iPhone 7 vs 6S

Price when reviewed

£599 (32GB), £699 (128GB), £799 (256GB)

iPhone 7 vs 6S: which phone is best?

Right now, we seem to be in a period of smartphone stasis. Everyone’s excited for this year’s new model but if truth be told, changes across the board are fairly minor. They’re iterative, evolutionary. You could say the same about the iPhone 7, which can be seen as just another iPhone 6 model with a few upgrades here and there. But as you’ll see, those small changes add up to something more significant. Here we’re comparing the iPhone 7 with the iPhone 6S to help you decide whether or not to upgrade. See also: 20 best phones
Note: This comparison is based on our review of the iPhone 6S, and our early impressions of the iPhone 7 which we have not yet benchmarked for performance, battery life, screen quality and so on. We will update this review once that testing has been completed.
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iPhone 7 vs 6S: Design

The iPhone 7 has the same dimensions and – as near as makes no difference – weight. Apple has managed to remove the antenna lines for a cleaner look (they’re now just around the very top and bottom edges) and there’s two new colours to choose between: Jet Black and Black. These replace Space Grey, which is no longer available.
Jet Black is the ‘signature’ finish for the iPhone 7 and is a very highly polished aluminium case (shown on the iPhone 7 in the image below). It’s only available with 128GB or 256GB of storage, which also lets other people know you’ve got a very expensive phone. It’s a finish you’ll have to work hard to protect, though, as it’s susceptible to what Apple is calling micro-abrasions.

iPhone 7 vs 6S: Cameras

Although it might seem like the same 12Mp camera as the iPhone 6S, the iPhone 7 has an improved camera with an f/1.8 lens and optical stabilisation. Those are two important updates which should lead to sharper images and fewer blurry ones. We’ve yet to properly evaluate the camera, but we’ll update this article when we do. Note that the LED flash now comprises four LEDs, versus two in the 6S

iPhone 7 vs 6S: Waterproof

One of the biggest upgrades is of course the waterproofing. The iPhone 7 is water-resistant to 1m for up to 30 minutes. This isn’t simply to guard against accidental drops in the bath, toilet or your pint of craft ale: it also opens up much more creativity when it comes to underwater photography and video.
Obviously you can’t take it scuba diving, but for fun shots of your kids swimming, it’s another trick to add to the iPhone’s list. Don’t try the same thing with an iPhone 6S!

iPhone 7 vs 6S: Performance and display

Processor

The iPhone 6S is no slowcoach, but the iPhone 7 still beats it thanks to the A10 Fusion chip. This is Apple’s first quad-core processor, with the A9 in the iPhone 6 being a 64-bit dual-core part.
Like most flagship Android phones’ processors, the A10 has two powerful cores which handle games and other demanding apps. The other two are lower performance and have much lower power consumption, and are used for all the other stuff, such as when you’re reading emails. A new controller decides when the high-power cores are needed and switches them off when they’re not to save battery.
We’ve not yet been able to run any benchmarks on the iPhone 7, but results from popular benchmarks have appeared online and seem to indicate that the new chip really is about 40 percent quicker than the iPhone 6’s A9.

Battery life

More power tends to mean less battery life, but Apple says you’ll get around two hours’ extra use from an iPhone 7 when doing the same things as on an iPhone 6S.
There’s still no wireless charging in the iPhone 7, and no ‘fast charging’ (or at least no fancy marketing name for it.

Display

Resolution and the underlying technology remain the same as for the iPhone 6S, but the iPhone 7’s screen is 25 percent brighter. It also has a wider colour gamut, which means that colours should be more faithfully reproduced. Plus, the phone has end-to-end colour management which means that the camera sensor is calibrated to the screen and so the colours it captures are what (in theory) is displayed when you view the photo or video on screen.
Apple calls this Wide Colour, and it’s the same as the DCI-P3 standard. This isn’t HDR, though. In fact, the iPhone 7’s contrast ratio remains the same as the iPhone 6S’