As good as the iPhone 7 is, one thing it’s not known for is great battery life – but that could all change with the iPhone 8, as the top-end model, rumored to have a 5.8-inch screen, could have “two packs of batteries”.
That odd claim comes from Cowen and Company analyst Timothy Arcuri (an analyst who has mixed record with previous iPhone rumors), in a research note obtained by MacRumors.
MacRumors doesn’t expand on what that means, other than that the two packs would lead to extended battery life, but it presumably means there would be two batteries rather than one in the 5.8-inch iPhone 8.
It's the first we’ve heard of this, and it’s not something we’ve come across on a flagship smartphone before, so we’re highly skeptical. It’s not completely unheard of though, as some Asian phones come with two batteries.
Similar memory and faster charging
The rest of the research note is rather more believable, saying that the 5.8-inch iPhone 8, as well as the rumored 4.7 and 5.5-inch models (which might be called the iPhone 7S and iPhone 7S Plus), will all have 3GB of RAM.
The iPhone 7 Plus already has that much, so we’d have expected at least 3GB from the larger models anyway. It’s only the 4.7-inch iPhone that would be getting an upgrade there.
Supposedly the three iPhone 8 handsets will also continue to plug in using a Lightning connector, but will use USB Type-C Power Delivery technology for faster charging, which has been rumored before.
Finally, the note mentions storage, saying that the 4.7 and 5.5-inch models will likely have the same storage configurations as the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, meaning they’d come with a choice of 32GB, 128GB or 256GB. The 5.8-inch iPhone 8 meanwhile would apparently come with a choice of 64GB or 256GB.
As always, we’d take these claims with a pinch of salt, especially the dual batteries claim, but they’re apparently based on checks of Apple’s supply chain, so there could be something to them.
- Apple's biggest iPhone will be up against the Samsung Galaxy Note 8
