First iPhone 7 Plus teardown reveals larger battery, revamped internal design, faux speaker port, more

Mere hours after Apple's iPhone 7 Plus arrived in the hands of pre-order customers on Friday, the team at iFixit ripped the new flagship smartphone open to reveal a larger battery, revamped internal layout, fake speaker port in lieu of a headphone jack and other goodies.

iFixit's teardown is ongoing as of this writing, but the firm is posting pictures of the process on its webpage. This year, the company flew out to Japan to obtain its launch day dissection subject.

Upon first glance, iPhone 7 Plus appears to be largely similar to iPhone 6s Plus, save for the dual-camera array and lack of headphone jack. The phone's connective tissue is also unchanged, as two pentalobe screws secure the display assembly to the 7000 series aluminum chassis. Then things begin to deviate.

Compared to last year's model, iPhone 7 Plus contains a stronger adhesive tape iFixit believes might be related to waterproofing. Another change, this year's iPhone opens to the side like a book, whereas the display on previous versions flipped up like steno pad. Cabling and other connectors have been reworked to support this new arrangement.

Photos also revealed a 2,900 mAh battery, up from the 2,750 mAh cell found in iPhone 6s Plus. Coupled with Apple's new A10 Fusion processor, which promises to deliver both speed and efficiency with a unique quad-core design, the smartphone should see a boost in time between charges.

Announced last week, and subsequently defended by Apple executives, iPhone 7 and 7 Plus no longer feature a 3.5mm headphone jack. In its place, iFixit found what looks to be a non-functional speaker port.

Just above the faux speaker port is the enhanced Taptic Engine module that generates phone vibrations and powers the new solid-state home button. Compared to the iPhone 6s, this year's Taptic Engine appears to be a quite a bit taller, suggesting the unit's internal weights were enlarged for enhanced feedback.

Moving to the dual-camera system, the teardown confirms suspicions that Apple is using two identical sensor modules outfitted with specialized lens packages. The wide angle imager, thought to be identical to iPhone 7's iSight camera, comes with an optical image stabilization system and new lens array, while the telephoto shooter lacks OIS.

On the logic board lives Apple's A10 Fusion processor, with 3GB of Samsung LPDDR4 RAM, a Qualcomm MDM9645M LTE Cat. 12 Modem and components from Skyworks and Avago. Intel is also supplying modems for iPhone 7, specifically handsets operating on AT&T and T-Mobile networks in the U.S.

Apple's iPhone 7 Plus went up for pre-order last Friday alongside the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 and the new Apple Watch Series 2. On Wednesday, Apple announced initial supply of all iPhone 7 Plus versions, as well all jet black iPhone 7 models, had been depleted.

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23 Comments

kevin kee 1289 comments · 10 Years

About 8 years ago

In its place, iFixit found what looks to be a non-functional speaker port.
Actually that is incorrect. The Taptic Engine takes half of its place.

Chiumeister 3 comments · 8 Years

Any chance for battery fire in the 7 or 7 plus in your view?

larrya 608 comments · 13 Years

kevin kee said:

In its place, iFixit found what looks to be a non-functional speaker port.

Actually that is incorrect. The Taptic Engine takes half of its place.

Looks that way to me, too. I guess we basically traded the headphone port for having a non-mechanical home button. I would also want to put the Taptic Engine there, under the home button, for maximum effect. I think I would rather have the port than feedback from pressing the button.

mac_128 3452 comments · 12 Years

kevin kee said:

In its place, iFixit found what looks to be a non-functional speaker port.

Actually that is incorrect. The Taptic Engine takes half of its place.

To be fair, this is the 7 Plus. I doubt the 7 has anything like this bumper covering the fake speaker grille. They design the phone for the smallest size, and the larger size gets some extra space. But as you point out, not enough for a headphone jack.

still not a very innovative use of free space given their claims.

larrya said:

kevin kee said:

In its place, iFixit found what looks to be a non-functional speaker port.

Actually that is incorrect. The Taptic Engine takes half of its place.

Looks that way to me, too. I guess we basically traded the headphone port for having a non-mechanical home button. I would also want to put the Taptic Engine there, under the home button, for maximum effect. I think I would rather have the port than feedback from pressing the button.

It is actually directly under the home button (look at the charger port) just not at the middle because of the other side components took half of the space already. The non-mechanical home button path the way for full screen iPhone in the future. It is needed, so is the taptic engine. Headphone port have to go either way.