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This in-depth iPhone 7 camera review exposes all its hidden secrets

Published Sep 28th, 2016 9:41AM EDT
iPhone 7 vs. iPhone 6s vs. Galaxy S7 Edge
Image: Apple Inc.

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The iPhone 7 sports one of the best smartphone cameras that has ever existed. Reviews from professional photographers and many photo and video samples already make that point. But DxOMark’s iPhone 7 camera review is certainly worth a read, as it explains all the intricacies of Apple’s camera innovations.

The camera pros at DxOMark put the 4.7-inch device through various paces, concluding that the iPhone 7 is the best camera Apple made to date. The phone outscores all of its predecessors, but it still isn’t the top-rated camera on DxOMark.

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The iPhone 7 got a rating of 86, higher than the iPhone 6s’s 84 and the iPhone 6’s 82. However, other 2016 smartphones including the HTC 10 and Galaxy S7 edge, scored 88 in the same tests. The smaller sensor seems to be the one thing that puts the iPhone 7 behind rivals from HTC and Samsung. However, there are plenty of features that make up for that particular difference.

“While Apple’s flagship phones may have a smaller sensor than their competitors from Samsung and HTC, Apple has incorporated a variety of innovative technologies to create a compelling smartphone experience in a very-thin form factor,” the site notes. “This includes high-performance lens design, efficient sensor electronics, built-in optical image stabilization, multi-image synthesis on a high-performance image processing chip, and an advanced image processing pipeline.”

One of the unique camera features of the iPhone 7 is the new wide color capture that offers “more vibrant colors.” DxOMark praises Apple’s decision to go for this color standard — that’s Digital Cinema color space (DCI-P3), rather than sRGB — as it offers users a better color experience. The caveat is that you need to view the resulting photos on a display that supports DCI-P3, whether it’s the iPhone 7’s or other hardware.

“By supporting the Digital Cinema (DCI-P3) color gamut, it is providing its smartphone users with the potential for the same high-quality color reproduction that is available in high-end movie theaters and on Premium Ultra HD TVs,” the camera experts at DxOMark say.

The site continues, “It may be a little hard to imagine how to evaluate the visual impact of richer colors, but essentially Digital Cinema color does for color rendering what HDR does for tone mapping. It provides a broader, richer, palette of colors that can be rendered, resulting in a more immersive and compelling viewing experience… as long as the display device is capable of handling the additional colors.”

The in-depth DxOMark iPhone 7 camera review, complete with photo samples, is available at this link and you shouldn’t miss it.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.