iPhone 7 Plus Review
Pros
- Beautiful screen
- Unique camera
- Solid battery life
- Class-leading performance
- Potent speakers
Cons
- Expensive
- No headphone jack
- Largely unchanged design
Key Features
- Review Price: £719.00
- 5.5-inch Full HD screen with wide colour gamut
- A10 Fusion processor with 3GB RAM
- Water-resistant IP67
- 12-megapixel telephoto camera
- 7-megapixel selfie camera
- 32, 128 & 256GB storage options
- 2900mAh battery
What is the iPhone 7 Plus?
Apple’s latest phablet takes the familiar iPhone formula and tweaks it once again. It’s not going to wow you with a new design or massive innovations, but the iPhone 7 Plus is a great phone. It offers everything the iPhone 7 does – speedy performance, water resistance, loud speakers, great cameras – but adds some clever features that in many are more important than flashy specs.
On the other hand, the 7 Plus costs a small fortune. The weakened pound means this is the most expensive iPhone we’ve ever seen released in the UK. If you’re dead set on an iPhone, though, this is the one I’d recommend, not least because the iPhone 7 Plus’s battery life is excellent.
iPhone 7 Plus – Design
The shape and feel of the iPhone 7 Plus is very much like that of the two versions before it. It’s big – properly big – especially when you add a case to it.
Yes, it has an expansive screen, but it’s the iPhone 7 Plus’s height that makes it a handful.
If you haven’t used a phablet before, it’s worth testing out first. I found it takes about a week to get accustomed to a larger phone, but I wouldn’t go back. There’s just so much more you can do with a screen this size, but some will struggle to use it easily.
In other respects the design has been refined a little. The antenna bands that strapped the back now curve across the top and bottom edges of the phone. On the back there’s a far more pronounced camera bump.
LatestThere are two brand-new iPhone 7 Plus colours to choose from and both feel very different. The first is Jet Black, which has a slick, almost ceramic, feel to it. It looks fantastic, it’s grippy and it’s the colour I’d choose. There are a couple of catches, though: you’ll need to polish it regularly to get fingerprint marks off it, but more worryingly it marks with fine scratches a little too easily. If you do choose it, you’ll need to treat it with kid gloves to keep it looking its best.
iPhone 7 Plus – Screen and Speakers
Full HD resolution sounds old hat now. Plenty of phones from Samsung, LG and others have packed ultra-sharp quad-HD screens for years. The iPhone 7 Plus doesn’t follow suit and keeps to what Apple designates as a “Retina” display. This just means you can’t really see the pixels, but the pixel density isn’t as high as on, for example, the Samsung Galaxy S7.
I don’t care one jot. This is my favourite display on any phone, regardless of resolution.
Full HD is still plenty sharp for everything barring virtual reality, where the screen sits an inch from your eyes and is amplified by lenses.
The iPhone 7 Plus’s screen might not have the highest resolution, but it has the widest colour gamut. It uses something called DCI P3, a range of colours used by movie makers that encompasses a larger spectrum, allowing for more realistic and diverse tones.
It looks superb, with the extra area afforded by the bigger screen making it even better than on the 4.7-inch display of the smaller iPhone 7.
The colours are great, but it’s also bright, so it can be viewed even in strong sunlight. It helps that it’s not very reflective either.
Bingeing on Netflix is a joy, particularly if you use the tremendous built-in speakers. These are excellent – for a phone. For starters, they’re very loud – loud enough that I was easily able to hear over the cacophony of a busy kitchen with the kettle boiling and frying pan sizzling. They’re not particularly refined, however. At the top volume the iPhone 7 Plus can sound a little harsh, and there’s very little bass. Still, they’re top-notch for a phone.
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