The New Apple iPhone – Better (and Pricier) than Ever

It’s that time of the year again where Apple releases its latest phone.

Apple has introduced the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, the spiritual successors of the iPhone 7S and 7s Plus, but with a glass back design, which is also featured on its showstopper, the new iPhone X. The tenth-anniversary phone not only features its most premium tech, it also has the notoriety of being the most expensive smartphone in their lineup by a fair margin too.

iPhone 8/8 Plus

The new iPhone 8 now features the True Tone display with wide colour capabilities (P3) similar to the ones on the MacBook Pro and iPad Pro. The tech makes the display more vibrant and tonally accurate and will be of interest to those – especially photographers – who prefer their screens to reproduce natural colours. The display also supports Dolby Vision and HDR10 content.

The new A11 Bionic chip with a neural engine is of particular interest as it offers significant performance gains over its predecessor (25% faster in performance mode, 70% faster in efficiency mode, 30% faster graphics). As an indicator of how powerful it is, the chip enables the iPhone 8 to record 4K video at 60 fps, which is something no other mobile or many dedicated cameras can easily do at the moment. The fact that Apple is often conservative in their spec declarations makes it all the more intriguing, especially with the inevitable wave of augmented reality apps that are incoming.

The dual cameras on the rear are now improved and both sport optical image stabilisation to reduce the effects of blurriness especially in poor lighting. As mentioned earlier, you can now record 4K resolution video at a high frame rate of 60fps. Slow motion videos are better as well, as you can now record in 1080p Full-HD and as slow as 240fps. Videos and images are now stored with HEVC and HEIF compression standards, which save you more storage space.

The Plus version of the previous iPhone featured a killer portrait mode, and this time around the buzzword is Portrait Lighting, which replicates dramatic lighting effects that you’d normally get only in a photography studio.

Both the iPhone 8 and X are rated IP67 for water and dust resistance. While the battery life of the iPhone 8 is touted to be similar to the iPhone 7, it does now support wireless charging (Qi standard) as well as fast charging (up to 50% in 30 minutes).

iPhone X

On top of what the iPhone 8 has, the iPhone X (10) features a larger 5.8-inch screen even though it’s smaller than the iPhone 8 Plus. The display fills the entire face of its front save for a small bar holding an array of cameras and sensors. It features an OLED display that meets Apple’s True Tone and P3 standards, at a high resolution of 2436 x 1125 (458ppi) and 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

There is no fingerprint sensor. Such is the confidence that Apple has in its TrueDepth Camera, which enables its Face ID facial recognition feature. It is used as the primary security feature and is designed to work in the dark as well. At the moment there aren’t many examples of how else this tech can be used outside of security, Apple demonstrated its potential in the form of ‘animojis’, which is included in the iPhone X. In this case, Face ID senses 30,000 points on your face and applies the characteristics to emojis. Perhaps not the most awe-inspiring use of technology, but the point has been made.

Watch Series 3

The new Watch has a GPS and Altimeter built-in and has an eSIM option for a truly independent watch. You can now swim with it, sync your music and even make calls with it – the latter is probably more of a bullet point than a practical feature, as the battery can only last an hour in this case. Apple has also updated its Watch to support wireless charging, and in future, you can easily charge all your devices via a convenient ‘mat’ like AirPower or third party alternative.

Availability

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