It’s Apple’s own Christmas in September with the new iPhones rolling out and I am grateful for being able to upgrade from my dingy iPhone 5s to the new 7. I’ve been feeling peculiar about the new upgrade considering they have removed the headphone jack, which made space for a faster chip, introduced two new colors, jet black, and matte black, and completely got rid of 16GB and introduced the 32GB option as its cheapest option. When pre-ordering opened on September 9th, I ordered the iPhone 7 in matte black with 128 GBs.  I received my order on the Sept. 16, the day the phone released worldwide.

When I first unboxed the package, I was overwhelmed with the sleekness of the phone. The matte black finish was professional, elegant, and classy, something you do not want to cover up with a boxy protective case. It isn’t fingerprint proof, however, with smudges being obvious, but it is probably a much safer version than jet-black, which comes with a personal warning from Apple to purchase a case with the phone.

I tested the home button, since Apple also got rid of the home button and introduced an haptic sensitive button, technology that’s related to touch.  This upgrade will take a while to get used to because the button takes longer to respond than the older version, but it isn’t something that will make me leave the Apple threshold and join Samsung. 

When I started using it, I compared things with my brother’s new iPhone 6s and found that this phone was definitely faster when it came to the browser, apps loading and turning off. I next tested out the 12-MP camera, and the 7’s pictures appeared warmer and richer compared to 6s. I then compared the screen resolution next by watching Cen10 News, and the resolution was crisper in the 7 than the 6s and skin tones appeared more natural.

The sound was loud, very LOUD in the 7, 2x louder than the 6s, but it did crack at louder decibels. When I used the headphones, which now come with a lightning cable, it wasn’t much different, but I do not listen to music as much so it wasn’t much of a problem for me. Plus, removing the jack allowed the creators to make the phone somewhat water resistant and dust resistant to increase the longevity of the phone, which is a sacrifice worth making.

The final verdict: in my opinion, the phone isn’t worth upgrading if you have a 6s or even a 6, but it is a great phone. Apple did not expect phones such as Samsung and HTC to surpass in features, but who knows, maybe the 7 will revive the Apple craze consumers once had between 2007 to 2012.  Overall, while the 7 did not exceed my expectations for Apple, I am satisfied with the quality of the phone but I truly believe Apple has a long way to go if it wants to have the best smartphone on the market again.