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Apple announces the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus with wireless charging and glass backs

By James Lu - on 13 Sep 2017, 3:00am

Apple announces the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus with wireless charging and glass backs

Apple has officially announced the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, skipping the 'S' model update for the first time in eight years and adding a new faster processor, wireless charging, a True Tone display, and upgraded cameras.

While the model number has gone up, the iPhone 8 still shares a lot of the same design language Apple has been using since 2014 with the iPhone 6. The biggest change between the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 comes in the form of a new glass back, which we haven't seen on an iPhone since the iPhone 4s. The glass back enables one of the biggest new features on the iPhone 8: wireless charging (which wouldn't work through metal). Apple is using the widely used Qi charging standard, which is the same standard used by Samsung, LG and Google. As with most other phones with wireless charging, you simply place the phone on the charging pad to charge it up.

Apple has also improved the display on the iPhone 8 and 8Plus, adding the same True Tone technology it offers on the 10.5-inch iPad Pro to automatically adjust the screen based on the ambient light in the room to offer more accurate colors.

The processor inside has been upgraded to the new A11 Bionic, a six-core chip with two performance cores that are 25 percent faster than the A10, and four performance cores that the company says are 70 percent faster that the old model. There’s also a new Apple-designed GPU that’s 30 percent faster, with the same performance as the A10, but only consumes half the power!

The 4.7-inch iPhone 8 has a new 12-megapixel sensor with optical image stabilization in its rear camera, while the iPhone 8 Plus rear cameras have also been improved with wider f/1.8 and f/2.8 apertures. The dual cameras on the 8 Plus also have a new "Portrait Lighting” feature to adjust the lighting for portrait shots; check it out from our trial at the show floor:-

AR (augmented reality) will also be a big part of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus with its cameras calibrated for AR, along with a new gyroscope and accelerometer for better motion tracking.

Both models will be available in two storage capacities, 64GB and 256GB, and three colors (black, white, gold) for the following prices:

  • iPhone 8 (64GB) - S$1,148
  • iPhone 8 (256GB)- S$1,388
  • iPhone 8 Plus (64GB) - S$1,308
  • iPhone 8 Plus (256GB) - S$1,548 

Pre-orders start this Friday, 15th September, with the phones releasing a week later in retail on 22nd September.

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