iPhone (1st generation) review: The 2007 original — the phone that started the smartphone era.
The phone that started everything.
The original 2007 iPhone created the modern smartphone category. By any modern spec it is obsolete — but its place in history is unmatched. A museum piece.
01Display
26/10026/100 is one of the weaker display results among flagship phones of 2007 — 15 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
02Camera
14/10014/100 is one of the weaker camera results among flagship phones of 2007 — 9 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
03Performance
6/1006/100 is one of the weaker performance results among flagship phones of 2007 — 15 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
04Battery
32/10032/100 is one of the weaker battery results among flagship phones of 2007 — 7 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
05Build
52/10052/100 is one of the weaker build results among flagship phones of 2007 — 6 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
06Value
14/10014/100 is one of the weaker value results among flagship phones of 2007 — 17 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
- The phone that defined the modern smartphone.
- First mainstream capacitive multi-touch display.
- Iconic aluminium-and-glass design.
- A genuine turning point in technology.
- EDGE-only — no 3G.
- No App Store at launch; no video, no GPS.
- 128 MB RAM; 2 MP fixed-focus camera.
- Discontinued — a museum-grade collectible.
How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 3-phone cohort of flagship devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .