Apple iPhone 6 review: iPhone 6 sets the smartphone bar - CNET
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9.0 Overall
Performance
Apple iPhone 6
Editors' note: On September 7, 2016, Apple debuted the
and , and discontinued the iPhone 6 and . The
remain available, however, and Apple has increased the storage capacity of the entry-level models to 32GB and lowered their prices to $549 and $649, respectively. The full iPhone 6 review, first published in September 2014, updated to include a CNET Editor's Choice designation in November 2014, and then updated in Summer 2015, follows.In 2014, Apple forked its iPhone product line, simultaneously introducing the next generation of its flagship model -- the iPhone 6 -- and debuting its super-sized sibling, the . The
is an exceptional phone in nearly every way but for its middling battery life. The iPhone 6 Plu larger and thinner than other iPhone models, and with the capacity for far more endurance on a single charge than most comparably-sized and smaller competitors.When choosing between the 6 and 6 Plus, in the end, it's a matter of personal preference. I know several people who love the iPhone 6 Plus, with its larger screen size and better battery life. But the iPhone 6 feels best in my hand. It's thin, elegant, performs really well, and is considerably less expensive than the 6 Plus. For that reason, I think the smaller iPhone 6 is the way to go for most people.Design
The iPhone 6's thin, all-metal aesthetic makes for one of the sleekest designs in the smartphone universe. This iPhone is only slightly thinner than the previous mod this is due to the increased screen size and curved design. Glass from the front folds ever so slightly around the edges -- a departure from the sharp industrial edges of the iPhone 5 and 5S. It also feels a little like the
, which had a rounded design. But that phone was chunkier, with a far smaller screen. It felt like holding a pebble. The iPhone 6 is flat and thin, like a slab.View full gallery
The iPhone 6 feels good to hold, beautifully solid, with a smooth, metal back and glass front. But it has an aura of fragility -- maybe it's the extra-slim look, or the massive pane of curved glass on the front. I instantly wanted to slip it into a case just to be safe. Early reports of
found that the new iPhones can
than the iPhone 5,
, but are about as equally durable as the HTC One M8. In other words, it's not exactly delicate, but, like any other phone, it can be damaged -- so handle with care, and
The camera lens on the back of the iPhone 6 protrudes slightly, which made me worry about setting the phone down on rough surfaces, despite the fortitude of the sapphire lens. Again: using a case will alleviate any concerns.
The volume buttons, which were round and raised on previous iPhones, are elongated on the 6, similar to those on the iPod Touch and iPad. The power/sleep button has shifted to the right, making it easier to find in my experience.View full gallery
A round Touch ID home button is located un a simple press on the fingerprint reader unlocks the phone, and works amazingly well most of the time. While this feature is no longer as novel as it was when it debuted, Touch ID remains quicker and more reliable than the fingerprint detection capabilities we've seen on other smartphones. And with iOS 8, you can use fingerprint access for a wide variety of apps beyond the lock screen and iTunes Store.View full gallery The 2013 Moto X (left), iPhone 6 (center), Nexus 5 (right). See what I mean?
If I have one problem with the new design, it's the bezel around the display. It's still big -- bigger than that of most Android phones, which means that the iPhone 6, with its 4.7-inch screen, is the same size as other phones with 5-inch screens. For example, the iPhone 6 runs as tall and wide the
, which has a larger 5- it's also larger than the 2013 Moto X, which fits a comparable 4.7-inch display into a more compact body. (Both the old Moto X and Nexus 5 are thicker, however.) The iPhone 6 measures 5.4 by 2.6 inches, and 0.3 inch thick (138 by 67 by 69mm). It weighs 4.5 ounces, or 128 grams.View full gallery
Though the iPhone 6 is basically one-hand friendly (and certainly more so than the iPhone 6 Plus), it comes with a useful but weird software feature called
that pulls the top half of the display down to midscreen with a light double-tap of the Home button, for easier thumb access.View full gallery
Sarah Tew/CNET
The screen
iPhones have always had phenomenal displays, both in terms of brightness and color quality. In
, we found that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus's screens are even better than those on previous iPhones, with superior grayscale and contrast levels.
Though phones with
, like the
, deliver more vivid contrast and slightly richer, if less accurate, color, the iPhone 6's 4.7-inch
is excellent: vivid and rich. The display's 1,344x750-pixel resolution is higher than the fifth generation's 1,136x640, but it has the same 326ppi
. It's a good step up.
A grid of six-by-four apps now fits on each page plus the four in the dock below, for 28 on the 5's 4-inch display, it's 24. There are more pixels horizontally and vertically, unlike the merely vertical lengthening of the iPhone 5. That also means the aspect ratio is the same (16x9), and videos and Web pages scale similarly.View full gallery A handy comparison of all iOS screen sizes: 4S, 5S, 6, 6 Plus, iPad Mini, iPad Air.
Native apps look fantastic and nonoptimized apps scale up well, too: games and streaming video services designed for a smaller display still fill the screen and have crisp text. I still think many people will find this 4.7-inch screen to find the right balance between functionality and portability. That noted, the iPhone 6's screen resolution is a step below ideal.View full gallery
Performance: Faster still
The iPhone 6 is among the fastest phones around. It comes equipped with the A8 64-bit dual-core processor, which Apple claims delivers a 25 percent boost in speed and a 50 percent graphics boost over the iPhone 5S; this claim was confirmed in both our benchmark tests (see below) and hands-on testing. Navigating the UI and launching apps is zippy, and the phone runs nearly all tasks at a silky-smooth clip.
helps some iOS games perform even better than the benchmarks suggest. Games that have been iPhone 6-optimized look great and load and run quickly, but the difference isn't as dramatic as you might expect. (Read about Apple's
in June 2015.)3DMark Ice Storm -- Unlimited
Apple iPhone 5S
Apple iPhone 6
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
Motorola Moto X (2014)
Samsung Galaxy S5
HTC One M8
I longer bars indicate better performance
Geekbench 3
HTC One M8
Apple iPhone 5S
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
Apple iPhone 6
Samsung Galaxy S5
Motorola Moto X (2014)
Single-core (Blue)
Multi-core (Red)
I longer bars indicate better performance
Linpack multithread
Motorola Moto X (2014)
HTC One M8
Samsung Galaxy S5
Apple iPhone 5S
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
Apple iPhone 6
In MFLOPS; longer bars indicate better performance
SunSpider 1.0.2
Motorola Moto X (2014)
Samsung Galaxy S5
HTC One M8
Apple iPhone 5S
Apple iPhone 6 Plus
Apple iPhone 6
I shorter bars indicate better performance
Samsung’s king of phones is excellent, but you'll pay a pretty penny for stylus privileges.
A radical redesign that's nearly all screen includes a new cutting-edge facial recognition...
LG just gave Samsung a run for the money.
But we're still waiting on the Siri-like AI.
The Pixel 2's superb camera makes it worth a look.Apple (AAPL) is boring with iPhone and iPad product updates — Quartz
What's next?
(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Written by
At a lightning-fast press event yesterday (March 21), Apple announced a spate of product updates. A year ago,
the new MacBook laptop and told us when the Apple Watch&its first entirely new product in five years&would be available. At , Apple&s big reveal was a smaller iPhone and iPad.
The biggest news, seriously: iPad Air 2 is now $100 less. And Apple Watch is $50 less.
& Paul Thurrott (@thurrott)
Apple has in a few short years gone from a company with a sharp product focus to one that will seemingly produce any device in any size or color. In a recent question-and-answer session , Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak worried that Apple is following the market, rather than leading it:
I worry a little bit about & I mean I love my Apple Watch, but & it&s taken us into a jewelry market where you&re going to buy a watch between $500 or $1100 based on how important you think you are as a person. The only difference is the band in all those watches. Twenty watches from $500 to $1100. The band&s the only difference? Well this isn&t the company that Apple was originally, or the company that really changed the world a lot. So it might be moving, but you&ve got to follow, you know. You&ve got to follow the paths of where the markets are.
55 different Apple Watch bands
made out of five different materials, in two sizes. (That&s not to mention the myriad Herm&s and Edition versions it also sells.) Apple sells iPads in
and three colors, and has five iPhones in three sizes and four colors. It
with 11, 12, 13 and 15-inch screens, some of which are available in multiple colors.
&When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 the company had lost its way w a confusing lineup of undistinguished products&
& Luke Wroblewski (@lukew)
Apple used to make one great phone, and a few great laptops and iPods. While there was some variation among those products, we could count on Apple to announce some Big New Thing at a slick press event every year in California. Now Apple&s innovations are just Apple products in every size and shape you can think of. While it may make good business sense to make a variety of versions for a variety of people, it&s not like these things have gotten cheaper or more accessible. Samsung
26 different tablets, each with different screen sizes to capture just about everyone who might possibly want a tablet. Is Apple, the world&s most profitable company, now chasing the business model of Samsung?
It's possible iPhone SE is as significant a move for Apple as the Plus. Also possible it's boring portfolio optimization. Suspect the 1st
& Benedict Evans (@BenedictEvans)
The () quote from Henry Ford sums up where Apple seems to be heading: &If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.& Apple products are still generally high quality&although
the quality of its software is falling&and they still sell well, but there&s less that differentiates them from their competition. What do Apple products now offer that Samsung&s don&t?
Last month,
its latest flagship smartphones, and tech journalists
that Samsung&s Galaxy S7 Edge phone is the best Android phone on the market.
it&s simply the best phone. Its camera is the best phone camera I&ve ever used.
Other than the some annoying additional bloatware that Samsung and mobile carriers installed on the device, the phone itself is as satisfying as an iPhone 6S.
Apple just isn&t offering much to differentiate itself. New releases are just updates of past models, or the same device, but a bit thinner or nimbler. It launched the iPad Pro because it saw the Microsoft S it launched the iPhone 6 Plus because it saw the Samsung Galaxy N it launched the Apple Watch because it saw Android Wear and Fitbit and Jawbone. Apple used to be able to convince people they needed something they hadn&t even imagined, whether that was , or a talking watch. This year or next, Apple will almost certainly announce the following:
The iPhone 7
The Apple Watch 2
The MacBook 2
The iPad Pro 2
A new iMac
A new Mac Mini
A new Apple TV
Like Disney&s , Apple is now seemingly locked in an unending cycle of sequels and spin-offs.
Even Apple&s , Campus 2, is a sequel. Apple&s top brass spent the better part of an hour yesterday telling us that the
iPhone SE is the &best 4-inch phone& on the market and that we&ll love a smaller iPad Pro with a stylus that
from the tablet to charge.
Perhaps Tim Cook is satisfied with becoming this decade&s Microsoft, plugging along with updates and minor enhancements. Apple is making more and more money off of its &which includes iTunes, Apple Pay, AppleCare&and perhaps its customers will continue to generate revenue for the company as they stay locked in Apple&s ecosystem.
But will Apple create the next seismic shift technology, as it did with the iPhone and the iPod, or will it play catch-up? There have been rumblings of virtual reality devices, and Apple-made cars on the horizon, but considering Apple won&t be the first to enter either of those markets, those won&t necessarily be revolutionary devices.
Cook said at yesterday that Apple now has 1 billion active users of its products, and some are suggesting that as the company turns 40, it&s . If Apple can keep making decent products that sell, perhaps being a boring middle-aged company will suit it just fine.
It&s just not what we might have expected from the Apple that Steve Jobs left in Tim Cook&s hands.
Read full story2,677.67-36.16(-1.33%)24,608.98-420.22(-1.68%)7,180.56-92.45(-1.27%)Tom SimoniteThat feature is the “neural engine,” part of the new A11 processor that Apple developed to power the iPhone X. The engine has circuits tuned to accelerate certain kinds of artificial-intelligence software, called artificial neural networks, that are good at processing images and speech.Apple said the neural engine would power the algorithms that recognize your face to unlock the phone and transfer your facial expressions onto animated emoji. It also said the new silicon could enable unspecified “other features.”Chip experts say the neural engine could become central to the future of the iPhone as Apple moves more deeply into areas such as
and image recognition, which rely on machine-learning algorithms. They predict that Google, Samsung, and other leading mobile-tech companies will soon create neural engines of their own. Earlier this month, China's Huawei announced a new mobile chip with a dedicated "neural processing unit" to accelerate machine learning.iPhone XApple announced three new iPhones today: iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and the new iPhone X.Story ContinuesiPhone XAfter spending a few minutes with the iPhone X, I understood what Tim Cook meant when he called it "the future of the smartphone."Custom circuits like those of Apple’s neural engine allow machine-learning algorithms on a phone to analyze data more quickly, and reduce how much they sap a device’s battery. Culurciello says that could open new uses of machine learning and image recognition on the iPhone, because more powerful algorithms can be deployed right in a user’s hand.Leading tech companies already are battling to develop more powerful hardware for machine-learning algorithms running in the cloud. Google has developed custom chips called TPUs to
of algorithms used to recognize speech or images, for example. Microsoft, Intel, graphics chip giant NVIDIA, and many startups are all working on new .Longer term, mobile hardware that can run machine learning software efficiently without will be important to the future of autonomous vehicles and wearable augmented-reality glasses—ideas Apple has recently signaled interest in.Your list is empty.What to Read NextBusiness InsiderAssociated PressDigital TrendsBusiness InsiderCNBCYahoo FinanceYahoo FinanceYahoo FinanceBGR NewsYahoo Finance VideoYahoo FinanceBusiness InsiderBusiness InsiderBusiness InsiderTimeYahoo Finance Video1 / 5Apple Announces iPhone 7 & iPhone 7 Plus: A10 Fusion SoC, New Camera, Wide Color Gamut, Preorders Start Sept. 9th
on September 7,
Today at Apple&s annual iPhone event held in San Francisco&s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, the company announced their next generation of iPhones: the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus. As you might expect from Apple&s history, the two phones incorporate a number of new features and feature upgrades compared to their immediate predecessors. This includes a new SoC & the A10 Fusion & new camera options, IP67 water resistance, and top-to-bottom support for both wide color gamut (DCI-P3) displays and photography.
Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus
Apple iPhone 7
Apple iPhone 7 Plus
Apple iPhone 6s
Apple iPhone 6s Plus
Apple A10 Fusion
2 x &Fast Core&
2x &Efficient Core &
2 x 1.85GHz Apple Twister
&6 Core GPU&
PowerVR GT7600
4.7-inch 1334 x 750 IPS LCD, DCI-P3
5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS LCD, DCI-P3
4.7-inch 1334 x 750 IPS LCD, sRGB
5.5-inch 1920 x 1080 IPS LCD, sRGB
Size / Mass
138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm, 138 grams
158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm, 188 grams
138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm, 143 grams
158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3mm, 192 grams
Rear Cameras
12MP &/1.8
OIS, Wide Color Gamut, Quad LED True Tone Flash
12MP &/1.8 wide angle,
OIS, Wide Color Gamut, Quad LED True Tone Flash
12MP &/2.8 telephoto,
2x optical zoom, OIS, Wide Color Gamut, Quad LED True Tone Flash
12MP with 1.22&m pixels + True Tone Flash
12MP with 1.22&m pixels + True Tone Flash + OIS
Front Camera
7MP &/2.2, Wide Color Gamut, Retina Flash
7MP &/2.2, Wide Color Gamut, Retina Flash
5MP F/2.2 +
Retina Flash
5MP F/2.2 +
Retina Flash
32GB/128GB/256GB
16GB/64GB/128GB (Launch)
32GB/128GB (Refresh)
Apple Lightning connector
Apple Lightning connector, 3.5mm headset
2.4/5GHz 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, BT 4.2, NFC
2.4/5GHz 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, BT 4.2, NFC
Launch Price
$649/749/849 32/128/256GB
$769/869/969 32/128/256GB
$649/749/849 16/64/128GB
$749/849/949 16GB/64/128GB
Jumping right into the heart of matters, in previous years Apple has alternated their upgrades between the overall design of the phone and focusing on the internal processors, resulting in the usual iPhone (X) and iPhone (X)s cadence we&ve seen over the past several years. For the iPhone 7, Apple has kept with this general development process, however relative to the iPhone 6 and 6s generations, the iPhone 7 isn&t quite as significantly a departure as past designs.
Design & Features
The overall body of the iPhone 7 series is rather similar to the iPhone 6 series. &Both the regular and the Plus phones have virtually the same dimensions as their 6s predecessors, so the size of the phones is unchanged. Button placement also hasn&t changed, with volume and power buttons on the left and right sides of the phones respectively. The curved design of the iPhone series has also been retained.
So what is new for the iPhone design? In short, water resistance and a lot of polish. Apple has finally added more complete water resistance into the iPhone design for the iPhone 7 series, and the latest phones are IP67 rated for water resistance. Like we&ve seen with other IP67 phones, it should be noted that water &resistance& i this level of protection is designed to resist water damage to the phone in the case of accidents, and it&s not meant for long-term submersion (swimming and the like).
Meanwhile on the polish side, for this generation Apple has further refined the overall design of the iPhone. Apple has taken a particular interest in going &seamless& this generation, further reducing the presence of seems in the phone where the glass meets the case and along the antenna bands. Apple has also introduced some new color options here: a matte black finish (seemingly replacing Space Grey), and a glossy &jet black& finish, the latter of which literally involves a polishing process. Apple is treating the jet black finish is this generation&s premium finish option, and as a result it is only available on the more expensive 128GB and 256GB phone models.
However the biggest change here is probably the home button, which is now entirely solid state. Apple has integrated their force touch technology previously used for the iPhone 6s screen and the MacBook trackpads into the home button, removing the mechanical aspects of it. Instead, like the aforementioned devices, what you&re looking at is a pressure-sensitive surface with the taptic engine being used to simulate the necessary feedback. The home button was one of the last few mechanical parts in the iPhone, and Apple is touting this as improving the reliability of the button. At the same time I wouldn&t be surprised if it was also part of the work that went into making the phone water resistant. It will also be interesting to see what Apple eventually does with the pressure sensitivity, given that they&ve tried to make it an important part of the user experience with the iPhone 6s and its force touch screen.
On the display side of matters, Apple has taken a page from this year&s 9.7& iPad Pro launch and upgraded the iPhone for DCI-P3 wide color gamut support. Apple has increasingly been going DCI-P3 capable throughout its entire product lineup, and P3 is quickly becoming by far the most commonly supported of the wide gamut standards across the industry. In the case of the iPhone 7, this is part of a larger upgrade to implement top-to-bottom wide color gamut support, with the phone&s cameras also getting a similar upgrade. The advantage of the larger color gamut, as we&ve seen with the iPad, is that it allows for representation of &deeper& colors that can&t be covered by the traditional sRGB color space, ultimately getting closer to reproducing the full spectrum of what humans can see. As pointed out by our own Brandon Chester however, these new phones don&t include the iPad&s
capability, which allows the display&s white point to be changed with the color temperature of the surrounding lighting.
Along with the addition of wide color gamut support, the panels in the new iPhones are also 25% brighter according to Apple, with a typical max brightness of 625 nits (for reference, we measured the max brightness of the iPhone 6s at 567 nits, compared to an official spec of 500 nits). What hasn&t changed h these are still Retina HD displays, meaning we&re looking at
pixels for the 4.7& iPhone 7, and
pixels for the iPhone 7 Plus.
At the other end of the spectrum then are the iPhone 7 series& new rear and front facing cameras. Starting with the iPhone 7, Apple has retained a 12MP sensor (sensor manufacturer unknown), however they have significantly improved the feature set available. The new camera module is capable of taking wide color gamut photos to go along with the WCG-capable display. Furthermore, in a rarity for a sub-5& phone, the iPhone 7 now includes optical image stabilization (OIS) for both photos and video recording, a feature that was previously only available on the larger Plus phones. The new camera is composed of a six element lens, and along with its other improvements, the sensor is said to be 60% faster and 30% more energy efficient than the previous-generation sensor in the iPhone 6s. Also augmenting the new camera is an updated t the new module is composed of 4 LEDs, allowing for what Apple says is 50% more illumination than the iPhone 6s.
Meanwhile for the iPhone 7 Plus, Apple has added a second 12MP camera. What sets this second camera apart from t complementing the normal wide-angle lens on the primary camera, the second camera uses a 56mm, f/2.8 telephoto lens, offering a tighter picture with an effective 2x optical zoom over the primary camera. Apple has been pushing the camera aspect of the iPhone for many years now, and with the latest iPhone they are branching out into one of the few things most smartphone cameras haven&t been able to address with optical zoom. Besides allowing for closer photos, the second camera will also be used to do depth measurements, allowing the iPhone 7 Plus to do depth of field effects.
Finally, both phones have also received a new front facing camera. This new camera is 7MP, and like its rear facing counterparts supports wide color gamut photos.
As for audio capabilities, Apple has taken both a step forward and a step back. Moving forward, the headset speaker towards the top of the phone has been upgraded to be a full-fledged, full volume speaker. As a result, the iPhone can now play back stereo sound when in landscape mode by combining this with existing speaker at the bottom of the phone. Apple says the new speaker system is 2x louder & though it&s not clear if this is just adding up the output of the two speakers & and we&re told that the iPhone 7&s speakers support a greater dynamic range.
However taking a step back, as rumors have previously indicated, Apple has removed the 3.5mm audio jack on the phone. For external audio, Apple is now telling users and accessory manufacturers alike to use the Lightning port. Of note, this necessitates putting a Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) in headphones and other devices that directly connect via Lightning, which is going to have interesting ramifications on audio quality differences between products and how they are priced. Otherwise for existing 3.5mm devices, Apple is also including a Lighting to 3.5mm audio adapter, which of course also integrates the necessary DAC.
Given that they&re removed the audio jack, Apple has upgraded their EarPod earbuds for the new iPhone. The new models are lightning based, though otherwise apparently unchanged from their predecessors. A bit farther down the line, Apple will be releasing a wireless earbud product, the AirPods, with which they intend to do away with concerns about wired connections entirely by going wireless.
A10 Fusion: The Next Apple SoC
Finally, last but certainly not least is the heart of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus: the SoC. While Apple has traditionally focused on bigger improvements in the off-year s-generation updates, they have made something of an exception for the iPhone 7 with the A10 Fusion SoC.
The major change here is that with the A10, Apple has embraced the concept of multiple types of CPUs, each with different power/performance characteristics. This is something that has been prevalent in SoCs based around ARM Cortex-A CPU designs used in most Android phones, but Apple had (until now) opted to stay with a single cluster of two CPU cores.
There&s a lot of information to chew here, and a product announcement isn&t nearly enough to cover everything, but the basic theory behind a multi-type/multi-cluster design is to further min/max power efficiency by developing a set of high performance, high power cores for tasks that need maximum performance, and a second set of low performance, low power cores for simpler tasks that need only a small amount of computational time. By not sending the latter tasks to the high power cores, in theory you save on power consumption. This is the basis behind ARM&s big.LITTLE design philosophy.
The trade-off with this philosophy is that you now have to manage migrating tasks between the CPU clusters, which itself has a power cost. So while it&s a more efficient route in theory, in practice it can be difficult to implement, especially in a performant manner. Apple has previously stuck with their single cluster design, using the same CPU cores to run the gamut from low power to high performance, and while we may never get a full answer, I am very curious what happened behind the scenes at Apple and what they found to get to this point.
In any case, the A10 implement a pair of high performance cores, and a pair of low power cores. The slower cores are said to consume one-fifth the power of the high performance cores, though Apple has not indicated what performance is like. As is traditional for Apple, they haven&t said anything about the CPU cores themselves, but it&s a safe bet that the high performance cores are a direct descendant of the Twister cores used in the A9. More curious will be what the low-power cores are & given Apple&s fondness for developing their own ARM CPU cores and various technical considerations (such as the core interfaces), it may very well be that these are also Apple-designed cores, as opposed to an off-the-shelf solution like ARM&s Cortex-A53.
One thing Apple has emphasized in talking about the A10 is that their design uses a custom designed performance controller to manage the CPU cores and migrate tasks between them. This revelation of a hardware controller does imply that Apple is using some form of cluster or CPU migration & that is, only ever using 2 cores at once and not using all 4 cores at the same time in a heterogeneous manner & but all of this is speculation and subject to confirmation. Either way, this is the biggest change to the structure of Apple&s CPU subsystem since A7 and the Cyclone CPU core in 2013, and given Apple's habit of throwing us curveballs on the SoC side, I suspect the answer is not as simple as what we currently believe.
Meanwhile on the GPU side, Apple has uncharacteristically confirmed that A10 implements a &6 cluster& GPU design. This removes a good bit of guessing work here, as the significant scalability of GPUs has always made it difficult to pin down the number of GPU clusters. A good bet here is that Apple is using another PowerVR design & either a higher clocked version of the PowerVR GT7600 used in the A9, or perhaps a six cluster design based on the more recent
& but that&s something that remains to be seen.
From a performance standpoint Apple is once again touting significant performance gains versus the A9 and previous SoCs. CPU performance (of the high power cores) is said to be 40% better than the A9 and its dual 1.85GHz Twister CPU cores. Meanwhile GPU performance is said to be 50% higher than A9&s PowerVR GT7600 GPU. Obviously we&ll have to see how well performance holds up in our benchmarks, but if Apple can actually deliver on these claims then this would be a significant gain for a non-s generation product, and one made all the more impressive as Apple will not have received the advantages of a die shrink with this generation.
Finally, no information about the RAM paired with the A10 is available at this time. However we&re very happy to see that the traditionally conservative Apple has finally given the iPhone line a bump in NAND capacity. The entry-level model is now 32GB, and the higher capacity tiers have been bumped to 128GB and 256GB respectively.
Final Words
As for battery life, Apple has not released any hard details on the capacity of the batteries being used in the iPhone 7 and the 7 Plus. However they are claiming yet another increase in average battery life. Overall Apple says the average increase for the iPhone 7 over the 6s is 2 hours, and a smaller 1 hour increase for the iPhone 7 Plus over the iPhone 6s Plus. Curiously, Apple&s official 3G talk time numbers are the same (or have regressed) compared to the iPhone 6s, at 14 hours for both the iPhone 6s and iPhone 7. Instead Apple&s metric of choice is LTE internet use, which on the same phones has increased from 10 hours to 12 hours. So at first glance, assuming Apple hasn&t regressed on modem power usage, these power gains would seem to come from improvements to the A10 SoC and possibly the display.
Wrapping things up, Apple is going to be bringing the new iPhones to market rather quickly. Pre-orders for the phones open up on the 9th, and they&ll begin shipping one week later on the 16th. Phone pricing for the iPhone 7 is unchanged from the iPhone 6s, with the base 32GB model starting at $649 and each capacity bump going up $100 from there. Meanwhile the iPhone 7 Plus is just a bit more expensive, seeing a price bump at all capacities of $20, putting the starting price at $769.
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to comment.
lowlymarine - Wednesday, September 07, 2016 -
&720p is good enough for screens 4.7& and lower.&Perhaps if you have imperfect vision and don't care about other use cases like VR, sure. I owned a Nexus 4 (which had a 4.7& 768p IPS display in 2012 for $299) and could easily discern individual pixels in high-contrast scenarios. When I replaced it with a Galaxy S5 (5.1& 1080p OLED) the difference in pixel density was immediately noticeable. I won't pretend the difference in density between the S5 and my newer S7 (5.1& 1440p) is noticeable in general usage, however when paired with the Gear VR or a Cardboard headset you can still easily see visible screen door effect even on this 'stupid' resolution.This is all ignoring the fact that a modern ~1080p AMOLED panel wouldn't use more power on average than their 750p IPS panel anyway. This is plain and simple cost cutting, which is unacceptable on a $649 flagship. (Well, there's also the lazy way iOS does resolution scaling which makes using commodity panels at specific sizes difficult, hence why we have the wacky
resolution to begin with.)
Kytael - Wednesday, September 07, 2016 -
I'd expect to be able to see differences up to 1080p in pentile sub-pixel arrangements, but not sure if I'd be able to tell 720p from 1080p with just plain RGB
ZeDestructor - Thursday, September 08, 2016 -
I can. That said, for phone use, 1080p is enough for me up to 5.5& (400ppi seems to be my cutoff), and in practive, having 1440p on my HTC 10 has made 0 improvement for anything I do on my phone, even for reading very small text sizes.
Meteor2 - Thursday, September 08, 2016 -
As lowlymarine says, the increased resolution makes a big difference for phone-based VR. 1080p isn't enough for that.
ZeDestructor - Thursday, September 08, 2016 -
Definitely, but I did say it made for zero improvement for anything I do on my phone. Emphasis on the phone part.Still salty that the new Sony compact STILL isn't 1080p.
crispbp04 - Thursday, September 08, 2016 -
Apple won't care about VR until they can figure out how to best monetize it into their strategy.
They do lower res screens because it's all about scale and margin.
Lower res produces higher yields, lower costs to produce = higher margins.
They have unlimited market power in the sense that they will sell units even with marginal spec increases.
Why open the flood gates when you can milk the margins for years with incremental updates.
They are increasing the power where it gives them the ability to force obsolescence through software (more complex OS that reduces the experience on older devices, while minimizing fragmentation of their ecosystem by not changing things like resolution.. just bump up the horsepower and improve the color of the display).
Also, there is not a correlation between unit sales and screen resolution, which &retina& has proven is good enough to have the largest unit sales in the world.
HAL_hello - Tuesday, September 13, 2016 -
It is categorically bad design work to produce a device with a higher resolution when the human eye cannot distinguish the difference. It's laughable to claim otherwise.
Spectrophobic - Wednesday, September 07, 2016 -
You tout VR and high PPI as if they're necessities like calling and texting. So what if you can discern pixels? Will a slightly pixelated letter &A& at 3-inches render the whole word unreadable? Only people who use complex CJK characters regularly has the right to complain.I'll gladly take the extra graphical performance that comes with a lower resolution.
lowlymarine - Wednesday, September 07, 2016 -
If calling and texting are your only concerns, then you should probably not be looking at $650+ flagships because a $60 Blu R1 HD will do those things just as well (and still has a 720p IPS panel, natch).&Only people who use complex CJK characters regularly has the right to complain.& Oh well good thing Apple doesn't sell iPhones in those regions then, huh?Your comment about graphical performance is nonsense in this context. The iPhone is a completely closed ecosystem, much like game consoles. Developers will just target whatever resolution, image quality, and framerate they feel best suits their game. Hooking your PS4 up to a 720p TV won't magically get you better performance or PC-quality graphics, it just throws a lot of frames away to Vsync.
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