The new iPhones were greeted with yawns instead than raised eyebrows this year, and I expected it. Everyone is way too excited about the new iPhone X coming late November, and so forgot to give the iPhone 8 it's rightful share of attention.
Notice that I said 'rightful'. In my opinion, iPhones are usually overrated. They're pretty decent phones, but are made out to be some godly devices which only kings and demigods can own.
In reality, we know that even the presumably "luxurious" iPhones are prone to the same crappy issues as other phones. I'm talking about heating issues, bad battery life and of course, exploding batteries. But that's not the focus here.
I want to spend a little time to go in detail about the iPhone 8 and 8 plus, keeping my eye on the positive side of things. So let's see what we can dig up here.
Design: The only thing that's new about these two phones is the glass back, and a a new gold color, that's it. The camera hump is the same, the thickness is pretty much the same as well.
The weight did increase quite a but, because of the glass back panel. By the way, it is NOT "the most durable glass on a phone", like Apple said. Don't believe everything which those on-stage-geniuses say.
The new iPhone 8 plus weighs 201 gm and the 8 weighs about 170 gm. Pretty hefty for such a petite device eh? But compared to the 7 plus, the 8 plus seems a little bit more center balanced.
The glass back adds Qi wireless charging to it, which is a welcome addition.
Display: The iPhones literally have the exact same displays as the 7 and 7 plus. They don't seem brighter, or more contrasty in comparison. But they do support true tone this time, one thing which I loved on the iPads.
The display changes its white balance based on the environment color around the device. You may not notice a huge difference straight away, but it is noticeable when compared to another 750p/1080p panel.
Performance: The performance on the new iPhones is just awesome. The new A11 Bionic processor is a beast, matching a base level PC in it's horsepower! It adds some incredible functionality to the phone, which no other device in the market is capable of doing as of now.
One example is the seamless AR integration with 'ARkit'. Sure, Google ARcore is pretty good too, bit it needs a little bit more polish. Apple seems to know what it's doing here.
The RAM size is the same as last year. 2 gigs on the 8 and 3 gigs on the 8 plus. It's DDR4, as expected. Multitasking is above average, though nothing you'll see will be jaw dropping.
The iPhone 8/plus is possibly the last phone you'll see with good old TouchID. You don't have to do face-yoga just to unlock your frigging phone, like we'll have to do when the X drops.
Camera: The iPhone 8 has a new sensor of the same resolution. The 8 plus has the same dual camera system as on the 7 plus. Image processing has improved a bit with the A11 Bionic, so you can expect some better lowlight shots here.
Also, I noticed that the saturation has been bumped up a little bit. Some may like this newfound juicy, yellowish tint, others won't.
There is one thing for you to write home about, that's the iPhones capability to record 4K video at 60 friggin frames per second! Still, most professional cameras can't do that!
This is awesome, well done there Apple. You guys are once again the kings of video recording and of course, 240 fps 1080p slo-mo!
Front cameras are of the same resolution but have slighly wider field of view this time. This is great, whose lack was my compaint with the iPhone 7, and phones before that.
The portrait lighting feature works half the time, and decides to make a rediculously messy picture rest of the time. It's still on beta, so I'll hold off my thoughts on it for now.
Battery: The batteries have physically shrunken on the 8 compared to the 7. But I don't know what wizardry is at play here, as the battery life on the new iPhones is fantastic!
The iPhone 8 lasts at least 2 hours more than the 7, and the 8 plus leads by about the same, than the 7 plus.
This is probably because of the new chipset again. The A11 Bionic is an amazing piece if silicon.
The fast charging on these phones is unavailable out of the box, as you still get the same stupid 5 W charger. You'll have to fork extra clams for the fast charger, which is outrageous in my opinion.
All companies provide the fast charger with their premium devices, why not you Apple?
This fast charger is supposedly going to charge up your phone from 0 to 50\\% in half hour. They're probably talking about the smaller iPhone 8.
I don't think you really need a fast charger with the smaller phone, as the small battery doesn't really take that long to charge up anyway.
Final verdict: right then, let's wind up. Who is the iPhone 8 and 8 plus made for anyway? If you're someone who thinks that iPhones are exactly what you need to for your lifestyle and is rediculously to spend over a $1000 on a phone, then you can consider these iPhones.
They're familiar, fast, and don't cost a $1000, but cost about $890. Not a huge money saver, but I'm sure you must be used to getting ripped off by now, since you're an Apple customer!
