The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus Review: Iterating on a Flagship
by Joshua Ho & Brandon Chester on October 10, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iOS
- iOS 10
- iPhone 7
- iPhone 7 Plus
Video Performance
While still images probably constitute a significant portion of what a smartphone camera is used for, video performance still remains important as anything moving or with a notable sound requires video or something that is but quite isn’t a video. In order to test video performance, we use direct comparison with two devices recording simultaneously on the same rig.
| iPhone 7 Video Encode Settings | ||||
| Video | Audio | |||
| 1080p30 | 16 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 86 Kbps, 44.1 KHz AAC | ||
| 1080p60 | 25 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 86 Kbps, 44.1 KHz AAC | ||
| 4kP30 | 48 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 86 Kbps, 44.1 KHz AAC | ||
| 1080p120 | 38 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 86 Kbps, 44.1 KHz AAC | ||
| 720p240 | 38 Mbps H.264 High Profile | 86 Kbps, 44.1 KHz AAC | ||
Before we get into the actual results I want to discuss the video encode settings. It's kind of interesting to see how the iPhone only records mono audio, which I suspect is a function of not having enough microphones to do noise cancellation and useful stereo recording. It's also interesting to see how Apple can actually encode AVC High Profile for all video – including 4kP30 at 48 Mbps – which is more than I can say for a number of high-end flagships this year. This suggests that the encode blocks are capable of keeping up without any strange problems.
| 1080p30 Video |
Looking at 1080p30 video I'm just profoundly disappointed by how high-end Android devices perform in comparison. The state of affairs here is so depressing there's really no reason to compare 1080p60, 4K, or slow motion capture because it's clear to me that something is just fundamentally broken (or consistently misconfigured) with Snapdragon 820's encode blocks. Even casual examination reveals massive macroblocking any time the sky comes into view, which is something we've consistently seen with the HTC 10, Galaxy S7, LG G5, and OnePlus 3. Other than this, the LG G5 and Galaxy S7 both have extremely oversaturated color rendition which just doesn't represent reality. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus clearly have better output than any other Android device. The iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 7 with the 28mm focal length camera perform quite similarly to the iPhone 6s Plus other than some improvements in dynamic range and noise reduction, so I'd refer back to the iPhone 6s review for those interested in learning about how the iPhone 7 stacks up because the state of the art in Android has not progressed since then.
| OIS Video |
In the interest of trying for completeness anyways, I also tested image stabilization performance. Relative to the Galaxy S7 we continue to see how the lack of software stabilization to go with the hardware stabilization leads to really shaky and jerky footage when recording while walking. The iPhone 7 still shows large motions, but it's much smoother and also handles wind noise better. The HTC 10 is much more competitive with the iPhone 7 here but I would say that Apple's software stabilization appears to be slightly better and the lack of PDAF on the HTC 10 camera is definitely noticeable in the focus transition testing but it's important to keep in mind that the HTC 10 has no software stabilization if you enable 4K video. The LG G5 has basically all of the same traits as the Galaxy S7 in this test and needs improvement in all of the same areas as a result. If you're upgrading from either the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, or 6s you're going to also see a major improvement as the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus both have OIS which works with the software stabilization to maximize the reduction in hand shake when capturing video.
I also went ahead and tested the iPhone 7 Plus with some quick footage to see what difference it provides when capturing video, and it's fairly obvious that the secondary camera lacks OIS but also dramatically increases captured detail which makes it useful for static shots where you can avoid inducing hand shake but its utility rapidly decreases in low light or high hand shake conditions.
Overall, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus remain the best phones on the market for video capture. Strange issues with Snapdragon 820 video encode blocks mean that all Snapdragon 820 devices are just barely passable for video capture. Considering how OEMs have had almost a decade to get this right, it is truly incredible that phones costing 600 US dollars still have these obvious problems, and that Apple remains among the few to get it right.
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lolipopman - Tuesday, October 11, 2016 - link
I agree that Apple rules the market currently.*Currently*. It actually seems that the recently announced ARM A73 will be a beast.
And let's not forget the Mali G71 which is said to be very close to Nvidia Shield's performance.
I'm curious what the A11 chip will be bringing to the graphics table when the next revision of iPhones drop.
jospoortvliet - Tuesday, October 11, 2016 - link
Sadly the A73 won't even make a dent, it is maybe 20% faster at same power, that isn't a third of the gap with Apple...GPUs are doing better indeed but with far higher pixel densities end user experience is still that much worse.
tuxRoller - Tuesday, October 11, 2016 - link
Unfortunately it won't. The a73 looks to be quite good at efficiency, but per clock perf is still going to be decently far behind.As for graphics, no one can match IMG for efficiency. I really wish arm/Softbank would buy IMG.
ex2bot - Wednesday, October 12, 2016 - link
Android has been competitive in many areas and just plain better in some important ones (customization, screen quality, flexibility, choice), but the truth is that Qualcomm fell behind in perf with the 810 and 820. It looks like the 821 is close in performance.Secondly, the 7 and 7 Plus are most likely going to show better battery life because they have bigger batteries than the 6s and 6S Plus.
CloudWiz - Thursday, October 13, 2016 - link
821 is just a clocked-bumped 820, the performance difference between 820 and 821 will be less than 10%. Kryo is currently twice as slow as Hurricane in ST and far less efficient.cknobman - Monday, October 10, 2016 - link
I'm just going to reference this: http://www.windowscentral.com/best-smartphone-came...This was a blind test of over 13000 people voting on pictures taken in many many different scenarios. It compared 4 of the top smartphone cameras (which one of which was the iPhone 7).
The Galaxy S7 won by a landslide, not even close.
The iPhone 7 has its own drawbacks largely ignored by this review.
The lack of a headphone jack is a bigger issue that anyone makes it out to be and iOS is a terribly hindered OS that makes using any iPhone an painful experience.
Sure the battery life is good/great but this is largely because Apple choosing to remain so far back in their resolution. If you live in a Apple box and only look at their devices then sure its fine.
But go use any of the dozens of non Apple phones out there and then come back to an iPhone (especially the plus) and you immediately notice the lowered resolution and display quality.
The Garden Variety - Monday, October 10, 2016 - link
I was in tears and the injustice of this "review" until I read your supportive, nurturing reply. Thank you for giving all of us hope. Hope that the truth will reign, and that someday tech "journalists" will be exposed and jailed for their obvious bias. JAILED.cknobman - Monday, October 10, 2016 - link
LOL Your butthurt was so painful it seems you could not even comprehend what I wrote.I never called out the reviewer for bias or injustice but you apparently only choose to read/see/envision what you want...............either that or you are just plain stupid.
grayson_carr - Monday, October 10, 2016 - link
Let me propose a scenario. You have two identical displays. One is perfectly calibrated. One has the color saturation boosted and does not display colors accurately. If you pull a bunch of people off the street and have them look at both displays and vote on which one looks better, which one do you think they are going to pick? Answer: They are going to say the one with boosted saturation is better despite it being an identical display with objectively worse calibration. The average person does not know what is good, which is why I think blind photo comparisons are stupid. Now I'm not saying the Galaxy S7 doesn't have the best camera in a phone. The Galaxy S7 probably does have the best camera in a phone (in stills at least, video sucks). But I would much rather hear it from a professional photographer than a bunch of average Joes that know nothing about photography or cameras. That's just me.menting - Monday, October 10, 2016 - link
a professional photographer will probably feel insulted to even consider a rating a photo from a phone.