On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs introduced a product that was going to change the world: a revolutionary new smartphone that would be 5 years ahead of its time. There were a lot of people who were skeptic about whether or not the iPhone would be a success (including me). I mean…what does a computer company know about making a phone? Well…a lot more than people realized; the iPhone changed the smartphone game forever. Since its release, 18 different iPhone models have been produced and hundreds of millions of necks are sore from people looking down at their little screens.

The iPhone 8/8 plus went on sale this past Friday, September 22 and I’ve had a chance to play with the phone for the last 48 hours. Here are my initial impressions on some of the new features of the iPhone 8 plus:

Body Changes

The overall design of the iPhone 8 plus exterior is largely unchanged from last years model. However, the iPhone 8/8 plus have an all-glass front and back side with an aerospace-grade aluminum brand. According to Apple, the glass is the most durable ever to be used in a smartphone. This is a welcome change compared to the iPhone 7/7 plus due to the increased grip. When I first held the iPhone 7/7 plus, I knew I had to use a case to prevent the phone from slipping right out of my hand. With the iPhone 8/8 plus, the glass material feels very smooth and provides plenty of grip no matter how you hold the phone. The contrast of the glass with the aluminum band is quite beautiful.

The glass back allows for a new feature never before seen on an iPhone: Qi-based wireless inductive charging. Although this feature is not something unique to Apple, it is the first time I ever owned a device that could take advantage of it. I purchased the new Morphie wireless charging base to test out this new function. To be honest, I didn’t think too much of the wireless inductive charging feature when it was announced for this year’s iPhones; android phones have had this feature for years. However, the first time I placed the iPhone on the charging base and heard the charging chime, I thought to myself “Wow, this is amazing!” I sit at my desk a lot and often have my phone next to me unplugged. The fact that I can pick up my phone, check it, and put it back down on a charging base on my desk and have it charge inductively is so convenient. Although wired charging is still going to be faster, I wouldn’t be surprised if people primarily used inductive charging for its convenience.

True Tone Display

True tone display was first introduced in the 9.7” iPad Pro and is slowly being implemented across newer iOS devices. The idea behind true tone display is that the color and intensity of the display changes depending on the environment you are in to give you a more color accurate image on the screen. This is not the first time I have encountered a true tone display (I also own a 10.5” iPad Pro). However, this is the first time I’ve encountered it on an iPhone. When you toggle this feature on and off during the setup process, the difference is very noticeable (same as on the iPad Pro). However, when the using the phone on a day-to-day basis, I didn’t really notice anything different about the display. It wasn’t until I turned off the true tone display option that I could see what the difference was.

As an aside, I was really hoping that Apple would introduce a 120hz screen refresh rate on the new iPhones like they did on the 10.5” iPad Pro as that is something you can definitely notice on a day-to-day basis.

Rear Camera and Portrait Lighting

The iPhone 7 plus introduced “portrait mode” in the camera app that allowed users to take portrait shots with beautiful bokeh. The iPhone 8 plus introduces a new extension to this mode: portrait lighting. As MacRumors puts it, the portrait lighting feature “uses sophisticated algorithms to calculate how your facial features interact with light. That data is used to create lighting effects, such as Natural Light, Studio Light, Contour Light, and Stage Light.” (Source)

I never had a chance to play with the iPhone 7 plus’ portrait mode, so my first exposure to this was on the new iPhone 8 plus. Every year, tech blogs across the internet declare iPhone cameras the “best in class.” I normally use a Sony RX100 M3 for photography and was amazed at the portrait shots I was able to take with the iPhone 8 plus. I had a lot of fun changing between the different portrait lighting options; I especially like the fact that you can change this option on the image AFTER the picture has already been taken. Below are some shots from the iPhone 8 plus and the portrait mode:

One lighting effect I was really interested in trying was the “stage light” option. During Apple’s keynote, they had some beautiful examples of this effect. However, when I tried this over the weekend during a family party, the results were less than adequate. For example, sometimes the edges around the subjects hair would still show parts of the original background. Most of my stage light shots came out very artificial-looking and nowhere near the quality presented during the Apple keynote. I don’t think I will be using this effect often…

Performance

The new iPhone 8 plus comes with a six-core A11 bionic chip that is broken down into:

2 performance cores that are 25% faster than A10 chip on iPhone 7/7 plus

4 efficiency cores that are 70% faster than A10 chip on iPhone 7/7 plus

Tom’s Guide recently published an article calling the iPhone 8/8 plus with the A11 bionic chip the “world’s fastest phone (it’s not even close)”.

Several benchmarks have shown the A11 bionic chip to be significantly faster than the new A10X Fusion chip in the 10.5” iPad Pro and on par with the latest 13” MacBook Pros. That is a huge accomplishment.

What about in real-world scenarios? Well…I would consider myself a light to moderate smartphone user. I use the following apps multiple times a day:

Mail

Messages

Google maps

Safari

Photos

Camera

Alien Blue

Hangouts

YouTube

Earlier this year, I was using an iPhone 7. About a month before the Apple keynote and the iPhone 8,8 plus, and X announcement, I sold the iPhone 7 and switched to my backup phone, an iPhone SE. How does the iPhone 8 plus performance compare to the iPhone SE? Well, surprisingly they feel very similar during my normal usage. I was expecting the iPhone 8 plus performance to blow me away; on paper, it really should! However, after 48 hours of using it as my daily driver, it has not. I reckon this is the same phenomenon that has already started happening in the PC world: processors keep getting faster and faster every year, but a processor that may be 4-5 years old is still plenty fast enough to take care of basic PC functions. I have no doubt that the A11 bionic chip is a beast in disguise; once apps start being updated and or created to take advantage of that power, we’ll see some amazing things (*cough* AR).

Fast Charging

I haven’t had the chance to try this function yet, but the 2017 line of iPhones all support fast charging; this means that the iPhone 8 plus can be charged to 50% within 30 minutes with the right charging equipment (which are all sold separately). The iPhone 8 plus still ships with a dinky 5W power adapter (why, Apple, why?!), but it’s nice to know that I can use my 12” MacBook 29W power adapter to fast charge this new iPhone when my battery is running low.

Redesigned stereo speakers

As Nilay Patel at The Verge puts it, “the iPhone 8’s upgraded stereo speakers are impressively good. Just as on the iPhone 7, the earpiece gets really loud to act as the second speaker, but the whole system gets up to 25 percent louder now. You can hear actual stereo separation, which is wild.”

When I first heard the speakers on the iPhone 8 plus, it reminded me of the first time I heard the speakers on the 12” MacBook. It’s hard to believe that so much good sound can come out from a device that’s so small.

4K Video Recording at 60FPS and Bluetooth 5.0

According to the camera settings, a minute of video using 4K at 60 fps will be approximately 400 MB; I’m really glad they got rid of the 16 GB low end configuration (it’s about time!).

There aren’t many devices out right now that can take advantage of bluetooth 5.0, but it’s nice to see that Apple is staying ahead of the game with regards to this particular feature. It will be interesting to see how the next version of the Apple AirPods will take advantage of this.

Conclusion

Had it not been for the announcement of the iPhone X, this phone probably would have been marketed as the iPhone 7s plus (which really would have been an understatement considering the internal updates). With a starting price of $799, the 2017 iPhone 8 plus is a solid phone with plenty of changes that would be worth upgrading to from previous years. However, with the flagship iPhone X costing only $200 more with one huge advantage (an OLED screen larger than the iPhone 8 plus’ LCD screen, but in a smaller body), it may be worth it to wait a few more weeks for its release. Judging on the poor turnout during the iPhone 8/8 plus launch, it looks like many people have the same thought in mind.