What is the iPhone 8 Plus?

Editors note: We’ve not yet had our iPhone 8 Plus for enough time to fully form a complete verdict and score yet, so this is a review-in-progress. Expect to see a final verdict soon, though.  
Judging by the disappointing crowds outside Apple stores to pick up the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, there isn’t a whole lot of hype around Apple’s latest phone.
That’s not because it’s a bad phone, but because Apple superseded the iPhone 8 about 10 minutes after it was announced by showing off the OLED-toting, bezel-free iPhone X. The “future of the smartphone”, according to Apple, is coming – but that’s not the iPhone 8 Plus.
The iPhone 8 Plus is instead a steady, safe update. There are nice upgrades to the screen, camera and processor, although nothing to really make you say “wow”. It’s an iPhone 7S Plus in all but name.
iPhone 8

iPhone 8 Plus price

The iPhone 8 Plus starts at £799/$799 for 64GB and £949/$949 for 256GB. That’s cheaper than the iPhone X – which will start at £999/$999 when it ships in November – but it’s a higher starting price than the iPhone 7 Plus (£719/$749, 32GB).

iPhone 8 Plus release date

Apple’s latest Plus phablet is available now from various networks and the Apple Store. To get the best price, check out our iPhone 8 deals page.

iPhone 8 Plus – Design

The single biggest disappointment with the iPhone 8 Plus is its design. This is now the fourth time – iPhone 6, 6S, 7 and 8 – that Apple has stuck with basically the same look for its phones, and considering it was easily the least attractive iPhone three years ago, it’s certainly fallen behind the Android pack now.
To be honest, the iPhone 8 Plus is comfortably my favourite iteration of the design, but that seems like faint praise at this stage. The aluminium back has been replaced with what Apple is calling the “most durable glass ever” and it feels so much better for it. It’s heavier, grippier, and doesn’t feel likely that it’s going to fly out of my hand every time I pick it up.
Apple has always been masterful at fit and finish, and the way the glass slightly curves at the edges and blends into the familiar 7000-series aluminium rim is very impressive. It’s still IP67 rated for water-resistance too – something that’s become even more popular in the phone market recently and was also seen on the iPhone 7.
iPhone 8
Apple remains the best at colouring its phones too, especially with the new gold hue. This could be one the most controversial iPhone colours ever, but I like it a lot. It’s a blend of the lighter rose gold and the harsher gold from the iPhone 7, but the addition of the glass gives it a creamy, almost retro ’70s vibe that’s hard to really get across in pictures. The dull silver option is here too, and Space Grey, which is slightly lighter than the Jet Black from last year.
The biggest problem with the ageing design of the iPhone 8 Plus is just the sheer size of it. The 5.5-inch display used here is small compared to the 6.3-inch screen of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and the 6-incher on the LG V30, but the phone itself is far larger than both of those in every dimension. It’s cumbersome to hold, too wide and feels old-fashioned. It looks like a phone from 2014, and the huge bezel around the display doesn’t help things.
It’s clear that Apple can design a stunning phone – just look at the iPhone X – and I understand that the company will be pushing that as its future direction, but realistically the iPhone 8 Plus is still a £799 phone. That’s more expensive than the Samsung Galaxy S8, and it needs to compete.

iPhone 8 Plus – Screen

The running theme of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus is that they take the basics from the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, with all the individual components tweaked and tuned.
Take the screen, for example. The iPhone 8 Plus has the same 1080p IPS LCD as last year’s phone, capable of displaying the wide-P3 colour gamut. But it now has the same True Tone tech that Apple first debuted on the iPad Pro 9.7-inch. True Tone alters the colour temperature of the display depending on your environment, reducing the harsh blue tones typical with an LCD when you’re in a softly lit room.
This sounds like a minor tweak, but it makes such a difference that only becomes obvious when you switch back to an iPhone 7. To get a real idea of how much True Tone alters the balance of the display, toggle it on and off in Settings and shudder at just how blue the normal screen is.
iPhone 8
As good as the True Tone implementation is, I’m annoyed Apple didn’t go full OLED across the entire range. Instead, it’s just the iPhone X that gets the better saturation and near-perfect blacks that come with an OLED panel. The iPhone X also has a much better contrast ratio (1,000,000:1 vs 1300:1) and offers ‘True HDR’, whereas the iPhone 8 Plus can play back HDR (high dynamic range) movies from iTunes, but they won’t look quite so rich and colourful.

iPhone 8 Plus – Performance

Running the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus is the A11 Bionic, Apple’s fastest and wackiest-named processor yet. The A11 Bionic affects everything that happens inside this phone and it puts current Qualcomm Snapdragon chips to shame. There’s also 3GB RAM, and either 64GB or 256GB of storage available.
This is a six-core processor with two high-powered and four low-powered cores that churns through absolutely everything with ease. In benchmarks, it picked up a score of 10,262 in the multi-core Geekbench 4 test, which isn’t far off double the scores achieved by flagship Android phones.
iPhone 8
All this power, for the most part, seems almost too much. The iPhone 7 is still a fast phone, but the iPhone 8 Plus can use that power for loads of different things aside from making the interface smooth to flip through. It uses it for the Portrait Lighting effects in the camera and also for playing intensive AR games that have been developed with ARKit. Augmented reality overlays artificial elements on a view of the real world, and while it’s sort of gimmicky there’s no doubt it requires serious oomph.
Apple has updated the stereo speakers here too, making the iPhone 8 Plus one of the best-sounding phones out there. Bass is heavier, volume is louder and there’s no distortion even when you’re at full blast. This is the first iPhone I can happily listen to music on without connecting a Bluetooth speaker.

iPhone 8 Plus – Camera

I’ve only had the iPhone 8 Plus for a few days, so I’ll save my full camera impressions for the final review, but I can say that the pictures captured by it so far have been excellent.
iPhone 8
The iPhone 8 Plus has dual 12-megapixel cameras on the back. Like on the iPhone 7 Plus, one of these is an optically stabilised f/1.8 wide-angle camera and the other is an f/2.8 telephoto camera that allows a 2x zoom without sacrificing quality. Apple says it’s completely rebuilt the sensor, making it larger and faster, and there’s a new ISP (image signal processor) for better textures and colours.
What instantly struck me about pictures from the iPhone 8 Plus are just how they’re different to those from older iPhones, and much more like images taken by the Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy S8. Colours are far more vibrant and saturated, dynamic range is much better, and there’s just a pop to images that was lacking before.
iPhone 8 camera sample
iPhone 8 camera sample
It’s also much harder now to actually turn auto-HDR off, just like it is on the Google Pixel. Instead of tapping an icon in the camera app, you have to go to the Settings app, into the Camera section and manually switch it off there. Apple clearly thinks auto-HDR is the way forward, and I pretty much agree.
Portrait mode was the big addition with iPhone 7 Plus, but with the 8 Plus we now have Portrait Lighting. This mode adds an effect that’s supposed to mimic professionally staged lighting. Apple insists this isn’t simply a filter, but instead uses facial tracking to build up a picture of the face and then add the desired lighting on top. There are numerous options to pick from, including a very hit-and-miss Stage Lighting one that focuses on the face and turns everything else black.
The 8-megapixel front-facing camera hasn’t seen any updates, but the same can’t be said for video. You can capture 240fps slo-mo at 1080p, and 4K at a ridiculously smooth 60fps – this is the first phone to support the latter, although Samsung is adding it to the Note 8 later in the year. To utilise 4K 60 you’ll have to switch to Apple’s new HEVC format, but there doesn’t seem to be many compatibility issues that I’ve noticed.

iPhone 8 Plus – Software

The iPhone 8 Plus comes running iOS 11, which is one of the best versions of Apple’s operating system yet. I’ll direct you to our iOS 11 review for the full rundown on what’s new, but in short it adds a new Control Center, better Siri, AR support and loads more.
iPhone 8

iPhone 8 Plus – Battery life

Apple was very coy about battery life when it announced both the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, probably because both of these handsets actually have smaller cells inside than last year’s models. That’s worrying for the iPhone 8, but I was impressed by the stamina on the Plus model last year. What Apple did say, though, was that these should last around about the same time as the outgoing models, thanks to the more efficient A11 Bionic chip.
My biggest issue with iPhone battery life isn’t the initial stamina, but how that seems to drop off a few months down the line. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s still the case this time around.
The iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X are the first Apple phones to support wireless charging, even though it’s a feature that has been around since the Palm Pre (RIP) and has been on Samsung’s Android flagships since the Galaxy S5. But no doubt now that it’s on an iPhone people will actually care about it.
iPhone 8
Like Samsung, LG and a boat load of other Android phone makers, the iPhone uses the open Qi charging standard – none of that proprietary nonsense we’re so used to seeing from Apple. That means the 8 Plus can be juiced up on a host of pads, even Samsung’s own. Apple will be coming out with its own version, dubbed AirPower, next year, but until then it’s recommending a Belkin or Mophie pad.
I’ve been using the Belkin one and it’s fine, but it won’t really become that useful until a software update later in the year unlocks 7.5w fast wireless charging. Currently, the iPhone 8 Plus seems to gain a couple of percent every 10 minutes – which is fine when leaving it overnight, but almost pointless for a quick top-up.
Apple’s also finally added fast wired charging, but there’s a catch: you have buy two accessories to actually get it working. As the wall plug in the box is the measly 5w one that all iPhones have shipped with, you’ll need to pick up a MacBook 12-inch USB-C charger and a USB-C-to-Lightning cable to take advantage of the quicker speeds. This is utterly ridiculous, especially when £150 Android phones like the Moto G ship with fast charging straight from the box.

Early impressions

The iPhone 8 Plus is a 7S Plus in all but name. There are plenty of improvements, yes, but it feels like Apple’s real focus this year has been on the iPhone X. That just isn’t good enough when you consider that the iPhone 8 Plus is still a £799/$799 phone.
The A11 Bionic chip is so fast and the camera feels like a step in the right direction, even after only a few days with the phone, but it stuns me that we still have the same basic design all these years on. Still, if the battery lives up to expectations and the camera’s portrait modes work as well as Apple suggests, this could still be device worth your consideration.