Smartphone lifespans are going up and this has two dramatic effects. First, users often skip a generation before upgrading. Second, buying a year old smartphone at a reduced price is increasingly appealing. Consequently for Apple AAPL -0.04% iPhone 6 owners the iPhone 6S could prove as tempting as the iPhone 7. So what are their differences?
Let’s break them down...
The iPhone 7 (left) and iPhone 6 (right) show how little the iPhone has changed externally in three generations. Image credit: Apple
Design & Size - Superficial Stagnation, Practical Progress
It’s easy to mix up these three phones with a quick glance as they all use the same core design Apple introduced with the iPhone 6 in 2014:
- iPhone 6 - 138.1 x 67 x 6.9 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.27 in) and 129 g (4.55 oz)
- iPhone 6S - 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.28 in) and 143 g (5.04 oz)
- iPhone 7 - 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.28 in) and 138 g (4.87 oz)
Obviously having a new phone which looks like a three year old phone isn’t great, especially as rivals develop ever slimmer bezels for more compact designs. But Apple hasn’t been sitting still each year when it comes to practicality.
The iPhone 6 uses Series 6000 aluminium, which is prone to bending, but this is fixed by the iPhone 6S which uses much stronger Series 7000 aluminium. Meanwhile the iPhone 7 retains this stronger chassis while adding water resistance (allow 30 minutes full submersion at depths of up to one metre) and a fixed home button with haptic (vibration) feedback which eliminates an infamous point of failure.
The iPhone 7 has a new 'Taptic' (haptic) home button. Image credit: Apple
In addition to this you’ll find the iPhone 7 has external dual stereo speakers after Apple beefed up the earpiece speaker. This makes a dramatic difference to audio and is ideal for listening to audiobooks and podcasts.
But you also pay a price with the iPhone 7 as Apple has ‘courageously’ removed the headphone jack. If you use wireless headphones this won’t matter, but if you prefer wired you will need adapters and you can’t listen to music and charge your phone at the same time. Apple says its removal allowed it to add water resistance, but Samsung achieved this while keeping the jack (at least for now).
iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus both remove the headphone jack so the Lightning port has to be used for everything. Image credit: Apple
The iPhone 7 also drops the iPhone 6S’s Space Grey colour option leaving Rose Gold, Gold, Silver, Black and (for just 128GB and 256GB options) introducing the truly dreadful Jet Black - avoid it like the plague!
Displays - Still LCD, But Improving
Apple’s inability to source OLED panels in large enough quantities for its iPhone range has long given rivals a welcome advantage (which may soon end). As such on paper the iPhones’ screens look rather pathetic, but there is more to these raw specifications than meets the eye:
- iPhone 6, iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 - 4.7-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD, 1334 x 750 pixels (326 ppi), 65.6% screen-to-body ratio
Firstly Apple has been making these panels brighter and more colour accurate with each generation. For example, the iPhone 7 is 25% brighter than the iPhone 6S (which was already brighter than the iPhone 6) and has support for a wide (P3) colour gamut. It’s not OLED and the resolutions are low by today’s standards but iPhones represent the best LCD panels you’ll find.
Both iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus displays are bright, vivid and very color accurate pushing LCD to its limits. Image credit: Gordon Kelly
In addition to this the iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 offer 3D Touch which gives users pressure sensitive ‘peek and pop’ shortcuts. It’s hard to tell what is and isn’t 3D Touch enabled which stops the system being intuitive, but where it does work (notably previewing emails and URLs and shortcuts on app icons) there are signs of its undoubted potential.
Performance - Apple Keeps Breaking Records
It isn’t even a competition now. Every year the new iPhone easily outstrips its rivals in both synthetic benchmarks and real world usage (though the Google Pixel comes very close in the latter), but Apple keeps setting new records:
- iPhone 6 - Apple A8 chipset: Dual-core CPU, Quad core GPU, 1GB of RAM
- iPhone 6S - Apple A9 chipset: Dual-core CPU, GPU: Six Core GPU, 2GB of RAM
- iPhone 7 - Apple A10 Fusion chipset: Quad Core CPU, Six Core GPU, 2GB of RAM
What do these changes mean? In short the iPhone 6S CPU and GPU are 70% and 90% faster respectively than the iPhone 6, while the iPhone 7 has a 40% faster CPU and 50% faster GPU than the iPhone 6S. It’s a tremendous change in two generations. That said speed is relative to your needs and an iPhone 6S will still deliver top notch performance for the next few years.
The A10 Fusion chipset makes the iPhone 7 Apple's fastest ever iPhones and the fastest smartphone currently available. Image credit: Apple
Elsewhere you’ll find the iPhone 6 has a 150Mbit capable 4G modem that rises to 300Mbit with the iPhone 6S and 450Mbit with the iPhone 7. You’re unlikely to find or need 4G networks with more than 150Mbit on a regular basis but the advancement is there.
Lastly the iPhone 6S introduced a second generation Touch ID fingerprint sensor which is twice as fast and accurate as the iPhone 6, but it is unchanged in the iPhone 7.
Cameras - Advancement But No Longer Class Leading
While Apple continues to extend its performance advantage year-in-year out against rivals, the improvements made to its cameras have been more incremental to the extent that the iPhone has been overtaken by both the Galaxy S7 and Google Pixel.
The iPhone 7 camera (bottom) has improved, but is no longer best in class. Image credit: Gordon Kelly
But what if you’re committed to Apple’s ecosystem? Looking at the specifications alone, a lot has changed:
- iPhone 6 - Rear: 8 megapixel sensor, f2.4 aperture, Focus Pixels, EIS, dual-LED flash, 4K video recording. Front: 1.2MP Front Camera, f2.4 aperture, 720p video recording
- iPhone 6S - Rear: 12 megapixel sensor, f2.2 aperture, Focus Pixels, Software Image Stabilisation, dual-LED flash, 4K video recording. Front: 5MP Front Camera, f2.2 aperture, 720p video recording
- iPhone 7 - Rear: 12 megapixel sensor, f/1.8 aperture, Focus Pixels, Optical Image Stabilisation, quad-LED (dual tone) flash, 4K video recording. Front: 7MP sensor, f/2.2 aperture, 1080p recording
In reality the biggest differences are actually on the secondary cameras where the woeful 1.2MP photos and videos on the iPhone 6 became respectable on the iPhone 6S and rather good on the iPhone 7.
Right now the Google Pixel is clearly the best smartphone camera with the Galaxy S7 second with the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 falling behind. Image credit: Gordon Kelly
As for the main rear camera, all continue to deliver excellent results in good conditions but it is at low light where differences show most. The Pixel remains the low light king, followed by the Galaxy S7 but you’ll find a big gap between the iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 compared to the iPhone 6. Then again the dual camera of the iPhone 7 Plus is by far the most interesting of all Apple’s iPhones.
Composite photo - in isolation the iPhone 7 (left) and iPhone 7 Plus (middle) look good, but the Galaxy S7 (right) brings an extra level of clarity and detail in low light. Image credit: Gordon Kelly
Elsewhere the iPhone 7 also adds ‘Raise to Wake’ (pickup the phone to preview notifications), which isn’t available on the other two models while ‘Tap to View’ (double tap the screen for the same effect) is coming but set to be an iPhone 8 exclusive.
Battery Life And Charging - Still Disappointing, Still Slow
Want to know an area where Apple has made next to no improvements over the last three iPhone generations? Battery life. While the Plus models remain stamina kings, the 4.7-inch models fall way behind both them and iPhone rivals with minimal capacity changes:
- iPhone 6 - 1810 mAh
- iPhone 6S - 1715 mAh
- iPhone 7 - 1960 mAh
Yes, the iPhone 6S actually took a step backwards so Apple could squeeze in the haptic vibration motor for 3D Touch and the iPhone 7 doesn’t improve much over the iPhone 6 despite removing the headphone jack as Apple used most of the space to enlarge the haptic motor so it also could power the fixed home button.
iPhone 7 Vs iPhone 7 Plus battery life shows a clear win for the larger iPhone as the 4.7-inch model stagnates. Image credit: Gordon Kelly
One still relatively unknown hack is you can speed up iPhone charge times by using an iPad charger, but Apple still provides a low power charger in the box. Even then there remains no comparison to the mature quick charging technologies in Android rivals which can deliver a 30% charge in 15 minutes. What about wireless charging? Again that’s off the list, though yet again the iPhone 8 offers hope.
In short: if battery life is a priority stick to the iPhone Plus models or look at Google’s Pixel XL.
Storage And Price - Goodbye 16GB Nightmares
Credit to Apple here, after years of sticking to the loathsome 16GB entry level tier it doubled storage for both the iPhone 7 and (retrospectively) the iPhone 6S:
- iPhone 6 - 16GB, 64GB, 128GB (no longer available to buy new)
- iPhone 6S - 32GB ($549) and 128GB ($649) - no 256GB option available
- iPhone 7 - 32GB ($649), 128GB ($749) and 256GB ($849)
The conundrum here is whether a 128GB iPhone 6S is a better purchase than the 32GB iPhone 7. That’ll depend on your priorities (storage vs speed, headphone jack vs water resistance, etc) but I’d be tempted to go with the iPhone 7 as it’ll receive iOS updates for an extra year and the extra performance will keep it faster for longer.
That said I think the Plus models are easily the best iPhones these days.
Picking between the iPhone 7 (left) and iPhone 6S (right) is perhaps harder than it should be. Image credit: Apple
Bottom Line
A quick glance between the iPhone 6, iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 would suggest Apple has been standing still for the last three generations, but there have been consistent - if not mindblowing - improvements each year. Given their price differences, choosing between the iPhone 6S and iPhone 7 is more difficult than it should be but the iPhone 6 is a model that is now starting to show its age.
My advice: if you don’t have to upgrade right now wait for Apple’s radically reinvented ‘all glass’ iPhone 8 which will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the original iPhone. That’s the model which is expected to make significant new advances...
Source: forbes website
