The iPhone 8, Should you upgrade from 7?

Apple recently unveiled a slew of devices at their Keynote event in September. This event was perhaps one of the most hyped up Apple events as the company was about to make a debut for the much rumoured iPhone X and boy did they surprise us. Alongside the iPhone X, they also launched two more devices, namely the Apple iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 plus. The latter is a bigger version of the other.

The thing that I can’t help notice this time around was that it was the most confusing launch for Any Apple device. Firstly we never got to see the successor to the iPhone 7S and 7S Plus, instead we got the 8 and 8 Plus. Why this sudden change in the norm is yet a mystery. But if I were to take a guess than I would wager that Apple wanted to cash in the bezel less display market like most manufacturers today. This is perhaps the first time that we may have seen Apple feeling pressure in the smartphone segment which is a very pleasant surprise. We’ll particularly be talking about the iPhone 8 here and see what we can expect from Apple’s newest device and is it even worth the upgrade.

Design and Display:

The Apple iPhone 8 retains the shape of its predecessor, the iPhone 7 but is fractionally larger than it. The difference isn’t at all noticeable though. The iPhone 8 comes with an exterior made of glass this time around which was a curious design choice but Apple later confirmed that it was done to aid wireless charging. Okay then, so what’s the catch? Well glass housings aren’t the best when it comes to taking a fall and the use of glass is significantly heavier than the use of aluminium. So the iPhone 8 is heavier at 148g than its predecessor which had a weight of just 138g. The trade-off switching from aluminium to glass will matter on the fact about how much you want wireless charging.

Display wise, it is exactly the same as the iPhone 7. No major changes here but Apple did tweak their display and included the ‘True Tone’ technology from their iPad which adjusts automatically to the ambient light and ensures that you have an even colour balance at all times. Also included in the display are support for HDR10 and Dolby vision which is a rapidly adopted standard by online content streaming services.

Performance:

Performance wise, it may as well be the fastest phone on the planet right now. It has the same A11 Bionic processor from the pricier iPhone X. This is a 6 Core CPU coupled with a 6 Core GPU, which is roughly 25% faster than their previous A10 Fusion chip. As a result, the iPhone handles multi-tasking like nothing else. According to Apple, multi-tasking speed has improved up to 70% and Graphics performance has improved up to 30%. The A11 Bionic truly shines with the iPhone X because the face ID requires a high amount of power and it delivers, showing exactly how much of a beastly chip it is.

The iPhone 8 comes with just 2GB of ram as compared to the 3GB on the iPhone 8 Plus and the iPhone X which is a curious decision on Apple’s end because for having less RAM, it doesn’t actually cost significantly less than the iPhone 8 Plus. Apple has never been the one to melt hearts with pricing but rather force people into paying more for less which is really crooked.

Software:

On the software front, the iPhone 8, S Plus and X come with the latest version of Apple’s OS 11. This is a monumental leap forward for the iOS as far as software goes. It comes with a completely redesigned control centre, which can be accessed by swiping up from the bottom. There is also a whole new 3D emoji which uses face tracking to render accurate expressions from the movement of your face. The redesigned App Store enables you to easily discover new games and apps and also shows reviews by professionals within the app itself. Also the camera app has been given a new life as well, now being able to take pictures of the same quality at half the size thanks to their advanced photo compression technology.

Camera and storage:

According to DXO mark, an individual camera test benchmark, the iPhone 8 has the highest camera performance among any recorded phone, giving it a score of 92 which handily beats out the previous champions, namely the HTC U11 and the Google Pixel. The interesting thing is that the iPhone 8 doesn’t necessarily use a dual camera setup like the bigger iPhone 8 Plus or any other phone currently in the market, but despite that Apple’s software processing puts the camera in a league of its own. The iPhone 8 has a single 12MP wide angle camera with an f1.8 aperture and OIS. The cameras are basically the same as the iPhone 7 but the processing technology has been given an overhaul. The front facing camera is a 7MP unit with an f2.2 aperture.

Storage wise, the iPhone 8 comes with 64, 128 and 256 GB variants. The storage is double that of the iPhone 7 but costs much more as well.

Battery and Connectivity:

While launching the iPhone 8, Apple didn’t actually post a battery figure which is suspicious because they mentioned that the iPhone 8 lasts almost as long as the iPhone 7 on a single charge. What is a good news however, is that the iPhone 8 supports wireless charging and support for quick charge on the thunderbolt cable. But then again, quick charge isn’t supported on Apple’s supplied charger and has to be purchased separately at $49 and even if you do purchase it, there is no cable bundled and you’ll have to shell out another $25 just for the luxury of being able to charge your phone quickly. This is just insanity.

Connectivity wise, Apple supports all 4G, 3G and 2G Indian bands with support for Wi-Fi 802.11, a/ac/b/g/n/n 5GHz, MIMO, Bluetooth v 5.0, GPS and USB.

Final words:

Should you buy the iPhone 8? If you already own an iPhone 7, there’s absolutely no need for it. For people owning iPhone 6 and later, it might be worth the upgrade though. But then again, the iOS 11 is being rolled out all the way from the iPhone 5S to the 7 Plus variants, which means most of the new features as far as productivity within the app is concerned, will already be present. So even for owners of those, it’s a matter of need vs. want. The Apple iPhone 8 price is expected to be around Rs.64000.