iPhone 7 and 7 Plus

Apple has two flagship options this year. Both the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus benefit from the increased power afforded by Apple's A10 Fusion chipset, but the latter has 3GB of RAM compared to the standard model's 2GB. This year the 16GB storage option has been retired, with 32GB being the entry level point. The other big difference between the two phones is the addition of a second telephoto lens on the 7 Plus

The other change to the design is the new home button, which is now a solid state sensor which simulates the effect of a click using the haptics in Apple’s much vaulted taptic engine. To begin with, this feels weird, but in time I found that it felt like the screen on the old BlackBerry Storm phones which needed to be depressed. By the time of writing this review, I am now fully comfortable with this new button. Importantly, I like it over some phones with physical home buttons like the Xiaomi Mi 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S7.

Users can manually set three different intensities for haptic feedback. Apple claims this will be a more reliable and usable solution for users. I haven't used the phone for long enough to test out its reliability apart from the fact that it works well. App developers too haven't customised their apps to leverage this new feature.

The last design improvement that Apple has managed is IP 67 water and dust resistance. For this, I’ll say finally! The likes of Sony and Motorola have been doing this for years and Samsung did this earlier this year with the Galaxy S7, so it was high time that Apple did this.

In specialised areas, Apple certainly has the better offering - for shooting live photos, 4K video, Panoramas and slow-motion video.

The iPhone 7 features a water-resistant housing; a new, non-mechanical Home button that relies on haptics for feedback; major updates to the camera system; a notably better display; faster system performance and up to 256GB of storage capacity. Battery life, too, should be improved, despite the demands of the faster system architecture.

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Samsung Galaxy S7 edge review

Galaxy S7 EDGE are still two of the best devices to launch this year. Samsung has fended off a number of key competitors, with the LG G5 failing to keep up in terms of sales; meanwhile, Apple's iPhone 7 proved the rumours correct by being something of a by-the-numbers update and apparently confirming that the big changes for Apple's brand will come in 2017. Of all this year's big hitters the recently launched Google Pixel seems like the most capable opponent, and although Samsung's Galaxy Note series rarely cannibalises its own flagship sales, the exploding battery crisis and subsequent discontinuiation of the Galaxy Note 7 has kept the Galaxy S7 at the forefront of the picture. 

In the run-up to the big reveal, both  Galaxy S7 devices have proven possibly Samsung's worst-kept secret to date, not that this is meant as a slight against Samsung - pretty much every manufacturer is unable to keep things wrapped up tight these days and in-development products always leaks onto the web in abundance. Consequently, once again much of the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge design, and many of the features, are not a surprise to anyone who had been keeping an eye on things in the six months or so ahead of the launch

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