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| iPhone X, 8 Plus and 8 |
Apple has been following the tradition to unveil their most popular and the best product during the second half of any year. This time the event being special due to the 10th anniversary since the first IPhone, the hype and all the expectations following them were at the peak point and so were the leaks. Many leaks pointed out to 3 products i.e IPhone 7s, 7s Plus and the ultimate one i.e special edition. However, Apple did not resort to the 'S' series this year and took a leap to launch the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and the iPhone X (or iPhone 10 as pronounced). Lets take a closer look at Apple's offering this year and whether should you upgrade to the new iPhone or not!
The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus:
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| iPhone 8 and 8 Plus |
The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are extremely identical in design to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus with the change in the materials used. This time, Apple has decided to follow the trend of glass backs and a metallic frame. The Glass, they claim it to be the strongest (as always they claim to be the best :-P ) and the metallic frame has been made from aluminium. The main reason for Apple to choose glass back was to enable wireless charging which finally debuted this time.
Both the devices come with a touch ID enabled taptic engine i.e fingerprint scanner in their capacitive home button. The antenna lines and the placements of the lightning port, speakers, etc. remains the same with the headphone jack being a luxury of the past since the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
The iPhone 8 comes with 4.7 inch (750× 1334) retina display (IPS) and the Plus comes with 5.5 inch (1920×1080) display along with the 3D touch. The major improvement lies in the internals with Apple's own A11 Bionic SOC which comes with 6 cores and is based on 10nm process. This time Apple has made use of its own GPU which comes with 3 cores. The 8 comes with 2GB RAM and the 8 Plus comes with 3GB RAM.
The iPhone 8 comes with a 12MP f/1.8 aperture lens and the 8 Plus comes with 2 sensors where the second lens is of 12MP f/2.8 aperture and offers 2X optical zoom similar to the one on the iPhone 7 Plus. The front facing camera is of 7MP f/2.2 aperture. The 8 Plus comes with Portrait mode along with Portrait lighting which enables the user to take full advantage of the captured image of the object.
The iPhone 8 and Plus comes with iOS 11 and they will be available in 64GB and 256GB storage variants. The 64GB variant of iPhone 8 costs $699 and the Plus Variant retails at $799 and they will be available in Space Grey, Copper and white colour.
The Pre-orders have begun from Sept 15th and the devices will be available from Sept 19th.
iPhone X:
Apple along with the 8 and 8 Plus announced the "ultimate" iPhone which finally came with a radically changed design i.e the iPhone X or 10. This iPhone is the first from Apple to have minimum bezels to such an extent that they eliminated the home button and hence the Touch ID. The 3.5 mm headphone jack is still not there and it is a thing of the past.
The top of the device comes with a cutout for all the sensors consisting of the infrared sensor, floodlight sensor, proximity, the front facing camera and so on. Since it doesn't come with touch ID, the highlighting security feature is the facial recognition.
It makes use of the infrared sensor which can map your face in 3D therby preventing anyone to unlock your device with a photo which was the case with most other facial recognition system. It can also be used as a security feature for Apple Payment (Apple Pay) however the facial recognition can be bypassed with an identical twin.
Apple along with the 8 and 8 Plus announced the "ultimate" iPhone which finally came with a radically changed design i.e the iPhone X or 10. This iPhone is the first from Apple to have minimum bezels to such an extent that they eliminated the home button and hence the Touch ID. The 3.5 mm headphone jack is still not there and it is a thing of the past.
The top of the device comes with a cutout for all the sensors consisting of the infrared sensor, floodlight sensor, proximity, the front facing camera and so on. Since it doesn't come with touch ID, the highlighting security feature is the facial recognition.
It makes use of the infrared sensor which can map your face in 3D therby preventing anyone to unlock your device with a photo which was the case with most other facial recognition system. It can also be used as a security feature for Apple Payment (Apple Pay) however the facial recognition can be bypassed with an identical twin.
The device comes with 5.8 inch (1125×2436 resolution or 458ppi) Super Retina AMOLED display. It comes with HDR 10 compatibility and Dolby Vision and is powered by Apple's own A 11 Bionic SOC which comes with 6 cores with 2 high performance cores and remaining 4 efficient cores for basic tasks. Apple claims the efficient cores are 70% faster than the A10 Fusion and the high performance cores are 25% faster. The GPU used is again in-house and has 30% more better performance than the predecessor. The RAM is expected to be 3GB as Apple never claims the battery capacity and the RAM since their major focus is on quality and not quantity (Kudos to Apple for that).
The device comes with dual rear cameras which have a vertical placement. The sensors are of 12MP f/1.8 aperture lens and 12MP f/2.4 aperture lens for 2X optical zoom. They have better ISP and are capable for 4K video recording at 60FPS, 1080p at 30/60/120/240 FPS. The front facing camera is of 7MP and is capable of 1080p video recording. The iPhone 7 Plus was already well known for portraits and with the addition of Portrait lighting, taking Portrait shots will be more interesting. The iPhone X also comes with Ingress protection of IP67.
On software front, the X runs on iOS 11 and since it doesn't come with a home button, gestures are used for various actions like summoning the notification panel, control panel and so on. The switching between tasks also requires gesture from the bottom of the screen.
The iPhone X comes with both fast charging and wireless charging and can be used for charging at any wireless charging outlets.
The device will retail in 2 variants of 64GB and 256GB starting from $999. The devices will be available starting October 27th.
All the devices launched do come with Bluetooth 5.0 and support for AR and the X comes with a software related feature which makes use of AR to match the facial reaction to an emoji. The support for AR opens the door for improvement on the iOS platform to many developers therby competing with Android and Google's Tango.
Now, speaking of value for money! The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are extremely identical to the predecessors with the only addition of fast and wireless charging. The SOC is very powerful however, unlike Android, Apple's SOCs are highly capable to offer seamless performance even after 2 or 3 years. Hence, if you own an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus and plan to upgrade to 8 or 8 Plus, then it would not be a worthy upgrade. The iPhone X will be available quite late and in limited quantities. The X is a worthy upgrade although it does have flaws like large camera bump, unnecessary gesture usage, no fingerprint sensor and so on. To top it off, Apple is not even bundling a fast charger inspite of the asking price. Ultimately, personal choice matters in the end and if you plan to change from Android to iOS, do rethink!!
Image source: official Apple website
All the devices launched do come with Bluetooth 5.0 and support for AR and the X comes with a software related feature which makes use of AR to match the facial reaction to an emoji. The support for AR opens the door for improvement on the iOS platform to many developers therby competing with Android and Google's Tango.
Now, speaking of value for money! The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are extremely identical to the predecessors with the only addition of fast and wireless charging. The SOC is very powerful however, unlike Android, Apple's SOCs are highly capable to offer seamless performance even after 2 or 3 years. Hence, if you own an iPhone 7 or 7 Plus and plan to upgrade to 8 or 8 Plus, then it would not be a worthy upgrade. The iPhone X will be available quite late and in limited quantities. The X is a worthy upgrade although it does have flaws like large camera bump, unnecessary gesture usage, no fingerprint sensor and so on. To top it off, Apple is not even bundling a fast charger inspite of the asking price. Ultimately, personal choice matters in the end and if you plan to change from Android to iOS, do rethink!!
Image source: official Apple website