Looking for Advice...is the 7 "Worth It"?

[Visionblue]

Hey folks!

I'm a long time android user but have always had some sort of apple device in my life. My 6P recently started to show some major glitches (battery life and all-together sluggishness) so I decided to satisfy my interest and picked up a used iPhone 6 for a steal. I'm really enjoying the experience. However, the battery dies at seemingly random times at anywhere from a 20%-70% charge. I plan to return the phone but can't decide if I should stick with the 6 or upgrade to the 7.

I use AT&T's gophone plan so I buy my phones with cash, upfront. I rarely live on the bleeding edge with phones because it's hard to justify spending $700 on a phone when you can pick one up for >$300 that will meet needs and then some.

Anyone in a similar canoe and have advice? I don't feel I'm missing much on the 6, save for a louder speaker. Is 3D touch a killer feature? Is the camera way better? I've read reviews but I can't really find anything specific to my user-case, being a pre-paid subscriber and someone who lives a generation behind (or 2). Also, in the case that I should upgrade, does anyone know of any 3rd party insurance companies that cover loss/theft? I know apple care covers damage but I do believe it discludes loss/theft.

Thanks!

 

[TrueBlou]

I recently, well fairly recently, made the move from a 6+ to a 7+. Not because I especially wanted to or was unhappy with the 6+, quite the contrary, I loved that phone. But I needed access to 3D Touch for app development so I took the plunge.

I'll be honest, when you look at certain individual items in isolation it doesn't really seem like a huge deal and if you like the 6 series anyway you know what you're in for.

But, although I wasn't moved to make my purchase for anything other than necessity I am so glad that I finally did.

The camera really is much better (significantly so on the 7+) I'm finding 3D Touch to be something that I use a lot of every time I'm using my phone, it's far from the gimmick I expected it to be.

The speakers are a significant upgrade, which I like for when I'm cooking and the battery in my Bluetooth speaker has died, I find the iPhone on its own to provide adequate sound now.

May not be of any importance to you, but the Jet Black finish is just astounding. Yeah it looks nice, but the best thing about it is the effect it has on the usability of the device believe it or not. The thing is just so much grippier than the brushed metal finishes. Finally, the first iPhone in years I'm happy to hold caseless without fear of it slipping out of my hands.

The screen is much nicer, the wide colour support really does add a depth and fidelity to images that was missing before.

Water resistance has already proved to be a huge boon, I've only dropped my iPhone into water once before and it died as a result. I dropped the 7 into water by accident and.. Nothing, it was perfectly fine.

The camera flash seems brighter to me, I know the 7 has a quad led so that may seem obvious, but I didn't expect much of a difference beforehand if I'm honest.

4K video recording is lovely, which may or may not be important to you now. But I've just treated myself to a 4K OLED and I wish I'd upgraded to the 6s last year so that more of my videos were in 4K, even though I didn't need it at the time the forward planning would have been worth it.

I love the Taptic feedback from the phone and it's definitely something I'll be incorporating into my own apps as I like it so much.

The battery life has been much better for me in day-to-day use. As my use scenarios haven't changed much in years I can only attribute that to the new Fusion chip. (Obviously this iPhone is still new, but my 6+ wasn't very old when it finally got retired as it was a replacement device.)

And finally there's the performance, everything and I mean literally everything is smoother, faster and just all around more pleasurable to use.


So yeah, obviously that's just my opinion and we're all different. But I think when all of the changes come together, rather than just focusing on a couple of things that seem a bit better, they make one massively improved device over the iPhone 6 that I for one don't regret for a single second upgrading to.

If it were a move from a 6s, I'd probably say hold off until the next phone. But moving from the 6 series to the 7 is a pretty significant jump in almost every way.