Apples making it harder and harder to review the iPhone every year. Once again, the new iPhones are iterative.

Update: You can now pre-order the iPhone X, so we've added a section comparing Apple's phablet with its new bezel-less design, if you're trying to work out which of the two you're going to buy.

The iPhone 8 Plus looks like the iPhone 7 Plus, which looks like the 6S Plus, which looks like the 6 Plus. The only thing that marks out the newer model visually is the addition of the glass back and the two-tone effect it creates if it wasnt for that, it would be impossible to tell this and the 7 Plus apart.

That said, maybe this is more of a statement about the state of the industry. Apple has never changed things for the sake of it, and with  the 8 Plus it feels like Apple saying theres nothing truly fundamental out there to move to.

Except we also have the iPhone X, which does move the dial dramatically, plug in reams of new technology and alter the way we think about the iPhone. 

• Read our iPhone 8 review

So one can only surmise that this is the default iPhone, the one that the people not willing to spend exorbitant sums of money on a handset will look to. 

Despite not being in the Xs price bracket, however, the iPhone 8 Plus is still one of the most expensive flagship phones on the market so it needs to have something a little different to command interest over the previous models.

There are some strong upgrades: the camera has been enhanced, the internal workings are now among the most powerful in the industry, and little tweaks throughout smooth off rough edges in a way that makes us feel Sir Jony Ive climbed inside his computer and lathed them off himself. 

Watch our  iPhone 8 Plus video review by clicking the play button above.

Add to that a better battery and screen, and the iPhone 8 Plus is the better iPhone compared to the smaller 8.

But todays smartphone user is getting more discerning, and holding onto their handsets for longer than ever before so the new phablet from Apple needs to deliver.

iPhone 8 Plus vs iPhone X

The first difference here is cost – although not to the same level as vs the iPhone 8.  The iPhone X starts at $999 / £999 / AU$1,579 if you want the 64GB model, where the iPhone 8 Plus begins at $799 / £799 / AU$1,229 for the same capacity. 

 So what are you getting for that (slightly) higher cost? Primarily, the screen – you've got a bezel-less 5.8-inch display with a 1,125 x 2,436 resolution, and it's OLED display technology too – that's superior to the 5.2-inch  1,080 x 1,920  screen on the iPhone 8. 

That's a larger phone with a smaller screen – that's what losing the bezel brings.

The other big difference to consider is how you unlock this phone – with the iPhone 8 Plus, it's Touch ID fingerprint scanning, as it has been for years. With the iPhone X, you're unlocking with your face, using the nattily-named Face ID. 

We are worried about whether Face ID will be swift and recognise faces fast enough – this will be one of the key things we look at in our review of the iPhone X when it lands.

The notch at the top of the iPhone X contains a camera that allows for Animoji, where emoji can be animated by mapping your face – this feature is locked to the iPhone X, and isn't a feature that appears on the iPhone 8 Plus or iPhone 8.

Both the iPhone X and iPhone 8 Plus have dual cameras , which allows for background de-focus and a more comprehensive photographic experience – however, due to the way the phones are packaged (to accommodate for the iPhone X notch) the camera array is horizontal on the X, but vertical on the 8 Plus.

Basically, the iPhone 8 Plus is the larger-screened version of the 8, with better battery and more heft.

The iPhone X is the next generation of Apple's phone. It's chock-full of new technology, it's exciting for Apple fans, but it's untested and expensive. Our full iPhone X review is incoming… so if you wanted to really find out which is best, we'd recommend waiting a few days.

iPhone 8 Plus price and release date

• Launch price (64GB): $799 / £799 / AU$1,229
• Launch price (256GB): $949 / £949 / AU$1,479
• Launched September 22, 2017

Its probably no surprise to you, but the iPhone 8 Plus price is high if youre going for the 64GB model its $799 / £799 / AU$1,229, while the 256GB option comes in at $949 / £949 / AU$1,479. 

There really needs to be a middle ground option for those who want to stick a few high-power apps on there, record a fair amount of video and download reams of music thats where a 128GB model would have fitted in nicely.

The average user might struggle to fill the 64GB variant with photos, apps and music, and its good to see that Apple is starting to get back ahead of how much storage most people need. 

However, given that the iPhone 8 Plus can record in 4K at 60fps, and three minutes of that comes in at  2.16GB, if youre going to do much filming at that quality youll fill the 64GB variant fairly easily.

The iPhone 8 Plus release date was September 22 so if youre looking to get your hands on one, you can do so now.

Glistening gold back offers new powers

• Glass back allows for wireless charging
• Looks luxurious in gold

The main thing youll notice about the iPhone 8 Plus from an aesthetic point of view is the outer coloring. The new gold version is the main event, with a gold aluminum rim and a gold/white glass back mixing together.

Its a striking combination, and compared to the 7 Plus is really rather visually different, creating a more luxurious effect. The silver and space gray colors dont quite have the same visual punch, but in the hand those phones still feel different with the glass back.

• iPhone 8 colors: what shades does it come in?

The reason for the glass back isnt primarily aesthetic, though. Apple has finally jumped on the wireless charging bandwagon, just when it looked like it might be losing steam. Samsung has been the main promoter of the technology for the last couple of years, and now that Apples on board wireless charging is very likely to become mainstream.

Theres no denying its convenient, as popping your iPhone down on a charging pad is so much simpler than connecting and disconnecting a cable. But its hardly revolutionary the tech has been baked into phones for years.

It would, perhaps, be more impactful here if there was a wireless charging pad in the box, but youll need to spend $59.95 / £54.95 / AU$99.95 to buy one from Mophie or Belkin right now, with Apples own AirPower pad coming later this year.

The speed of charging is impressive though, as its not too far off that of a wired connection. We can still remember the trickle charge you used to get with wireless, so you can see why Apple waited until the experience was good enough to put it in its handsets.

New Portrait Lighting mode

• Portrait mode is faster and better than before
• Portrait Lighting is a small but impressive new feature

The headline feature of the 12MP dual sensor on the rear camera is the enhanced bokeh mode dubbed Portrait Lighting.

The abilities here are pretty astounding, and show how powerful the new A11 Bionic is inside being able to algorithmically work out the contours of the face and change the lighting dynamically is impressive.

This can be done either while the picture is being taken or after, via the gallery although while its a powerful tool, its not one that really impressed anyone we showed it to.

And thats kind of indicative of the iPhone 8 Plus as a whole while the overall experience is smoothed and enhanced, the headline features arent really there. Portrait Lighting is, well, fine and we almost feel guilty for not evangelizing about it more, given how much intelligence has gone into creating it.

But taking a Portrait mode picture takes some setting up as it is so achieving the level of quality where Portrait Lighting makes a big difference to the outcome is rare.

However, the new Portrait mode is one of the places where the iPhone 8 Plus is a significant upgrade over its predecessor its brighter, faster to recognize the object youre trying to snap, and its also got that Portrait Lighting feature, which isnt coming to the older model.

The Portrait Lighting modes change things slightly, but nothing mega and the Studio and Studio Mono modes look a little too cut-out, despite the edge detection being really accurate.

If you spend some time setting up a subject to take the perfect photo, you can get some decent results but modern smartphone cameras need to take a brilliant quick snap, and we can see this feature being shunted off to the rarely used section of your phone.

A11 Bionic engine

• Brilliant benchmark results
• Doesn't seem speedier in practice than 7 Plus or Note 8

Its hard not to like the names Apple is appending to its chips these days. Following A10 Fusion, A11 Bionic doesnt really make a lot of sense in terms of what it actually does, but its evocative.

Anyway thats that dealt with. The new chipset inside has six cores, with four efficient ones doing the basic stuff and the other two doing the heavy lifting, whether thats photo-editing, intensive multi-tasking or providing real-time camera effects.

Those previously mentioned Portrait Lighting effects need some real power, and thats where the A11 chip comes in. Any app that uses high levels of photo manipulation worked pretty flawlessly in our tests, with no lag when working with multiple image layers.

Its hard to convey the usefulness of all this power for the average user, one who might not use such features regularly but itll keep your iPhone singing more sweetly for the next two or three years compared to the previous generations.

Everything feels fast under the finger although that seems like a redundant thing to say given that most iPhones feel that way when taken out of the box. The real test comes when you start loading it up with apps and content.

Generally, even when loaded up the iPhone was zippy as anything, with nothing flickering under the finger. However, we had a few moments where the interface juddered and bounced a bit it still moved swiftly, but the frame rate slowed so it looked jagged.

It righted itself quickly, but it was surprising to note for an iPhone its not something were used to.

Whats more surprising is that the iPhone 8 Plus didnt perform any better in testing than the iPhone 7 Plus we opened and closed apps on the two phones simultaneously, and the response times were identical – and was similar in performance to the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

In fact, when saving a large video to Files, the iPhone 7 Plus was actually faster at completing the task, despite being older and having more storage taken up. The A11 Bionic chip is certainly powerful, but weve not seen anything that shows off the raw power in terms of regular interaction its only evident in extra features like the Portrait Lighting.

In terms of out-and-out power though, this is the most powerful phone weve ever benchmarked. The Geekbench results are off the chart, powering past 10,000 for the multi-core score and easily beating anything from the Android world.

Will you notice the power of the iPhone in day-to-day use? Nope. iPhones have been rapid enough for years but people are starting to expect even more and more from their device, whether thats adding filters to photos, exporting content to friends, or playing the most powerful games around, and youll be glad of the bionic chip in a years time.

Apple doesnt make a song and dance about the raw power in its devices, but it does build its reputation on phones just working as they should, and the iPhone 8 Plus will carry on working as it should longer than any phone Apples selling right now.

True Tone screen and better speakers

• Improved color reproduction and temperature
• Speakers are noticeable louder

It would be wrong to look at the iPhone 8 Plus screen, see a 5.5-inch Full HD display, and assume nothing has changed.

In terms of size and resolution, thats true, but its missing a big point: the upgrades to the color reproduction and temperature.

These are things you wont really notice day to day, but move to another model of phone and youll probably lament their loss. 

While its not the sharpest screen on the market, the fact that the display feels so close to the glass really gives it some pop, and the colors are strong and vivid without being overpowering.

True Tone, technology taken from the iPad Pro, is definitely understated you wont notice it much, but itll change the color temperature of the screen to match the ambient lighting better.

Its a symbol of the luxury youre getting when buying an iPhone; yes, it changes the color and a warmer iPhone screen in lamplight is nice, but its not a reason to buy its just an enhancement to the whole experience.

Its a shame that the iPhone X exists, as thats got a more impressive screen than that on the iPhone 8 Plus, with more vivid colors and a deeper contrast ratio but the way the iPhone 8 Plus offers more natural color reproduction is going to appeal to many.

Only the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus or Note 8 could rival it for sheer technical ability and performance, but for day to day use its brilliantly clear, bright and fun to look at.

In direct sunlight its clear, watching videos is possible in nearly every situation, and the size is just about right the large bezels around the display are the only downside compared to the bezel-less phones of the Galaxy S8 pair, the Essential Phone… and the iPhone X.

Mobile HDR is also supported on the iPhone 8 Plus, where its not on the iPhone 7 Plus the reason for the italics there is that its not a Mobile HDR screen, but it can play back HDR content.

Its a shame, because Mobile HDR really does make a massive difference to shows, especially in the darker scenes. Its going to be available on the iPhone X, and thats going to be another possible reason to pay for the upgrade.

The dual speakers on the iPhone 8 Plus are also upgraded over the previous model weve tested them on a decibel meter, and they are indeed louder.

Apple is claiming the new phone is 25% louder, and in our blind testing alongside the iPhone 7 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Note 8 the new version was clearly the loudest phone.

While the upgrade year on year isnt hugely marked the quality of the speaker output is rich enough though, and the sound fills a wider space than the mono sound on the bottom of the Galaxy Note 8 its another refinement on the new iPhone.

New AR effects

• AR implementation is cool but flawed
• AR works just as well on the iPhone 7 Plus

Augmented reality (AR) is a curious thing for Apple theres a big move towards the tech, but its hard to see why at this point, if you look at the apps and games available.

For instance, we played The Machines, a tower defense-style game where you have to strategically deploy forces to win battles, and in AR youll need to move around the playing surface to play the game.

Its fine. It reminds us a lot of when the first gyroscope games on the iPhone 4 appeared. It was cool that you could move the phone around and play first-person-shooter games, but it wasnt easier or more immersive than what was out there already.

The same with AR its cool to be able to move around the playing space, but its quickly tiring. We can imagine playing in multiplayer it would be cool, with a large table playing space and someone else with a similar iPhone doing the same, but by yourself, it would just be easier to use the screen.

Also, the experience was the same on the iPhone 7 Plus as it was on the iPhone 8 Plus, so clearly the more powerful innards arent that necessary to enable this capability.

For Apple AR is clearly in its infancy. You wouldnt buy an iPhone at the moment for its capabilities in this area, but it is something Apple wants to push to get developers thinking about what can be done.

Because imagine the same game of The Machines played with a pair of glasses instead, you and a chum moving around the table and playing the game in real time thats the future Apple is reportedly envisioning.

If thats the case, AR now makes perfect sense and you can expect more titles to appear this year that show off the technologys capabilities in niche ways.

Click the video above to hear more about dual-cameras and what they are. 

• Improved texture reproduction and sharpness
• Useful Live Photo options and powerful editing effects
• Mixed low light performance

If you want to know all about the iPhone 8 Plus' camera, we've explained it for you in the video above.

The iPhone 8 Plus camera is an evolution rather than a revolution, but Apple didnt need to reinvent anything here, as it was already one of the best phone cameras on the market. Its incredibly capable on the new iPhone.

The thing that defines Apples cameras is how easy they are to use with every release of a new iOS they gain new, if not necessarily spectacular, features to improve the power of the camera, and the sensor gets imbued with some new capabilities.

In this case, its not the two 12MP cameras that have made the biggest step up, but the processor inside Apples rammed its own image signal processor (ISP) into the A11 Bionic chipset, and that leads to greater texture reproduction as more detail is captured.

The results are certainly evident take a picture of clothing or a rough, stony floor and youll retain so much more of the depth in those textures. Most snaps look a touch sharper, and theres definitely more background defocusing going on, even when you're not using the aforementioned Portrait mode.

Its actually quite hard to activate Portrait mode intuitively you have to swipe to the mode in the camera interface, and then wait for the camera to pick up the subject which sometimes requires you to move the phone around.

The results can be awesome, but sometimes they can look a little average. However, theres no doubting that the camera tech is excellent at working out the subject, and more often than not we had snaps we wanted to share.

The overall performance of the camera is a cut above previous iPhone snappers, with the sharpness in mixed conditions impressive you can make out plenty of detail in both the brighter and darker sections of the photo.

But whats most impressive with the new iPhone 8 Plus combined with the new iOS 11 software are the editing capabilities, and what you can do with your photos post-capture.

The first is the new Loop, Bounce and Long Exposure options that come with iOS 11 and make real use of Live Photos. Its fun to play with the effects, and the phone will analyze an image and suggest which option you should use to get the best effect.

Long Exposure doesnt really add a huge amount to most Live Photos, but static images with a very singular, bright piece of motion would work well. Bounce and Loop work nicely, and you can even set the resulting image as a Watch face with a single tap.

The editing effects are powerful too yes, theyre mostly filters, but Apple has popped some excellent choices in there, and the color/brightness tweaks you can make are the perfect mix of simple and effective the balance Apple strives to seek.

One of the things we didnt quite understand is the Slow Sync feature, which captures pictures of objects in low light with high brightness. The flash doesnt seem to react any differently than normal in these moments, and the difference wasnt particularly clear.

Low light performance in general is mixed, as the HDR capabilities arent as evident here. Perhaps were expecting too much from the iPhone, but when taking pictures of a candle in the darkness we had to work hard to get the flame clear by manually adjusting the exposure.

Overall, we noticed that the iPhone 8 Plus tends to overexpose every photo a little, with the picture captured looking brighter than the subject or scene in real life. Theres very little processing going on, so the detail is reproduced incredibly faithfully at times.

The autofocus, in particular, is very strong. Almost too much so  we wanted to take a snap of a fast-moving car in front of a static fence, but the iPhone 8 Plus was too rapid because the AF kicked in so quickly – and with no capability to decrease the shutter speed in the main camera app, the choices were limited. 

Its no bad thing though, and in general having this level of sharpness is excellent.

The new video modes are another example of Apple just bringing effects that actually make a difference to the camera phone party. The 4K 60 frames per second (fps) filming is really smooth and clear, and a nice way to future-proof your videos.

However, it munches up storage, as mentioned above, so youll need to constantly sluice the files off if you want to leave space on your phjone. The Full HD slow motion capabilities are also great that means super-clear footage of the things you want to capture in exquisite detail.

Its not quite at the Super Slo-Mo level of the Sony Xperia XZ Premium, but then again the iPhone 8 Plus' camera performs much better in low light and in rendering detail plus you can fully choose where the slow mo works.

To summarise: youll get some amazing photos with the iPhone 8 Plus. Maybe not every single time we did get some poorer efforts on occasion but on the whole youll look at the results and be wowed by the performance.

Camera samples

• Middling battery life
• No fast charger in the box

The battery life on the iPhone 8 Plus has been pleasing the day-to-day tasks, those that dont require intense effort on the part of the phone dont eat away the battery anywhere near as much.

If we were just playing graphically easy games, using WhatsApp or browsing social networks we were easily able to make it to the end to the day without a problem.

A day of taking photos, moving around a lot (which triggers the motion sensor) and playing (non-intensive) games saw us with over 20% of battery life still left at 8pm. Add in a wireless charging pad for regular top-ups and youll rarely have a battery emergency.

That said, between 8pm and midnight the battery level slipped rather rapidly youll want to switch to Low Power Mode at this point, and its still irritating that you cant set this as the default.

Its also frustrating that while the iPhone 8 Plus supports fast charging 50% in half an hour from dead youll need to buy a dedicated cable and charger in order to take advantage of it, which sucks. 

Most rivals offer fast charging right out of the box, and its a shame that Apple hasnt joined the revolution.

The speed of wireless charging is impressive though. Its not linear, in that your phone will start charging rapidly but can then slow a little, but the general speed isnt too far off that of a wired connection, which is what youd hope for if youre going to be picking up and putting down your phone regularly.

In our standard battery run-down test, where we loop a Full HD video for 90 minutes at full brightness, the performance was about average. We expected the iPhone 8 Plus to perform better to be honest it dropped 23%, which is  similar to many other flagship phones.

Its hard to see why it didnt do better – with a more efficient processor, its actually a slightly worse score than on the iPhone 6S Plus. It just shows that Apple hasnt really improved the battery performance much – although, given it's got a lot smaller battery than in previous Plus models (for some reason) that's actually an impressive feat of engineering.

Apple has gone from a large 2900mAh battery to the smallest its ever shoved into its phablet, presumably to facilitate the wireless charging. It's still a shame that's the case though, as we always want more battery life in the handset.

If youre a regular user of an iPhone, especially one who's not used a Plus model before, youll be happy with the amount of battery on offer, and the ability of the iPhone 8 Plus to hold onto power when its not doing much.

However, its battery life is a long way from being the best on the market, with many Android handsets able to last much longer.

• iOS 11 improves the usability of the phone
• 3D Touch and Control Center are both improved
• Some bugs are present in third-party apps

Most iPhone users youll speak to will agree that iOS 11 is a welcome and well thought-out upgrade. The visual changes are relatively minor, but they all really enhance the usability of the phone.

As shown by our earlier tests, you'll want one of the new iPhones for optimal performance when using the iOS 11 interface unsurprisingly but whichever handset you're using, the little tweaks are the most useful.

3D Touch is the biggest winner with the new changes, thanks to there being, well, just more that you can do with it.

Many more third-party apps have begun to offer extensions, with options activated by pressing harder either on the app icon itself or within the app. Its not an intuitive motion to push in harder initially, so if you want to get the the real benefits you have to constantly remind yourself of this feature's existence. 

But in the all-new Control Center the pane you drag up from the bottom of the screen a longer press on any of the widgets offers genuinely useful extras, from the torch having more levels of brightness to the music app becoming fully functional.

There are bugs in the system though, and these hang around clearly unoptimized third-party apps. We experienced a number of unresponsive titles, or found keyboards being either too low, or covering the text box youre trying to type into.

This isnt alien for a new release of iOS often when a new version of Apples mobile software is released well see issues appearing with some apps but with iOS 11 having spent so long in beta made this was a little unexpected.

The addition of Files adds something that iPhones have been lacking for years: a peek behind the curtain to access the files hidden inside apps.

Except it really isnt that. You cant open the app and see your photos and videos you have to save them to the Files app before you can view information on them or copy them to the cloud.