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iPhone 7 Plus review

iPhone 7 Plus review : 

Design & Hardware

Design-wise the iPhone 7 Plus is difficult to distinguish from its predecessor, the 6s Plus. The antennae are now embedded in the enclosure and therefore almost invisible, and there are new color options, including a high-gloss finish, which goes through an anodization process for protection. Also new is environmental protection in line with the IP67 standard, so you can keep using the device in wet or dusty conditions. 
The dual-camera is located in the top left corner.At the bottom of the device there are now stereo speakers.
Resolution and size of the 5.5" 1080p Retina display have not changed but it is now 25% brighter than before and offers a wider color gamut. As before, 3D touch is supported. The home button now provides taptic feedback and the iPhone 7 Plus comes with brand new stereo stereo speakers. Apple's iOS is powered by Apple's new A10 Fusion 64-bit four-core chipset and 3GB of RAM.
The right edge is the home of the power button.Volume rockers and the ringer switch are on the left edge.
Without a doubt, the most exciting new component on the iPhone 7 Plus is its dual-camera. In the first camera a 12MP sensor is combined with a 28mm lens, an F1.8 aperture and optical image stabilization. Next to it you'll find a secondary 12MP module with a 56mm lens and F2.8 aperture but no optical stabilization. There are also a new quad-LED true-tone flash and a flicker-sensor that can detect flickering in ambient light and correct for it at image capture. 
Apple claims the new in-house designed ISP is faster than before and can complete tasks, such as noise reduction, image stacking and exposure control in approximately 25ms. In video mode the camera can capture 4K as well as both 1080p and 720p slow-motion footage. In the front-facing camera the pixel count has been increased from 5 to 7MP.
The resolution of the 5.5" display remains at 1080p but the fingerprint reader now provides taptic feedback.

Camera Operation

 The zoom button and dial are new additions to the iPhone camera user interface.
The iPhone 7 Plus comes with the same physical control layout as previous iPhone generations, which means there is no dedicated camera button and the camera app is opened via the icon on the home screen or by sliding the shortcut on the lock-screen. If you use the latter method you can’t do anything other than shoot and review pictures (only those taken in the same session) until you properly unlock the phone, which can of course be done using the fingerprint sensor in the home button.
Despite the new dual-cam the camera app itself has not much changed either, which is arguably a good thing if you are used to iPhone camera operation. You now get a combined zoom button/slider that lets you switch between lenses and dial in digital zoom. On the scrolling selector, that allows you to switch between photo, video, slow-motion, time-lapse, panorama and square modes, the new portrait mode has been added. Other than that the app layout has remained unchanged.
The iPhone 7 Plus comes with the usual filter options and live preview.
An icon in the top right corner gives you access to the front camera and on the left you find buttons for the live filters, self-timer, live images, HDR mode and flash settings. As usual on iPhones, the entire UI can be flipped around by flipping the phone which should make things easier for left-handed mobile photographers.
Despite the slightly changed controls, the way pictures are taken is pretty much the same. The camera focuses continuously, with a yellow square briefly appearing to confirm focus. Tapping the screen will manually set the focus point, and exposure will then be biased toward that part of the scene. You can apply exposure compensation via a slider that appears next to the focus indicator when you set the focus point manually. Both focus and exposure can be locked by tapping and holding. Pressing and holding the shutter button triggers burst mode. 
 In line with iOS philosophy, camera settings are accessed through the settings app.
As it is the norm with iOS, there's no menu in the camera app and settings such as video and photo resolution, frame rates or the framing grid, have to be accessed via the camera section of the settings app. Under iOS 10 the iPhone now also supports Raw capture but you'll need a third-party app, such as Lightroom or 500px Raw for that. The same is true for manual control over shutter speed. As in the past, the iPhone camera is very much focused on ease of use and does a very good job at that. For those who want more control, there are plenty of options in the App Store.

Features

The Apple App Store of course offers an endless supply of specialist imaging apps but by now the stock camera app comes with a good range of built-in features as well. The iPhone 7 Plus offers a Time Lapse Mode, image filters and Apple's Live Images, all of which we've seen on previous generations of the device. We take a closer look at the slow-motion video mode on the video page of this review. In this section, we'll focus on the most used features and those that are new on the latest iPhone generation.

Panorama 

The way panorama mode is operated has not changed on the iPhone 7 Plus but you can also now use it with the dual-camera's tele-lens. No matter which lens you use, the Apple panorama mode still produces the best smartphone panoramas in the business. With the mode engaged, you slowly pan the camera in portrait orientation to capture. A full 360-degree image measures approximately 16400 x 3900 pixels or a whopping 65MP.
 ISO 20, 16832 x 3842 pixels
The stitching quality is the best of any panorama modes we have seen. Stitching errors in static scenes are very rare. They can occur on moving subjects, as you can see on one or two of the cyclists in the image below, but are noticeably better controlled than on most competing devices. Additionally, dynamic exposure does a very good job at balancing exposure across high-contrast scenes. Blown highlights are kept to a minimum, even in very contrasty scenes. 
 ISO 25, 11292 x 3908 pixels
In lower light panorama images display the same noise and effects of noise reduction as the iPhone's standard exposures but, thanks to the large size of the panos, they still look impressively good at typical monitor viewing size.
 ISO 640, 7610 x 3900 pixels
On the iPhone 7 Plus panorama mode also works with the longer 56mm lens. This can be useful if you want to capture the most interesting elements of a scene, such as the Lower Manhattan Skyline in the shot below, larger in the frame and can't get physically any closer. Image output size is about the same as with the wide-angle lens but you cannot quite capture an entire 360 degree circle.
 ISO 20, 16346 x 3724 pixels

HDR mode

HDR mode is controlled via a button on the camera app's main screen. You have the option to turn HDR mode off, leave it on permanently or put it into auto mode and let the camera decide which scenes require HDR treatment. 
 ISO 20, wide-angle, HDR off  ISO 20, wide-angle, HDR on
 100% crop  100% crop
When shooting with the iPhone 7's wide-angle lens the HDR mode delivers results that are practically identical to previous generations. In high-contrast scenes a noticeable amount of highlight detail can be recovered. Shadows are slightly lifted as well and overall the HDR images show a very pleasant tonality, without looking unnatural or over-processed.
When shooting with the tele-lens we found HDR mode to be less efficient, though. In some images the highlights are pulled back so far that the entire image looks slightly underexposed and ghosting artifacts or shaky images are much more common than with the wide-angle cam. The image below was taken on a sunny day but the Exif-data of the HDR exposure shows a shutter speed of a fairly slow 1/33 sec, which presumably caused the strong image blur.
  ISO 32, tele, HDR off ISO 20, tele, HDR on
  100% crop  100% crop
In the settings you can opt to save both a standard and HDR exposure of an image which leaves you the option to decide later on which one you like best. 

Zoom

Thanks to the dual-cam and its 56mm camera module the iPhone 7 Plus camera allows you to zoom in closer to your subject, using a mix between optical and digital zoom. In the camera app you can switch between the 28mm and 56mm by the press of a button. You can then fine-tune your zoom factor using a virtual dial which triggers the digital zoom.
1 x zoom, wide-angle lens
1.5 x zoom, wide-angle lens digitally zoomed
2 x zoom, tele-lens
5 x zoom, tele-lens digitally zoomed
10 x zoom, tele-lens digitally zoomed
Looking at the full size version of 1.5x sample above, which shows noticeably worse detail than the 2x image, it appears that when you use a zoom factor smaller than 2, the camera is simply applying digital zoom to the wide-angle image. For zoom factors beyond 2x digital zoom is applied to the tele lens. You'll get the same pixilation and lack of detail as on any other digital zoom. However, given the 56mm lens is longer than usual smartphones lenses, at a given zoom factor the iPhone 7 Plus clearly has an advantage over the single-lens competition.
At lower light levels things unfortunately look slightly different. Due to the slower aperture and lack of optical image stabilization in the 56mm camera module, the stock camera app decides it is best to use the wide-angle lens and zoom digitally in lower light, as you can see in the samples below. This essentially means that with the stock camera app, in anything darker than a well-lit interior, the tele-lens is deactivated.
You can currently force the camera to use the tele-lens in low light by shooting with the Lightroom Mobile app, or using portrait mode and set the camera to save a standard exposure in addition to the portrait shot. We have included a sample in the Image Quality section of this review.
DPReview founder Phil Askey found on his device that he could convince the camera to use the tele lens by slightly "overzooming" to 2.1x. Unfortunately this method did not work on our test device. It appears Apple has been slightly tweaking the camera software between different releases of iOS 10.1 beta.
 ISO 100, 1/4 sec, 1x zoom, wide-angle lens
 ISO 100, 1/4 sec, 2x zoom, wide-angle lens digitally zoomed 

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