The iPhone 8 was released late in 2017. The smartphone debuted to rave reviews, though some critics panned it for being too expensive. Fast forward to 2019 and iPhone 8 prices have fallen drastically. The phone is now one of the cheapest flagships in Apple’s premium lineup.
Despite the reduced price, is it still worth buying the iPhone 8 in 2019? We’ll help you figure it out with this in-depth review.
What’s special about the iPhone 8?
The iPhone 8 is a massive upgrade over the iPhone 7. It offers many features that remain revolutionary in 2019:
- The iPhone 8 packs the ultra-fast Apple A11 Bionic processor.
- The iPhone 8 has an outstanding 12 MP camera with OIS.
- The smartphone looks great, thanks to its aluminum frame body and sleek glass back.
- The iPhone 8 can be charged quickly and conveniently with wireless charging.
Design: Refined and Classy
The iPhone 8 is a great example of Apple’s design breakthroughs and refinements. Size-wise, the iPhone 8 is very similar to the iPhone 7. It has a tall 5.4-inch aluminum body, with a 4.7-inch screen taking up much of the space at the front. The screen is pressure-sensitive and supports 3D Touch technology. The back of the phone is covered by ion-strengthened glass, a material that is resistant to impacts. The signature Apple logo can be dead-center on the back of the phone. The camera is placed on the top-left corner.
Looks-wise, the iPhone 8 is a premium phone. It’s thin and slides easily into pockets. It’s also easy to hold and is operable with a single hand. The iPhone 8 remains one of the rare few phones on the market that include a physical home button. The Touch ID home button is extremely fast and responsive. There’s a lightning port at the bottom, which is where you plug in your earphones. On the right of the screen, you’ll find the power and the SIM tray. The volume controls are at the left.
Display: A Beautiful IPS LCD Panel
The iPhone 8 was released at a time when the “notch” was becoming commonplace for phones. With the iPhone 8, however, Apple retained the original look-and-feel of the older-generation iPhones, which is not a bad thing at all. The iPhone 8 has a crystal-clear 4.7-inch screen with a solid resolution of 1,334 x 750 pixels, with bezels at the top and the bottom. The IPS LCD screen is perhaps the best you’ll ever see on a smartphone.
The iPhone 8’s display is bright and sharp. It’s bright enough to be usable under direct sunlight. Watching videos or pictures and reading text on the iPhone 8 is a pleasure. The biggest standout feature of the display panel is the True-Tone technology. The display automatically tweaks its colors and contrast based on the surrounding lighting. That means you get the best possible viewing experience regardless of whether you’re outdoors or indoors.
Camera: Simply Outstanding
Apple has included a single primary back camera with the iPhone 8 as well as a selfie camera at the front. The primary camera is 12 MP, with an f/1.8 aperture, PDAF, and OIS. There’s a Quad-LED dual-tone flash for night time pictures. The camera supports HDR. The selfie camera is 7 MP with an f/2.2 aperture and features like face detection, HDR, and panorama.
The iPhone 8 proves that you don’t need fancy dual and triple camera setups to take good photos. The camera allows you to take amazing, detailed shots in a variety of lighting conditions. The HDR feature is on by default and works well, making photos look evenly lit. The dynamic range is solid. Color accuracy is also excellent. The selfie camera works almost as well as the primary camera and is more than good enough for video calling or the occasional selfie. The iPhone 8’s camera remains one of the best you can get even in 2019.
Performance: Blazing Fast
Even two years on, the iPhone 8 remains one of the fastest smartphones around. The A11 bionic processor Apple put into the iPhone 8 is lightning-quick. It’s a hexacore CPU, with 2x Monsoon cores and 4x Mistral cores. The GPU is a three-core Apple in-house chip. The iPhone 8 has a very impressive Geek Bench 4 multi-core score of 10152. The phone ships with 2GB of RAM and gives you a choice between 64GB and 256GB of internal storage.
To make sense of the numbers, the iPhone 8 is a very fast, powerful phone. Apps boot up extremely quickly, be they social media apps or demanding games. Browsing the internet, streaming videos, and gesture controls are all lag-free. Apple’s iPhone’s have always been extremely good for gaming and the iPhone 8 is no exception. You can play all the latest games on this phone at high-maximum settings.
Software: Slick iOS 11
Apple is the undisputed leader when it comes to software. Using the iPhone 8 is a very enjoyable experience thanks to Apple’s iOS 11 operating system (OS) software. iOS 11 is one of the most user-friendly, intuitive, and powerful OSs around. It includes many amazing apps and features. The OS is very polished, powerful, looks great, and provides you with many customization options.
Some of the standout features of iOS 11 are Augmented Reality (AR), Siri Translation, Apple Pay Person to Person, and split-screen apps. Many apps allow you to take advantage of the AR feature, for both entertainment and work purposes. You can play Pokemon GO or plan out your new home with the Magicplan app. The Siri Translation feature is revolutionary. It translates spoken sentences from various international languages into text. The Apple Pay Person to Person feature allows you to send money to your friends through messages. Finally, the split-screen feature allows you to multitask seamlessly.
Battery Life: All-Day Battery
The iPhone 8 has a solid 1,821 mAh battery. Going by tests, it can last for a single day’s moderate use. If you use a handful of social media apps, take several photos, and watch a video or two, for example, you can expect the battery to go for the entire day. Apple iOS 11 has many battery-saving measures in places, which give you the maximum bang for your buck when it comes to battery life.
If the battery drains halfway through the day because you played a demanding game or used an AR app, you can recharge it quickly with fast charging. The iPhone 8 supports fast-charge tech that allows it to go from 0 to 50 percent in just 30 minutes. Apart from fast charging, the iPhone 8 also supports wireless charging.
The Bottom Line
The iPhone 8 remains a magnificent phone in 2019 and is a worthwhile buy. The phone is fast, has a good screen, and looks premium. It’s intuitive and fun to use, thanks to the highly-polished iOS 11 OS. And since prices of the iPhone 8 have come down, it’s practically a steal in 2019.
Want the iPhone 8 even cheaper? You could rent it from RentoMojo! RentoMojo is a leading rental company that provides the latest smartphones for lease for an affordable monthly fee. You can try out the iPhone 8 without emptying your wallet. Learn more here.
4 years later it still is a good buy.