Planning on upgrading to the iPhone 7 Plus from the iPhone 6s Plus, but wondering what the differences are between the two devices? We have got you covered.

The iPhone 7 Plus arguably is a bigger upgrade from the iPhone 6s Plus than the jump from the iPhone 6s to 7. This is due to the device sporting dual 12MP shooters at its rear for some impressive camera performance. It’s not just the camera, the iPhone 7 Plus is a huge upgrade over the iPhone 6s Plus in many other departments as well. Let’s have a look.

Design

• The iPhone 7 Plus features largely the same design as the iPhone 6/6s, with a few tweaks thrown in here and there
  • This is despite Apple saying the iPhone 7 comes with a brand new design
  • The biggest visual change is the antenna bands at the rear panel being moved to the top and bottom edges giving the phone a cleaner look
• The camera cut-out on the rear of the iPhone 7 Plus is also larger than the iPhone 6s Plus
  • This is due to the handset coming with dual 12MP shooters
• Apple has also removed the headphone jack from the bottom of the iPhone 7 Plus
  • Instead, it has introduced a secondary speaker grille
  • It is only for aesthetic purposes, though, and does not house a secondary speaker
  • The secondary speaker is located within the earpiece grille at the top
  • Apple says this new speaker setup is 2x louder than iPhone 6s Plus
• The iPhone 7 Plus is slightly lighter than the iPhone 6s Plus
• To make up for the lack of a new design, the iPhone 7 Plus now features an IP67 certification
  • This makes the phone resistant to water just like the original Apple Watch
  • An IP67 rating denotes that the iPhone 7 Plus can be submerged in water for up to 30mins in 1m depth without any issues
    • It is also dust-resistant and will not allow for any kind of dust ingress
  • The iPhone 6s Plus lacks any kind of IP rating
• Apple will be offering the iPhone 7 Plus in two brand new colors: Jet Black and Black
  • The Jet Black color has a glossy finish
  • It will be available only in 128GB and 256GB storage variants
• The normal Black color has a matte finish
• The iPhone 7 features a capacitive home button unlike the iPhone 6s which features a physical home button
  • The capacitive home button, however, is able to simulate the feeling of being pressed thanks to Taptic Engine
  • Apple had first debuted this technology on its MacBook lineup in 2015
• The dimensions of the iPhone 7 Plus remain the same as the iPhone 6s Plus

Display

• Like the iPhone 6s Plus, the iPhone 7 Plus also comes with a Retina HD 5.5-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080
  • Both phones have a pixel density of 401 ppi
• The display on the iPhone 7 is 25% brighter than the iPhone 6s Plus
  • It also offers a wider color gamut range

Performance, RAM, and Storage

• The A10 Fusion chip inside the iPhone 7 Plus is significantly faster than the A9 chip found inside the iPhone 6s Plus
  • It is a quad-core chip featuring two low power and two high power cores
  • The A9 chip inside the iPhone 6s is only a dual-core chip
• While the A9 chip is clocked at 1.85GHz on the iPhone 6s, the A10 Fusion is clocked at 2.4GHz
  • The A10 chip is made on TSMC’s InFO process making it more power efficient
• Apple claims that the GPU performance on the iPhone 7 has also improved considerably over the iPhone 6s
  • It is up to 50% faster than the A9 chip’s GPU
• The iPhone 7 Plus comes with 3G LPDDR4 RAM
  • This is 1GB more than what is found on the iPhone 6s Plus
• With the iPhone 7 Plus, Apple has refreshed the storage tier completely
  • Unlike the iPhone 6s, the base storage on the iPhone 7 Plus starts at 32GB
  • There is no 64GB model. Instead, Apple has replaced it with a 128GB variant
  • This is also the first time that Apple is offering an iPhone with 256GB of storage

Camera

• The camera on the iPhone 7 Plus is a major upgrade over the iPhone 6s Plus
  • The iPhone 7 Plus features dual 12MP shooters at its rear while the iPhone 6s Plus only came with a single 12MP shooter
  • Both phones feature OIS
• The primary 12MP shooter on the iPhone 7 features a 6-element f/1.8 aperture
  • The iPhone 6s, on the other hand, features a f/2.2 aperture
  • The wider aperture allows the iPhone 7 to absorb up to 50% more light
• There is also a secondary 56mm telephoto lens on the iPhone 7 Plus
  • This allows the handset to offer 2x optical zoom without any visible loss in image quality
  • The handset also offers 10x digital zoom
  • The iPhone 6s Plus lacks any kind of optical zoom
• The telephoto lens also allows the iPhone 7 Plus to take photos with a DSLR-like bokeh effect
  • There will be a new Portrait mode in the camera app for this feature
  • The feature will not be available out of the box and Apple will add it via a future software update before the end of this year
• The iPhone 7 Plus comes with Quad-LED True Tone flash
  • In comparison, the iPhone 6s Plus only featured dual-LED flash
  • The Quad-LED flash is up to 50% brighter
• The A10 Fusion chip on the iPhone 7 Plus features a smarter and improved ISP
• Live Photos will also be better on the iPhone 7 since it can now make use of OIS
  • Apple will also be making Live Photos API available to developers
• The FaceTime HD camera on the iPhone 7 Plus has also been upgraded
  • It now features a 7MP sensor, up from the 5MP sensor found on the iPhone 6s
  • It is now also capable of recording videos in Full HD resolution

Battery

The iPhone 7 Plus offers up to an hour longer battery life than the iPhone 6s Plus

• On Wi-Fi browsing, this increase would be more around the 3 hours mark
• The battery capacity of the iPhone 7 Plus is 5% larger than the iPhone 6s Plus

What do you think about the iPhone 7 Plus? Do you think it packs enough changes for you to warrant an upgrade over the iPhone 6s Plus?