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Apple iPhone 8 review

 Review: October 2017  
 

Rating: 4 stars

In a nutshell: The iPhone 8 has a new glass design offering wireless charging. It's faster than ever, thanks to the new A11 Bionic chip, and now comes with 64GB of memory as standard. iOS 11 also brings some cool new features including augmented reality. But as ever, the price of owning the latest iPhone is higher than ever before.



 

Design & looks

The iPhone 8 is an evolution of the iPhone7. Revolution is left to the iPhone X, coming in November.

The iPhone 8 looks much like the previous generation iPhones, except that it has a new all-glass design. It's available in Gold, Silver and Space Grey finishes. It's compact, like before, and water-resistant. Slightly thicker than the iPhone 7, it's still a slim phone, but the weight of the iPhone creeps up with each new version, and this one is the heaviest yet.

As before, the Touch ID fingerprint sensor is built into the familiar home button.

The screen size and resolution hasn't changed since the iPhone 6, and 326ppi is the kind of resolution we'd expect from a mid-range Android phone these days. You'll have to wait until the iPhone X is released if you want a better screen.

A11 Bionic chip & new memory options

The iPhone 8 is super-fast, with an A11 Bionic chip. Cool name. Cool processor. It's quite probably the fastest phone you can buy.

The memory has been given a very welcome boost too, with the base model coming with 64GB of memory. Now we're talking. This is perhaps the first time in years that the base iPhone model has come with suffiicent memory to satisfy most users. Unless you're a power user with masses of stuff, you won't need to fork out more for the 256GB version.

iOS 11

A new iPhone demands a new version of iOS. iOS 11 ushers in an era of augmented reality in games and apps. The lock screen has been updated, with more information available. There are new camera filters too, and Live Photos let you turn photos into video snippets. The App Store has also been given a makeover, and Siri speaks more languages and is keener than ever to be of assistance.

iSight camera

Little has changed when it comes to the front and rear camera.

The main camera has a 12 megapixel sensor, wide aperture, optical image stabilisation, True Tone flash with four LEDs and is excellent. The optical image stabilisation is available when shooting video too, and the iPhone 8 can now record 4K video at 4K resolution.

The front camera has 7 megapixels and features digital image stabilisation and video recording up to 1080p HD. FaceTime video is available over Wi-Fi.

Connectivity

Not much has changed on this front. The iPhone 8 supports a wide range of LTE bands, plus fast Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. NFC is present, and GPS and GLONASS positioning are available. EarPods are included in the sales package and plug into the Lightning Connector.

Wireless battery

The battery life of the iPhone 8 is about the same as before - around 13 hours of continuous use. New is wireless charging, and because this is an Apple product, it has its own name. AirPower. Like other phones with wireless charging, it works with Qi chargers, available separately.

Conclusion

The iPhone 8 brings in a few minor upgrades - more memory, wireless charging, and a faster chip. That's not a big change, and not really sufficient to justify its price hike compared with the iPhone 7. But as Apple has proved time and time again, when you have a winning formula, no great changes are necessary.


Apple iPhone 8 features include:

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