iPhone 7 Teardown Reveals 'Incredibly Thin' A10 Chip With 2GB RAM, Intel Modem

[Phisherman81]

I have 1GB RAM in my 6 plus and I wasn't even sure I was going to upgrade this time either

But alas, I'll be picking up my 7 tonight. The plus is too big wide/tall for me.

So twice as much RAM, HDD (128 vs. 64) and speed with a better camera with OIS all in a smaller package. F-YEAH!

If the battery life ends up being a big deal, I'll get the battery pack. It reminds me of the extended batteries covers HTC once made for their flagships like the EVO... lol the EVO; it was cool at the time, and a 4.3 screen was HUGE!!!

 

[Jimmy James]

2 gb.. Looks like the iPhone 7 Plus is the way to go if you'd ever plan to get one...

Too big for me to keep on my person most of the time. If I'm carrying a messenger bag to bring my phone I'd rather have a phone equipped iPad mini. I already use earphones or a headset for calls.

 

[indiekiduk]

Looking forward to the LTE speed comparison tests between Intel/Qualcomm models.

 

[TailsToo]

Well said.

Wow, do I miss him. Hope you're in a better place, Steve.

And this is what Phil should have said, instead of just "Courage".

 

[EdT]

My $0.02 on RAM. If you are planning on buying an iPhone 7 and keeping it until the 8s (or whatever they call it) then get as much memory as possible. Memory will delay the phone becoming unacceptably sluggish. If you are likely to purchase an iPhone next year as well then don't worry about memory this year, get the phone and the phone size you want.

 

[DCIFRTHS]

Looking forward to the LTE speed comparison tests between Intel/Qualcomm models.

Also looking for voice quality comparisons - even though they are largely subjective.

 

[69Mustang]

I'm well aware what a faster processor is used for. And I'm willing to bet, outside of our MR circle of geeks, and maybe a few other geek spots aroudn the web, most users are not going to notice a significant difference in most of their everyday usage.

I think these are the users you're referencing.

 

[unobtainium]

For the 10,0000th time, Apple added an extra GB of RAM to the Plus so that it could match the performance of the smaller model. The Plus has ALWAYS lagged in performance over the smaller model. It is pushing a larger screen resolution, and now also has to deal with processing images from two cameras.

 

[doelcm82]

To all those "courage" bashers:

If Steve Jobs were still here he'd have dropped the headphone jack with the iPhone 6.

 

[mhuggett]

Well said.

Wow, do I miss him. Hope you're in a better place, Steve.

Yeah, such a massive hole is left, I wouldn't want anyone to try and emulate him, but man, what I wouldn't give to hear such passionate discourse again! apple events are just not the same, always regret that I've never been able to attend a WWDC when he was around, one day I'll make the pilgrimage, but it won't be the same not to see him in person. Time for some binge watching...

 

[StevieD100]

As much as I LOVE the spec of the plus, [1-handed use] > Sum [+1 camera, 1080p, +1 GB RAM, +bigger battery, -more power consumption, -more ram requirement, -more $$$, -more weight]

Don't forget more "bendable".
I'm sticking with my ancient '6' until next years phone comes out. The main reason is that I just can't afford one at the moment. I don't buy phones on Carrier contract. I pay £11/month(rolling) and that's perfect.

 

[Sunny1990]

Where is 3GB ram???

 

[decimortis]

Where is 3GB ram???

If you're referring to the headline, they're talking about the 7, not the 7+.

 

[Sunny1990]

If you're referring to the headline, they're talking about the 7, not the 7+.

I know that's why i am saying way no 3GB ram for regular iPhone 7 (disappointing)

 

[avanpelt]

To all those "courage" bashers:

Phil should've just played this video at the keynote when he started talking about the removal of the headphone jack. I like Phil, but Steve articulated what Phil was trying to say so much better than Phil was able to do.

 

[truthertech]

The A10 is an absolutely fantastic SoC. But we're starting to hit the law of dminishing returns for mobile phone CPU performance. An A9 to A10 is not likely going to yield significantly large performance gains in everyday life because the A9 itself was already blazingly fast. when your App load times for most normal apps is in the miliseconds, a 10% increase isn't going to be really noticed.

Take away the most commonly used port in the world for audio, and people are going to notice.

So no, it's not amazing that the focus is on a functionality removal, and not an incremental update thats not going to be noticed by most.

You are falling prey to thinking that processor speed and power relates primarily to "app loading." That's the tiniest percentage of what the power of the A10 chip is being used for, e.g., you get fantastic pictures because there are a 100 billion calculations occurring when you take that photo.

 

[doelcm82]

I'm well aware what a faster processor is used for. And I'm willing to bet, outside of our MR circle of geeks, and maybe a few other geek spots aroudn the web, most users are not going to notice a significant difference in most of their everyday usage.

They will benefit from the things the faster processor does for them, like the deep learning and the face and object recognition. Safari may indeed be as snappy as it's ever going to be, and outside some apps like Prisma that do fancy filtering of images, the user may not notice. I remember my old Amiga computer had a progress bar for opening a jpeg file, because it could take as much as 15 seconds to display it. A ray traced image like this one could (and did) take days to create:

Now, graphics better than this can not only be created in real time on a handheld phone, but they can be combined with live images from the iPhone's cameras.

Processors will continue to get faster, but we won't see the results as much in app-opening benchmarks. We'll see it in more sophisticated artificial intelligence and augmented reality. And the AI and AR that we'll see in iOS 11, 12, 13, etc. will seem really laggy on an iPhone 6s.

 

[truthertech]

Pr0n?

People are stat whores.

As has been explained ad nauseum, the reason Samsung needs more memory, cores, etc., is because the chip they are using is so far behind the chips Apple is designing. Sad if someone thinks that they are getting more performance with 3gb on Samsung's phone than 2 gb on Apple's.

 

[cmichaelb]

As has been explained ad nauseum, the reason Samsung needs more memory, cores, etc., is because the chip they are using is so far behind the chips Apple is designing. Sad if someone thinks that they are getting more performance with 3gb on Samsung's phone than 2 gb on Apple's.

Exactly, Apple deserves a lot of credit for the efficiency OS/Hardware integration.

 

[SMIDG3T]

2 gb.. Looks like the iPhone 7 Plus is the way to go if you'd ever plan to get one...

In everyday use, an additional 1GB of RAM won't be noticeable during everyday use. It's only used for the dual-camera.

 

[mauka]

After reading:

So to anyone who purchases an iPhone to operate on AT&T or T-Mobile, if there is any chance you may wish to use that phone on Verizon or Sprint, make absolutely sure you purchase the iPhone model that supports both GSM and CDMA to give you maximum flexibility across all US carriers. Outside the US, CDMA is not that important.

I wonder how I can specify the Qualcomm chip model, with all network support?
Working through the Apple online buying process I noticed it "requires" that a carrier be specified.

I'm currently on T-mobile prepaid with an "unlocked" T-mobile iPhone 6. I'd like to remain with T-mobile for now, but would like the option to switch to another carrier.

 

[pat500000]

Looks like Apple killed off the mobile payments like square...(for those who use mobile payments).

Edit: nevermind...disregard this...they got adapters.

 

[diamond.g]

You are falling prey to thinking that processor speed and power relates primarily to "app loading." That's the tiniest percentage of what the power of the A10 chip is being used for, e.g., you get fantastic pictures because there are a 100 billion calculations occurring when you take that photo.

Is the A10 doing that or the ISP (which I thought was separate from the A10)?

 

[unobtainium]

In everyday use, an additional 1GB of RAM won't be noticeable during everyday use. It's only used for the dual-camera.

It will be noticeable in everyday use: it will allow the Plus to feel (almost) as fast as the regular 7. With the same amount of RAM, it would feel significantly slower because it's pushing a larger display. Ask any owner of any previous Plus model.

 

[roland.g]

The A10 is an absolutely fantastic SoC. But we're starting to hit the law of dminishing returns for mobile phone CPU performance. An A9 to A10 is not likely going to yield significantly large performance gains in everyday life because the A9 itself was already blazingly fast. when your App load times for most normal apps is in the miliseconds, a 10% increase isn't going to be really noticed.

Take away the most commonly used port in the world for audio, and people are going to notice.

So no, it's not amazing that the focus is on a functionality removal, and not an incremental update thats not going to be noticed by most.

The A10 isn't just performance which can be seen in gaming and other areas besides load times, it's real advantage will be in the quad core design with two low power consumption cores for less intense tasks. I'm hoping to see how daily usage of mail, messaging, web browsing and the like benefit from the new architecture.