Hello and welcome to the show!
My name is Alex and this is TechFlow.
The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have been out now for about five days.
Let's round up my thoughts so far and create a little, mini review.
So, what are the key features and the main buying points for buying the iPhone 8?
Judging, well, the iPhone 7 is a thing that also exists.
So, what do we have here?
Well, in the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, we are rocking the A11 bionic chip.
Boy, more on this later, it's a fast mother We've got dual, 12 megapixel shooters
on the back of this device and flipping it back round to the front, we're looking at
an 8 megapixel selfie camera.
To view those selfies on a screen, we're looking at a 5.5 inch - unfortunately, we haven't
seen an upgrade from the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus here, coming in at 1080p.
However, the thing that we are seeing a change on is that it has TrueTone capabilities.
More on that, again, a little bit later.
Apple have also now changed all of their storage options, so now you're looking at 64 or all
the way up to 128.
There's a few new features as well as the TrueTone display - one of those is portrait lighting.
Let's talk about all of these and test it out.
So, I was there on release day to pick up an iPhone 8 Plus.
Actually, two of them.
One in the black and one in the gold and I'm currently giving away the gold one so I'll
put a link to that down in the description.
And if you were to judge this entire phone on the pre-order sales, you'd think it was
a bad phone.
But it's not - that's not the reason why.
It's because Apple have released another phone called the iPhone X and that's coming out
in a couple of months time.
But yes, the, the pre-order line was fairly scarce.
There was nobody there which is kind of worrying for Apple.
But the iPhone 8 Plus is just a fairly steady upgrade from the iPhone 7 and that is all it is.
There's no features that make you say: Oh my goodness, I need this phone.
You may as well really, if you're strapped for cash, just go for the 7 or 7 Plus, and
here's why.
So, let's take a look at both of the phones.
As you can see, looking from the front, nothing has changed.
The only thing that is going to change is whether you pick up the black or the white
variant of the phone.
Turning things around, however, things are going to change slightly but the phone in
the hand doesn't really feel too different.
On the iPhone 8, you've got a glass back which - I actually dig this - I love it more than
the aluminium on the 7.
Coming with this is a little bit of extra, added weight and this is welcome to.
And you're probably thinking: Alex, a heavier phone - isn't that a negative thing?
No.
I think the iPhone 7 was too light.
I love having the extra weight - it makes the phone, for my eyes, feel a lot more substantial.
But I know other people have different thoughts - this is my thought.
And that is pretty much the only thing that has changed other than the colour of the glass
versus the aluminium.
But it's lucky though because the iPhone 7's design is my favourite design out of all of
the iPhones that have ever been released.
So, keeping this, for me, wasn't a bad thing at all.
I love the design - why change what's not broken?
Now, the iPhone 8 with this glass back still maintains its IP 67 water-resistant feature.
I've tested this - my phone has been in the bath.
It survived fine.
Now, let's focus on the thing that you're going to be looking at the most whether you
buy this phone or not and that is the screen.
Apple have kept the exact same screen in here but just tweaked it slightly from the iPhone 7.
We're still looking at the same 5.5 inch 1080p screen.
However, in the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, we have a true tone display.
Now, Alex, what's TrueTone?
It pretty much adjusts the contrast and the colour of the screen, depending on the lighting
scenario that you are in and the only time I've ever seen this ever change is from switching
to a dark environment to a light environment or switching from a light, which is a warm
light, or to a cool light i.e. if you have warm spot-lights in the room to moving to
a room with cool spot-lights.
It does change what is on the screen and the appearance and it makes it a lot easier and
a lot nicer to look at, it must be said.
But, on the most part, nothing has changed on the screens.
Unfortunately here, with the iPhone 8, unlike the Samsung Galaxy S8, we have no HDR.
Apple are saving that for the iPhone X.
However, the phone can display back HDR content, just with a slightly better contrast.
That's it for the screen.
I'm going to go ahead and open all of the apps on my home-screen on both of these devices
and see which one finishes first.
The A11 bionic chip is an absolute bomb - there next to its three gigabytes of RAM - it's
ample for an iPhone.
This phone is, pretty much, give or take, the fastest phone on the market right now.
If you're looking for a powerhouse, 8 is the guy to get.
Now, flip this thing over from the screen and we're looking at the camera on the back.
What's it like and does it take some photos?
Well, I'll throw some examples up on screen right now.
Some are in very darkly lit environments and some are in very lit environments so that
you can see the difference.
But it's not all just in taking a single photo.
This thing can also do 4K video at 60 FPS.
We'll throw some of that on screen right now and, again, it does look absolutely phenomenal.
They've also added the option to shoot in 24 FPS at 4K which, for me, a cinematographer,
I absolutely love.
Apple - thank you.
It's not just the hardware that Apple have changed, though.
It is the features of the camera.
Now they have the, well, the depth effect but that actually depth effect features.
You can actually take a picture of someone and make the background fully black and do
a lot of other cool different things like studio lighting - literally, light up somebody's face as if
they have two soft boxes either side of them like I do right now.
You can emulate that on the iPhone 8.
We'll throw some examples of that up on screen right now too.
Now, what's the big thing that everybody complains about on a phone?
Battery life.
If they ever invent a phone that could last for weeks on end, I'm sure that everybody
would have it.
So, battery life is a big deal.
And, in my opinion, the battery life for this, as far as phones are concerned, is a solid
8 out of 10, especially for the Plus model.
I really like how the iOS optimises itself to take the most juice out of its battery
as possible and when you get down to 20%, it puts itself in to low battery mode which
stops its, well, pushing for emails and different things like that.
I can easily get a full day's usage out of my iPhone 8 Plus.
Now, Alex - why has it got a glass back?
Well, it's for charging the thing.
This thing now, finally, five years later, fifty thousand years later, sorry, it has
wireless charging.
And, yes, it works as advertised.
You place your phone on a Q wireless charging mat - ding, off it goes.
So, there you go, that's what's changed, or much rather hasn't changed, about the iPhone
8 from it's previous little brother, the iPhone 7.
If you own a 7, Alex, should I upgrade?
Probably not.
Just wait for the X or the iPhone 9, whatever they're going to call it.
If you don't have a...
If you don't have an iPhone and you don't feel like you want the X and you don't want
to push towards that Face ID and the full, bezel-less phone, then the 8 is a great choice.
It has a brilliant camera, brilliant battery life and it gets the job done.
It's also very, very fast.
That's my early take guys on the iPhone 8.
I hope you enjoyed the video.
But guys, my name's been Alex, this has been TechFlow, we'll see you in the next one.