iPhone X vs iPhone 7: How much better is Apple’s £1,000 flagship?

Alex Lee October 27, 2017

While the iPhone 8 seemed like an incremental upgrade on the iPhone 7, the iPhone X is something that looks, works and feels different to past handsets.

iPhone X vs iPhone 7: How much better is Apple’s £1,000 flagship?

The iPhone X is going to be the iPhone upgrade that will get the Apple fans’ hearts racing, especially if the iPhone 8 didn’t do it for you. The price of the product may make you hesitate, however. In any case, this guide should help you make a decision between going all in on the iPhone X, or saving money with a trusty iPhone 7.

iPhone X vs iPhone 7 – Design

The iPhone X looks dramatically different to any iPhone we’ve ever seen before and that’s thanks to one significant design feature. There’s no more home button. The staple button that has been on all iPhones since the original but has now gone, replaced with a fully edge-to-edge screen much like the Essential Phone and the Samsung Galaxy S8. And yes, this does mean the that Touch ID sensor that we all know and love is no more too. Instead, we now have Face ID. Apple claims that Face ID is much more secure than Touch ID, with just a one in a million chance of someone breaking into your phone compared to the Touch ID’s one in 50,000 chance. Both seem like longshots, but you can’t argue with the scale of improvement.

The screen on the iPhone X sports the biggest difference between it and its predecessor. The iPhone X has been beefed up to body ratio and the bezels have been removed. While the iPhone 7 has a 4.7in display with a 750 x 1,334 resolution at 326ppi, the iPhone X, having so much room to play with, instead features a swanky new 5.8in OLED HDR display with a higher resolution of 2,436 x 1,125 giving it a massive 458 pixels per inch. The iPhone 7 also has those large bars on the top and bottom which the iPhone X has done away with.

The iPhone X is far bigger than the iPhone 7 as well. While the iPhone 7 is 130.3 x 67.1 x 7.1mm, the iPhone X is much larger at 143.6 x 70.9 x 7.7mm. iphone_7_vs_iphone_x

The only black mark on the iPhone X’s looks is the bar at the top, required to fit in the IR sensor, “dot projector”, flood illumination and of course the front-facing camera. Other than that, it’s all good in terms of style: the iPhone X sports a shiny new all-glass back with a metal frame, differing to the metal unibody found in the iPhone 7.

Neither feature the 3.5mm headphone jack, which it seems Apple has killed off for good.

The range of colours are far more limited when it comes to the iPhone X. The £1,000 handset will come in Space Grey or Silver, while the iPhone 7 is available in Black, Jet Black, Gold, Rose Gold, Silver, and Red.

iPhone X vs iPhone 7 – Specifications

Overall, the iPhone X has been given a massive power boost. It sports an all-new A11 six-core Bionic chipset, and Apple claims that the iPhone X’s two fastest cores are 25% faster than the A10 Fusion that the iPhone 7 runs on.

The iPhone X also has a lot more RAM to play with over the iPhone 7. The 7 only has 2GB, while the X has a larger 3GB of RAM.

There has also been a welcome change to the storage sizes available on the iPhone X. The iPhone X starts at 64GB with a second storage size of 256GB. The iPhone 7 however, has three sizes, 32GB, 128GB and 256GB.

As of yet, we don’t have any information on the iPhone X’s battery capacity, but Apple claims that it will last an extra two hours over the iPhone 7, which holds a 1,960mAh battery. A Chinese regulatory filing confirms that it’s been beefed up, suggesting that the iPhone X has a greater battery capacity of 2,716mAh.

In any case, the iPhone X brings the long-awaited support for wireless charging.

iPhone X vs iPhone 7 – Camera

The iPhone X has two dual-lens cameras on the rear with 12 megapixels, offering optical image stabilisation as well as an aperture of f/1.8 on one, and f/2.4 on the other. This is a huge update on the iPhone 7 which only has one 12 megapixel camera on the rear with an aperture of f/1.8. The iPhone X’s dual-lens camera also has a new quad LED True Tone Flash.

Apple has also put a lot of effort into AR with the iPhone X’s new cameras. The iPhone X boasts additional gyroscopes that simply aren’t in the iPhone 7.

The iPhone X also outshines the iPhone 7 when it comes to video. While the iPhone 7 can only shoot video at 30FPS for 4K and 120FPS for 1080p, the iPhone X can shoot 4K video at 60FPS and 240FPS for slow motion video captured in 1080p.

iPhone X vs iPhone 7 – Price

So far, so much better, but the price might make even the most enthusiastic Apple fan think twice.

Whilst the iPhone 7 can be bought at a still expensive £549, the iPhone X starts at the eye watering price of £999 for the basic 64GB model.

You’ll certainly be getting a lot of phone for your money, but with the iPhone 7 still being an impressive performer, it’s up to you whether it’s worth paying nearly twice as much for the latest and greatest.