby time (16 versus 10 days), an additional hour of Internet utilize (15 versus 14 hours), one more hour of video watching (14 versus 13 hours), or 20 more hours of music tuning in (60 versus 40 hours). We haven't done thorough testing of these evaluations, however in view of our own ordinary utilize, different surveys and criticism we've seen, and our time utilizing the two past eras of iPhones, we can state that in a direct to overwhelming use day, the 4.7-inch models are frequently about invested by the energy we go to bed, while the Plus telephones routinely have 20 to 40 percent of a full charge remaining.
The extra battery life alone might be sufficient motivation to pick the bigger telephone.
For a few Wirecutter staff members, this extra battery life alone was sufficient motivation to pick the bigger telephones: Not worrying about your battery kicking the bucket before the day's over is freeing. Besides, you're a sufficiently overwhelming client that you'd inevitably purchase a battery case for the iPhone 7 just to endure the day, you'll have spent nearly as much as the distinction in cost between the 7 and 7 Plus—and you'll have an encased telephone that is sufficiently massive to make it, in some ways, less wieldy than the 7 Plus. At the end of the day, in the event that you tend to purchase an iPhone and a battery case, you should seriously think about purchasing the 7 Plus.
As said over, another preferred standpoint for the 7 Plus is that its camera framework incorporates an extra focal point. Contrasted and the 7, you'll get genuine 2x optical zoom, and additionally the new picture mode. Also, in the event that you tend to take a considerable measure of photographs and recordings, the 7 Plus' bigger screen makes it less demanding to alter those photos and clasps and show them to other individuals. (This is to a greater extent an advantage than you may anticipate. In a room brimming with iPhones, the 6 Plus, 6s Plus, and 7 are the telephones our family and companions incline toward at whatever point we're demonstrating the most recent media.)
Contrasted and the 7, you'll get genuine 2x optical zoom, and also the new picture mode.
That screen is, obviously, the 7 Plus' most clear favorable position over the iPhone 7. The 7 Plus' screen is almost an inch bigger (measured slantingly), and, put essentially, it gives you a chance to see more substance, or a similar measure of substance at a bigger size. It makes numerous applications less demanding to utilize in light of the fact that what's on the screen is less swarmed, or on the grounds that the engineers have made onscreen controls bigger. It's even sufficiently extensive that some applications, including Apple's Mail and Messages and outsider applications, for example, Tweetbot, give a two-sheet format when the 7 Plus is in scene introduction.
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