For a very long time, we complained about the lack of storage on the lower end iPhones. The 16 GB variant was the scourge of the Apple family for well over half a decade. Apple finally announced a bump in the iPhone storage and launched the 32gb iPhone 7. We were ecstatic! Little did we realise that our joy was going to be so short-lived.
Speed tests have shown that the 32 GB iPhone 7 is much slower than the 256 GB version.
Apple has used NAND chips for developing the storage for iPhone 7. They way these chips are made is particularly curious! Unlike most mechanisms, a NAND chip’s performance varies according to storage. The higher the storage capacity, the higher the speed.
This is something that we were aware of, and we did expect the lower capacity iPhone 7 to work a bit slower than the larger storage devices. What surprised us was the gap in the performance. The speed difference is pretty significant, and it might be a cause of concern for a lot of users.
In a video shared by Unbox Therapy, Lewis Hilsenteger put the two storage variants — 32 GB and 256 GB — through a read and write speed test.
Here’s are the results that matter:
Read Speed: 686 Mbps (32GB) ; 856 Mbps (256 GB)
Write Speed: 42 Mbps (32GB) ; 341 Mbps (256 GB)
As you can see, the two phones did quite well in the read speed. The difference wasn’t all that big. But the write speed that the thorn in the crown. With an abysmal 42 Mbps, the 32 GB iPhone 7 is painfully slow. In comparison, the 256 GB version, clocking at 341 Mbps, is over 8x times faster. That could potentially hurt a lot of the customers, especially in the long run.
The 128 GB variant, fortunately, doesn’t suffer from the same problem. Obviously, it’s slower than the 256 GB version. However, the fall in speed is not nearly as slow as the 32 GB one. It’s much closer to its larger causing on the speed test. Most users will barely even notice the difference.
So, even after a bump in the storage specs, the woes of the entry level iPhone users continue to take newer forms. And these are serious issues too. For the premium tag that an iPhone carries, and the premium price that they charge, it’s a shame really that Apple is still letting these cracks expand. Are you reading this, Mr Cook?
