Using the iPhone 8 Plus in 2021 – 4 years after

I recently made a video on the iPhone 11 Pro Max, and in that video, I mentioned why it is the best price to performance, iPhone to get right now. But I did notice that the started price of GHc 3,500 ($ 580) is a little bit too much for most people, including myself. So, if you’re like me and you’re looking for a good enough iPhone to purchase and don’t worry so much about not having an ultrawide camera, then this video is for you. Here’s a look at the iPhone 8 Plus, a few years after launch.

The one I have here is the Product red version, which I love a lot. Red and black are my favorites colours after all. It is still glossy and fingerprint on the back especially, so you might want to get a case for it. The rear houses led flash with the apple logo and both cameras, which we’ll talk about later in this video. The right side is for the sim tray and power button, whiles the left side shows the volume rockers and silent slider. The buttons are very tactile and comfortable for press on. Although I don’t have huge hands, these buttons are placed high enough that I could reach them, one-handed, with no issues. At the front of the device is the front facing camera, the massive screen and the iconic Apple home button. Then finally, the lighting port for charging, the microphone and speaker grill.

The screen is a 5.5 inches IPS LCD with 625 nits of brightness. It’s not the brightest screen on the market but, it gets decently bright outdoors on a sunny day. In this part of the video, I had to increase my exposure just to compensate for the not-so-bright screen. It’s also 16:9 aspect ratio with a 1080 resolution.
With a 10mn A11 Bionic chip with 3 core graphics, it performs quite well. If you’re using it for daily tasks like checking emails, browsing the web, being on social media and watching my YouTube videos, then you should be just fine. Straight out of the box, it was running iOS 11, but with the iOS 15 dropping to older devices like the iPhone 6, having it on the 8 plus makes most things, if not everything run smoothly. Unlike the latest iPhones. And by latest, I mean, the iPhone X and upwards, this still has the home button. And apart from it having an embedded fingerprint scanner for security, it is used for most of the navigation gestures we are used to, now. I found myself occasionally swiping from the left and bottom to go back and get to the home, totally forgetting that I had to use the Home Button.


It comes with an IP67 dust and water resistance rating, which makes this phone survive in a meter deep water up to 30 mins. All powering this device, is a 2691 mAh battery with 15W fast charging, which may not sound like much, but we all know how Apple is able to optimize apps and battery life to get the most out of it. Even with a 3GB RAM across board. With a based storage of 64GB and no expandable storage option, it may worry some number of people. I personally haven’t been too worried about storage so much. More than reason why I still daily drive a phone with 32GB of internal storage. I always backup my photos and videos onto my computer when I get home. But I still have an option for a micro-SD card when the need be.

The rear houses a 12 MP, f1.8, 28mm wide main lens and a 12MP, f2.8, 57mm telephoto. For pictures, the images are natural and normal looking, although a bit warmer than I would like but the amazing compensation in dynamic range, makes it difficult to complain too much here. Both the main and
telephoto produce great photos. Since HDR on the iPhone is so good, most of my photos didn’t have that must contrast. I love dark portions of an image, looking dark, rather than the dark gray that the phone produces. As I was taking pictures of this beautiful creature right here, I realized I wasn’t getting him in focus so much. And when I did, it would miss the face sometimes.
For videos, the rear cameras shoot 4K 60fps and 1080p up to 240 frame per second.


The 7MP front facing camera is also decent at producing good enough photo and video quality. I liked all the selfies I took on this. But I did notice that it shoots 1080p video at 30fps, but doesn’t come with any form of image stabilization, just as you can see in the video right here. Due to that, moving shots on the selfie camera may not be too ideal for most people.

so yeah, there are some complaints about getting a device this old and still missing expandable storage and a headphone jack, but it still looks appealing to consider getting one as a main or secondary phone.
The fact that it has an IP67 rating, running on the latest iOS, having some amazing photo and video capabilities and with as low as GHc 1,800 for the base model, the iPhone 8 plus is still worth it.