IPhone 8 and IPhone 8 plus Review

Apple recently released a new iPhone every September, and it’s a given that it will be the best iPhone ever. But what do you do when the company announces not one, not two, but THREE new iPhones? How do you rank them and decide which one is the actual best iPhone ever, especially when they don’t all go on sale at the same time? 

                       

Because of this, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are at an unfair disadvantage right out of the gate. The iPhone X was announced at the same time and is the clear frontrunner when it comes to innovation—it has an all-new design with an edge-to-edge, bezel-less OLED display and a new FaceID technology that lets you unlock your iPhone just by looking at it (literally). The iPhone 8 maintains the same look and feel of the iPhone 6, 6s, and 7, with some changes and enhancements. 

Because of this, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are at an unfair disadvantage right out of the gate. The iPhone X was announced at the same time and is the clear frontrunner when it comes to innovation—it has an all-new design with an edge-to-edge, bezel-less OLED display and a new FaceID technology that lets you unlock your iPhone just by looking at it (literally). The iPhone 8 maintains the same look and feel of the iPhone 6, 6s, and 7, with some changes and enhancements. 

Iphone 8 and 8 Plus Familiar design with a glassy addition 

It’s true: At a glance, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus look almost identical to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. They have practically the same dimensions (5.45 inches long x 2.65 inches wide at 0.29 inches thick for the iPhone 8; 6.24 inches long x 3.07 inches wide at 0.30 inches thick for the iPhone 8 Plus), same display size (4.7 inches diagonally for the iPhone 8; 5.5 inches for the iPhone 8 Plus), same button and port locations, and they both lack a headphone jack (very sorry to say). If you have a case for your iPhone 7, it will fit the iPhone 8 like a glove. 

Color wise, you have three options: space grey with a black bezel, silver with a white bezel, or gold with a white bezel. Gone is the jet black matte finish, and gone is the lovely rose gold option, but Apple switched up its standard gold option to meet us somewhere in the middle. If you compare a gold iPhone 6/6s or 7 to a gold iPhone 8, you’ll notice that the iPhone 8 has a copper-bronze tint to it, where the older models are closer to a champagne gold. I’m low-key obsessed with the new gold option—I think it’s the iPhone’s best color yet.

iPhone 8 and 8 Plus: Wireless charging

There’s a reason why Apple revived the glass back. The material is more conducive to wireless charging—which can’t travel through metals—and the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are Apple’s first phones that support the technology. You can top up your iPhone 8’s battery with any wireless charging pad that uses the Qi standard—just place your iPhone on the pad, and it will begin to charge. It will make the same charging chime and flash the lightning bolt indicator, just as it does with a Lightning connector. Have a case on your phone? No problem: if it’s not metal, it should charge just fine through the case. I’ve tested out the iPhone 8’s charging capabilities with several different cases and haven’t had any problems.

iPhone 8 and 8 Plus: Performance, speed, and special features

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The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have a brand new chip: Apple’s A11 Bionic, which boasts a six-core CPU and 64-bit architecture. Apple claims that its two performance cores are 25-percent faster than the iPhone 7’s A10 Fusion chip, while it’s four efficiency cores are 70-percent faster. Our Geekbench speed tests support that claim.

iPhone 8 and 8 Plus: The camera 

Looking at specs alone, it doesn’t look like the iPhone 8 or 8 Plus has improved their cameras much over the iPhone 7 or 7 Plus. But when using the cameras in the field, there are noticeable improvements.

The iPhone 8 has a 12 megapixel back-facing camera, with ƒ/1.8 aperture and digital zoom capabilities up to 5x—just like the iPhone 7. It still has optical image stabilization, a quad-LED True Tone flash, noise reduction, auto HDR, and all of the other marquee iPhone 7 camera features. 

Bottom line 

It’s difficult to put a label on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. It’s a definite update from 2016’s iPhone 7—even though it looks almost exactly the same—but it’s different enough that it doesn’t deserve to be given an “S” naming scheme. To me, it feels more like an “iPhone 7 and three-quarters”: Too different to be a 7, not quite different enough to be bumped into a new category.

And that’s why, understandably, some iPhone die-hards may be bored with the iPhone 8. It’s a big improvement, but not quite innovative enough to be exciting. All of the innovation hype lies with November’s release of the iPhone X. 

However, the iPhone X might be too radical for many users. Remember when we all flipped out over the loss of the headphone jack on the iPhone 7? For some, losing Touch ID and relying on gestures for navigation instead of a Home button will be just as hard of an adjustment. The iPhone 8 might be playing it safe, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

So, who is the 8 and 8 Plus for? If you’re on the iPhone Upgrade Plan (or other similar plan with your carrier), you have no interest in the iPhone X, and the cost difference between your current phone and an 8 isn’t that much, this is a worthwhile upgrade. If you’re rocking an iPhone 6s or older, the improvements here will be noticeable, too. But if you’re on an iPhone 7 and still love it, you can probably stick with your current phone for one more year and be just fine.