The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus Review: Iterating on a Flagship || AnandTech

via theLoop:

This is the typical long, technical and very well done review from the folks at AnandTech. Settle in for a while to read more detail on the new phones than any other publication can manage.

AnandTech:

Overall, I think that if there’s any phone that is worth 650-750 USD at its base, it’s the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. If you’re upgrading from the iPhone 6s Plus you probably won’t find a ton of differences, but it’s still a significant step up in display, camera, speaker quality, battery life, and system performance.

The iPhone might not excite like smartphones once did, but the amount of attention to detail and execution in the hardware is unparalleled and a cut above anything else in the industry.

AUSTIN MANN’S IPHONE 7 CAMERA REVIEW: RWANDA

via DF:

Whole thing was shot on iPhone 7 and 7 Plus cameras. If you can, look at his example photos on a display with wide color gamut. Mann on the 7 Plus 56 mm camera:

It works exactly as I hoped. It is super quick to switch between lenses, even while you are rolling video. As seen in the video above, jumping from 1× to 2× while recording can be a great way to punch in and emphasize a detail.

In terms of quality, I found the the 2× zoom lens to be equally as sharp as the iPhone wide-angle we’re accustomed to. However, I do not recommend the digital zoom beyond 2×. The quality of digital zoom degrades quickly and I find it unusable for photography (although it’s actually kind of nice as an animal spotting tool).

The 2× works in ALL modes (photo, video, time-lapse, slo-mo, and even pano), which surprised me. I didn’t expect it in each mode, and I really enjoyed shooting 2× panos, capturing extra detail in the area of the landscape I found most interesting.

And on search, which truth be told I’ve not played with yet:

Shooting photos is one thing; finding them and sharing them is another. The new Photos app in iOS 10 has a great search feature (the magnifying glass at top right) that hasn’t been talked about much.

I’ve found this feature to be very powerful and way beyond what I expected. For starters, I can search for a location like “Lake Kivu” to see all the photos I took on the lake. But going further, I can search for “tree” or “mountain” and immediately see all images containing trees or mountains. Even further still, I can search for “palm tree” and it accurately displays palm trees I’ve photographed in the last week.

austinmann.com/trek/iphone-7-camera-review-rwanda

Morning in the tea fields of Rwanda with the iPhone 7 Plus.

iPhone 7's 'Best LCD Display Ever'

• via macRumors:

Color Accuracy and Power Efficiency

DisplayMate said the iPhone 7 has "the most color accurate display" that it has ever measured, adding that the smartphone's display is "very likely considerably better than any mobile display, monitor, TV, or UHD TV" that consumers have.

Brightness

The measured peak brightness for the iPhone 7 is 602 cd/m2 (nits), the highest of any smartphone DisplayMate has ever tested.

Contrast Ratio

DisplayMate said the iPhone 7 has a record-breaking contrast ratio among IPS LCD smartphone displays.

Reflectance…

However, the iPhone 7 doesn't come close to the record low 1.7% screen reflectance of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, which has a special anti-reflective coating.

Viewing Angle

DisplayMate said the iPhone 7 has "excellent viewing angle performance" with no visually noticeable color shifts. The display had the smallest color variation when viewed at an angle, earning a JNCD rating of 2.1 or less

• iPhone 7 Display Technology Shoot-Out (displayMate)