- About a week and a half ago Apple released it's new
iPhone 8 smartphone and a lot of people
didn't give it the attention that I think it deserves.
Of course all the attention is going over to the iPhone X,
the top-of-the-line flagship which is about to drop
in a few weeks, but in this video,
I wanted to jump in and dive deep
on a few of the features of the iPhone 8
that I think you need to know about.
What's going on Tech Squad?
Andru Edwards here, Editor-In-Chief at gearlive.com.
If this is your first time here,
this channel is all about tech, gadgets and gaming.
So if you haven't done so already,
be sure to hit the subscribe down below
along with the bell Notification icon
so you don't miss any future videos.
I wanted to give you a rundown of about seven features
that I think are worth knowing about
when considering your next purchase,
especially if you're thinking about purchasing an iPhone.
Now, let's kick it off right off the bat
and start with something that impressed me
almost immediately and that is the
internal A11 Bionic processor.
Now you may think focusing on a processor
is a little odd and I do agree with you
but it's what the A11 Bionic allows the phone to do
and the main thing that it did was
maintain that battery life.
The iPhone 8 Plus in particular has the most
ridiculous battery life I've ever had
on an iPhone device.
Same form factor as the 6 Plus, 6s Plus and 7 Plus
and in fact, the 8 Plus has a smaller battery
than the 7 Plus yet the battery life
outlasts it by hours.
I was out doing some camera with the 8 Plus,
shooting video at 4K, 60 frames per second,
taking a bunch of photos, using the phone
pretty much all day and I was on LTE,
I wasn't on wifi because I was out of town
and at the end of the day, after taking it
off of the charger at about 7:30 in the morning
and then putting it back on the charger
at about 11:00pm, I had about 23% battery life left
which is ridiculous.
If that was the iPhone 7, even on day one,
I definitely would have run out of power
somewhere in the middle of the day
and would have needed to charge back up.
So, big shout out to Apple for what they've done
with those efficiency cores here in the
A11 Bionic processor.
Speaking of the processor, when comparing it to
last year's A10 Fusion, you get four efficiency cores here,
up from two, and each core is 70% faster
than the efficiency cores in last years A10 Fusion.
There's also improvements to the performance cores,
those are now 25% faster than last year.
A second generation performance controller
provides more power when you need it
while delivering the same great battery life.
And this year, the CPU is even able to
harness the power of all six cores all at the same time.
Alright, up next, let's talk about the
other thing that impressed me the most
about the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus and that is that camera.
Especially here on the 8 Plus, that duel camera system
really shines this year.
At first glance, you make think it's the exact same camera,
especially just visually looking at it
but you actually have a more advanced
12-megapixel sensor here.
It's a larger and faster sensor and has a new
color filter as well as deeper pixels.
And on the 8 and 8 Plus you still get that
optical image stabilization for photos and videos
as least as it pertains to the wide angled lens
when you're talking about the 8 Plus.
Speaking of the 8 Plus, Portrait mode gets even better.
You now have sharper foregrounds
and more naturally blurred backgrounds.
Last year when Portrait mode launched in beta
it was a little hit or miss.
Half the time you'd get great looking photos
and the other half the time they would look ridiculous.
This year portrait mode is out of beta
and looking a lot better.
But Apple is pushing their boundaries even further
with a new portrait lighting mode.
This launches as part of iOS 11
with the duel cameras and new facial landmarking
allowing you to create dynamic and dramatic
studio lighting effects when you're in portrait mode.
This is also currently a beta feature,
but you'll find you can get some great shots
and, again, some that look not so great.
But the cool thing about portrait lighting mode
is you can actually change the effect on the fly.
There's about five different portrait lighting effects
that you can use and even after you take the photo
you can switch between them or turn it off completely
if it doesn't look good.
But all in all, whether you're taking photos or videos,
the iPhone 8 camera is pretty fantastic
and this is the first camera on a smartphone
that can shoot 4K at 60 frames per second
and 1080p at 240 frames per second
for nice high-definition slow motion.
Next up on the list is the new glass design.
I keep showing you the back of the phone
because that is where the visual changes come in.
If I show you the front of the phone,
it looks pretty much the same as the 6, 6s and 7.
But on back you get this new glass design,
it's all glass front and back with an
aluminum bezzle around the sides.
Apple says this is the most durable glass
ever in a smartphone, front and back.
It comes in new Space Gray, Silver and Gold finishes.
The front and back feature custom glass
with a 50% deeper strengthening layer
and a new steel substructure with stronger
aerospace-grade 7000 series aluminum
providing additional reinforcement.
That said, drop tests do confirm
that the screen does still crack and the back cracks as well
so if you're clumsy or you just wanna
protect you're investment, you're probably gonna wanna
invest in a case and that leads me to the
sponsor of this video, Tech21.
Tech21 sent over a few of their cases
for both the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, which you can see here.
If you're unaware, Tech21 protects your phone
drop after drop.
They do it by using scientifically proven
impact materials, innovative design
and a rigorous testing methodology
developed in partnership with the
National Physical Laboratory.
Tech21 cases are drop tested 20 times
to ensure durability and long lasting protection
able to withstand the multiple drops that occur
in the everyday use of a smartphone.
The case allows you access to your function buttons,
to your camera, to your charging port
and fit the iPhone 8 perfectly.
Big shout out to Tech21 for sponsoring this video.
Next up, we're talking about the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus,
is charging and the new types of charging
that Apple has built into the phone.
First is wireless charging.
Wireless charging has been around for awhile,
many years for some of the Android devices out there.
This is the first year though that it's available
on the iPhone.
You'll find here on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus
as well as on the iPhone X.
Apple's been moving to a more wireless device,
getting you free from charging cables
and headphone cords, with the glass back
and embedded wireless charging system,
the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are designed for that
wireless future that I think we're gonna see
sometime in the next four or five years
where there'll be no ports on the device at all,
everything will be wireless.
But there's also another type of charging
that's new to the iPhone this year
and that is fast charging.
Now, a fast charger is not included in the box
and I think that's a shame.
Apple actually still includes the 5 watt charger
in the box which is pitiful because phones as far back as
the iPhone 6, maybe even the 5s, could charge faster
than what that 5 watt charger could output.
But now this year fast charging is a thing for the iPhone.
If you already have a Macbook charger that's USB-C,
you can plug in a USB-C to Lightning cable
and charge your phone that way.
It goes from about 0% to 50% in roughly 30 minutes.
But if you don't have a Macbook charger
or don't wanna buy an extra one,
you can actually go the third-party route
and I'll leave some links down in the description below.
Some great third party fast chargers
that won't break the bank.
Next up, new on the iPhone 8 when compared to the 7
is the speaker system.
Apple's saying that the speakers are 25% louder.
I don't know if I can here that big of a difference
where it's 25% louder.
The speakers definitely are louder, though,
when I have music or podcasts
playing right from the speakers.
Again, I don't know that it's 25% louder,
but it's definitely is an improvement
over the speakers on the iPhone 7.
Alright, the next feature that Apple
made a big deal about is AR, augmented reality,
and the fact that the A11 Bionic chip
can chew through augmented reality apps.
If you're unaware, augmented reality
uses the camera on your smartphone
in conjunction with an app in order to
overlay things into the real world.
So some examples that we've seen from Apple
are you going to a park and placing a
dinosaur in the middle of the park.
You can walk around, look through your camera,
walk around it and see the dinosaur, all sides of it.
You can point your camera at the night sky
and have constellations show up right on the screen,
covering up the stars in the sky
so you can where the different constellations are
and I saw one cool one today that's less of a toy
and something very helpful.
It's one where you can do a two-way conversation
through an AR app and one person can look
and the other person can draw.
So, an example of where that would be helpful is
let's say you just bought a new coffee maker
and have no idea how to set it up
but you have a friend who does.
You can contact them through the app,
point your phone at your coffee maker,
and your friend, as you're looking at the coffee maker,
can draw on it, telling you,
"Here's what to press, here's what to do."
And you can go and look at the coffee maker
and see exactly what it is you need to do.
So AR is gonna be a big deal.
We're still in it's infancy right now.
Over the next few years, though,
expect it ramp up significantly.
And with the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X,
Apple is jumping in with both feet.
And last on my list, it's last but certainly not least.
It's actually one of my favorite of the iPhone 8
and that is the True Tone display.
True Tone launched on the 9.7-inch 2016 version
of the iPad Pro and since that launched
I was hoping we'd see it incorporated
on the iPhone 7 but Apple left it off.
Here on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus though,
it finally comes to the iPhone.
True Tone technology uses an advanced
four-channel ambient light sensor to subtly adjust
the white balance on screen to match the
color temperature of the light around you.
So, images on a display look as natural
as on a printed page, reducing eye strain.
So as I've said in previous videos,
what it's supposed to do, basically,
is mimic a piece of paper, it's paper white, if you will.
If you have a white piece of paper
and you walk into a room where the light is very yellow,
that paper is gonna take on a yellowish hue.
If you then take that paper into a more cooler light,
like a blue light, that paper's gonna then
change from, it's not gonna be yellow anymore,
it'll then reflect back that blue light.
That's what our eyes and brains expect
from the color white and that's what Apple does
with automatic white balancing on the iPhone
with the True Tone display.
If you haven't used it before,
once you start using it, it's hard to use a display
that's not True Tone anymore.
So there you have it guys, that was my review,
or mini review of really more of a
here's some stuff you need to know about the
iPhone 8 if you wanna make an informed purchasing decision.
But let me know what you think.
Did you pick up an iPhone 8, are you on the fence,
or do you definitely know that you're
going with an iPhone X?
Of course if you're buying Android devices,
you're response is none of the above.
But I wanna here from those iOS buyers out there.
Who picked up an iPhone 8 or 8 Plus
and who's planning on picking up a X?
Comment down below, I'll meet you down there
for further discussion.
Please do drop a like on this video if you enjoyed it.
And if you haven't done it yet,
you can click or tap on my face
when it appears to you at the bottom of the screen
in order to subscribe for free to the channel
so you don't miss any future videos.
Thanks so much for watching as always, guys.
I appreciate your support.
I'm Andru Edwards and I'll catch you in the next video.