The iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 have been with us for a while now, and they remain popular devices in the refurbished phone market. But, of course, it helps that they were built to last Plus, with Apple still levying regular updates for the phones, you are guaranteed a great user experience. That said, if you are looking for an iPhone that nails all the basics and remains in the Apple ecosystem, the iPhone 7 and 8 make for a great buy as refurbished. They are renowned for offering excellent performance, and particularly their camera and image processing ability. But before we compare their cameras, let’s look at what makes these smartphones the best affordable iPhones you can buy as refurbished.
iPhone 7 vs. iPhone 8: Design
Pitting the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 side by side, you will barely notice the differences. For one, both phones have a solid build with a similar front dominated by the signature home button—remember those. In addition, they feature a huge chin and forehead bezels, but it’s here that the subtle differences begin to show. For example, the iPhone 7 uses a physical home button with a click on the press, but the iPhone 8 uses the home button as a fingerprint scanner, with most of the navigation done by gestures. The phones are also different on the back. The iPhone 7 comes with an aluminium back, while the iPhone 8 has a glass back. This adds some weight, but the payoff is that the iPhone 8 supports wireless charging while the iPhone 7 does not.
iPhone 7 vs. iPhone 8: Display
The iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 have an equally sized 4.7-inch Retina IPS LCD, with a 625 nits brightness (type) and 326ppi resolution. Both display 3D touch, but the iPhone 8’s display has True Tone capability, which adjusts colour based on ambient lighting. This makes for better visibility in sunlight and dark environments. In short, there isn’t much of a difference between the displays, and you will barely notice any differences in regular us.
iPhone 7 vs. iPhone 8: Performance
For iPhones, it’s always automatic that the more recent one is usually the faster one, and it’s no different for the case of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8. Before the iPhone 8 came out, the iPhone 7 series was the fastest phone in the world. Powered by Apple’s 16nm+ A10 Fusion chip and 2GB RAM across the series, this range offered better performance than their android competition. The iPhone 8’s, by contrast, use Apple’s 10nm+ A11 Bionic chip, which comes with Apple’s own 3-core GPU. They also have 2GB RAM, but right from the start, the A11 Bionic chip is already better. The smaller chip size means improved efficiency, and that Apple can pack in more cores to make it faster in the process. These differences make the features of the iPhone 8 nippier and more responsive than the iPhone 7; Graphics performance was boosted by 30%, multitasking performance improved by 70%. In addition, it has a 25% faster CPU in high performance and 70% using high-efficiency cores. You cannot dismiss the iPhone 7, though; it has a reliable chip, a fact it has demonstrated being usable today.
iPhone 7 vs. iPhone 8: Cameras
The iPhone 7 has a 12MP f/1.8 wide main camera with optical image stabilization and Phase Detection Autofocus like the iPhone 8. They also share the same 7MP f/2.2 front camera, but that’s as far as we can stretch the similarities. The iPhone 8 uses this hardware with the raw power of the A11 Bionic chipset and Apple’s Image Signal Processor to change the camera performance completely. This means that while the iPhone 7 will shoot video up to 4K @30 fps and 1080P @ 120fps, the iPhone 8 can do 4K @60 fps and 1080P @ 240fps. That’s not all. The iPhone 8 also takes advantage of an improved sensor to give better low-light photography, faster pixel processing, and noise reduction. These subtle improvements to hardware and not-so-subtle processor updates make for better camera performance on the iPhone 8—but this was to be expected given the iPhone 7’s biggest weaknesses are what the iPhone 8 improved on.
iPhone 7 vs. iPhone 8: Battery
The iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 have an almost similar battery capacity, coming in at 1960mAh and 1821mAh, respectively. That said, the iPhone 8 adds a 7.5W wireless charging option because of the glass back.
Reflecting on both phones, it is clear that the iPhone 8 is a step up from the iPhone 7 despite a shared design philosophy and much of the hardware. This means that our main argument of which has the better camera is also won by the iPhone 8. However, this does not mean you dismiss iPhone 7. It gets all the basics right, and comparisons to the iPhone 8 mean you can go with it as a more affordable refurbished iPhone X.
