iPhone 8 Plus

iPhone X/8 Wireless Charging Will Wear Out the Battery Faster Than Cable Charging →

March 13, 2018 · 10:42

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, on ZDNet:

The issue is that when the iPhone is being charged using a cable, the phone is being powered by the cord (there is some load on the battery, but it’s minimal), but when using wireless charging, the battery is what’s powering the iPhone, with the wireless charger only being used to top up the battery. This means that by switching from a cable to a wireless charger, my battery isn’t getting a break, and in turn, this is making me go through recharge cycles at an even faster rate.

This is an interesting fact, but I’m pretty sure the impact is minimal, especially considering that most of the new iPhone X users use their phones more often now, because of all the new stuff, which could account for the increased battery cycles. I know I use mine more often — I was so bored with the iPhone 6-7 form factor than I just reached for my iPad whenever possible.

The truth is that wireless charging is more convenient at times and I just don’t want to sacrifice that for a few more charge cycles. A replacement battery is cheap enough, that I’ll just get that when I need to.

Austin Mann Takes the iPhone 8 Plus to India →

September 23, 2017 · 07:39

Austin Mann:

I’m writing to you from a small hotel room in India having just experienced a magical adventure in western India orchestrated by friends at Ker & Downey. I’ve shot thousands of images and countless portraits with the iPhone 8 Plus and I’m excited to share what I’ve learned.

While the iPhone 8 Plus looks essentially the same as the phone we’ve had since the 6 Plus, there are some new features in the 8 Plus which really impact creative pros across the board — most notably Portrait Lighting, along with a few other hidden gems.

I know what I can achieve with my iPhone. While I’m sure the 8 and 8 Plus have great cameras, Austin is the one that can use them to create art, instead of just simple snapshots. Amazing work, as usual — make sure to go to his site to see all of his shots.

Photo credit: Austin Mann

iPhone 8 Is World’s Fastest Phone (It’s Not Even Close) →

September 22, 2017 · 20:29

Mark Spoonauer:

If you’re wondering how all this translates to real-world performance, we have more good news for iPhone 8 shoppers — and bad news for everyone else. To really put the A11 Bionic chip through its paces, we put the same 2-minute video, shot in 4K by a drone, on the iPhone 8, Galaxy Note 8 and Galaxy S8+, and then added the same transitions and effects before exporting and saving the video.

The iPhone 8 finished this strenuous task in just 42 seconds, while the Note 8 took more than 3 minutes. The Galaxy S8+ took more than 4 minutes.

While I don’t much care for synthetic benchmarks, which are being posted all over Twitter today, I do like to have performance at my disposal, when needed. The real-world test above is one of those examples, where the differences are hard to comprehend without seeing them with your own eyes. I just wish they’d added an iPhone 7 to the mix, just to see how quickly the A-series of chips is evolving.

Having said all that, I prefer to have all that power in my iPad, which I use much more often than my iPhone. And I do — the A10X Fusion is still amazing.

iPhone 8 Plus Is The Best Smartphone Camera Ever Tested By DxOMark →

September 22, 2017 · 18:27

David Cardinal, writing for DxOMark:

The Apple iPhone 8 Plus has a main camera system truly worthy of a flagship phone. Similar to the iPhone 7 Plus, it features two cameras — a wide-angle 12MP main camera, and a 12MP telephoto camera with a slower lens for zooming in on subjects and for special effects such as Portrait mode. Comparing the camera datasheets of the older iPhone 7 Plus and the new iPhone 8 Plus make the two look almost identical; however, under-the-hood upgrades have given the 8 Plus an image quality and camera performance boost in almost every one of our tested categories.

I’m still curious as to the exact physical changes in the camera system — Phil Schiller said that the sensors are now larger, but what are their sizes? While the latter certainly helps, it appears that the greatest advances in the near future will be made on the software side.