iPhone 8 Review: The Best Yet, For Now

(electronic music)

Isn't this supposed to unlock with my face?

I thought this was,

oh it's not, it's not that one.

This is not the iPhone X, or iPhone ten,

the phone with the Face ID and the no bezels,

the phone you've been hearing about for weeks

that supposedly contains all secrets

to the future of the universe.

This is not that phone.

This is the iPhone 8, and this is the iPhone 8 Plus.

These are the phones that everyone

kind of figured would come out this year.

They are the same as the iPhone 7,

just better in lots of little ways.

If you're already an iPhone user,

there's nothing terribly surprising here.

Home button?

Still here.

Headphone jack?

Still gone.

So it looks familiar.

Apple's even gone back to the glass and metal design

of some of its older iPhones.

These phones are so much nicer looking

and more impressive to hold than the last ones,

and I also really dig this new gold color.

Since they are all glass on the front and back,

you'd be right to be worried

about breaking this fancy new plaything.

I haven't broken either of these new phones,

but it's only been a week,

and I do already have a couple of little scratches.

I wouldn't say you need to baby them,

but you might want a case just for your own peace of mind.

Both models have slightly upgraded screens

with wider color gamuts and that True Tone technology

that automatically adapts your phone's light balance

to whatever room you're in.

They also have better stereo speakers, upgraded Bluetooth,

and a bunch of other small changes

like the ones Apple makes every year.

All are good things for sure,

but I can't say any of them have made a difference

in how I use or feel about my iPhone.

This might sound crazy, but the most important feature

on the iPhone 8 might be a technology

that's been on other phones for a decade.

Lots of Android users know how great wireless charging is.

You can just drop your phone on a pad

and have that battery icon start filling up with green.

It works just as it should on the iPhone 8.

You might have to jostle it around a little

to get it to charge, but mostly you just set it down

and get on with your life.

Since iPhone users are new to this very old tech

of wireless charging, a couple of things you should know.

First of all, it's not fast.

The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus charge dramatically more slowly

on this mophie pad I have

than when I plug them straight into the wall.

Totally fine for charging overnight,

but I still keep a plug around

for those last-minute top offs.

Seriously though, wireless charging is awesome.

Apple's way late to the party, but I'm glad it's here.

As usual though, most of the upgrades on the iPhone 8

are internal ones.

There's the new processor, called the A11 Bionic,

which has a custom GPU

and a separate chip for neural networks

and none of them needs to mean anything to you,

but this thing runs more like a laptop than a smartphone.

It's absurdly fast, and you notice it playing games

or even just switching between apps.

There's also a new camera in both phones,

one 12 megapixel shooter in the iPhone 8,

and two in the iPhone 8 Plus.

The specs are about the same as last year,

but they have a new design and a new sensor.

This wouldn't shock you,

but the new iPhones take amazing photos and video.

Apple's even changed its approach a little,

tuning the camera software to make all the colors

a bit more bright and vivid,

so everything pops more than it used to.

Really all of the best stuff about the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus

comes from that combination of the incredibly fast processor

and the killer cameras.

Put them together and suddenly the iPhone 8

shoots this beautiful 4K video at 60 frames per second,

or slow-motion 1080p video at 240 frames per second.

On the 8 Plus, you get not just the portrait mode,

which uses both cameras to do some soft background shots,

and has gotten really good, by the way,

but also a new feature that lets you reimagine your photo

with super-dramatic stage lights

or a perfect portrait lighting.

Even beyond just taking pictures and shooting video,

the camera and processor combine

to make totally new stuff possible.

With iOS 11 and the ARKit software,

all sorts of cool augmented reality apps

are starting to hit the app store,

and all of them run really well.

I'm still not 100% sure why I would want to look at

a giant beating heart in the middle of the office,

or just sit here measuring things all freaking day,

but I can, and it works.

Normally I get about the same life from an 8

that I did from a 7,

a day from the 8, a day and a third from the 8 Plus.

You'll want to charge both every night obviously,

but as soon as you fire up the AR apps

or even just shoot lots of high-res or high frame rate video

you're gonna want that charging pad nearby.

In a lot of ways, actually in most ways,

the updates Apple made to the iPhone 8 and the 8 Plus

feel straightforward.

They're what you'd expect, especially when you compare them

to the other iPhone that Apple announced this fall.

At the same time, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus

are truly excellent phones.

If you can deal with the size, you should get the 8 Plus.

You're gonna want the extra battery

and all the power in those two cameras.

I would bet this phone is going to do more

and better AR things than any Android device,

and it's probably the best and most powerful

phone camera out there.

It's everything an iPhone should be,

even if it doesn't feel brand-new.

Oh, and good news.

It doesn't cost a thousand dollars.