iPhone 8 Plus review: still massive – but not in a good way
Apple’s chunky phablet stands out like a sore thumb against its ever-more sleek rivals, and not even its decent camera and battery life can save it
Like its smaller non-Plus sibling, the design of the iphone 8 Plus has barely changed since it was introduced in 2014 with the iPhone 6 Plus, but it has aged worse. The iPhone 6 Plus was thin but relatively wide and tall for a smartphone with a 5.5in screen in 2014, with big bezels and a chunky top and bottom.
Dated design
The biggest issue is the iPhone 8 Plus is very wide and rounded for a device with what is a relatively small screen. At 78.1mm wide, it’s a whole 10mm wider than the Samsung Galaxy S8 with a 5.8in screen and it’s even 3.3mm wider than the giant Note 8.
The wider a phone, the harder it is to hold with one hand. No matter how much you might consider the 8 Plus a two-hand device, at some point you will have to use it with one hand and that’s when people tend to drop their smartphones.
The big change for the iPhone 8 Plus is that its back is made of glass, which inevitably makes it more fragile. Despite the glass being more grippy in the hand, and more slippy on the arm of a sofa, most will put it in a case – at which point it’s very difficult to tell that it’s a brand new model.
The 5.5in screen is probably the best-looking LCD I’ve seen and now has Apple’s True Tone system from the iPad that alters the colours of the display based on the ambient light.
Specifications
- Screen: 5.5in LCD 1920x1080 (401ppi)
- Processor: Apple A11 Bionic
- RAM: 3GB of RAM
- Storage: 64/256GB
- Operating system: iOS 11
- Camera: Dual 12MP rear cameras, 7MP front-facing camera
- Connectivity: LTE, Wi-Fiac, NFC, Bluetooth 5, Lightning and GPS
- Dimensions: 158.4 x 78.1 x 7.5mm
- Weight: 202g
Long lasting and wireless charging
The iPhone 8 Plus has the same six-core A11 Bionic processor as its smaller sibling, but has an extra gigabyte of memory to help with multitasking. It performed similarly to the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 7 Plus before it in day-to-day activities.Battery life is solid, lasting over 32 hours between charges on average – a increase of 5 hours on the iPhone 7 Plus – meaning that you’ll be able to make it to lunch time the next day if you forget to charge it overnight. That’s with hundreds of push notifications, 10 or so photos, a 90-minute burst of Netflix, a couple of short phone calls, a quick game and about 7 hours of listening to Spotify over Bluetooth earbuds.
With that level of stamina the iPhone 8 Plus has few rivals. Samsung’s longest-lasting smartphone in my testing has been the Galaxy Note 8, lasting just over 31 hours between charges. Under lighter use cases I suspect many will manage two days between charges, but it’s worth noting that might not be the case in two years as the battery starts to lose capacity.
The Plus variants of the iPhone have always charged faster than the smaller non-Plus versions, if connected to the right charger. Now both fast charge from USB-C Power Delivery chargers such as those that come with the Google Pixel or USB-C charged laptops and tablets. Unfortunately neither the required USB-C to Lightning cable nor a fast charger comes in the box.
The glass back enables wireless charging, which is great for charging at your desk or at night on a bedside table. Just put the phone on the right spot and it starts to charge. It’s slower than via cable, and although it will get faster with an update later this year it still won’t match a USB-C charger.
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