iPhone 8 has been discontinued now the new iPhone SE is here

The iPhone 8 (Image credit: Future)

It’s had a good run, but after launching in September 2017 the iPhone 8 has been discontinued by Apple, with the new iPhone SE taking its place in Apple’s lineup.

That means you can’t buy the iPhone 8 from Apple anymore, and while some other retailers may still stock it, they won’t get any new units in. So once those are gone it will be pre-owned/renewed stock or nothing.

While it might have been nice to see the iPhone 8’s price dropped instead, to make it a super cheap option, that was never likely, and for most people the new iPhone SE will be the better buy now anyway. With a starting price of just $399 / £419 / AU$749 it’s even cheaper than the $449 / £479 / AU$779 starting price of the iPhone 8, and it has a newer chipset and otherwise similar specs and features.

There's some hope for the iPhone 8 Plus

What might bother people a bit more is that Apple has also stopped selling the iPhone 8 Plus. This has a larger 5.5-inch screen than the 4.7-inch iPhone SE 2020, and with no iPhone SE Plus there’s no direct alternative to opt for instead. The closest option would be the 6.1-inch iPhone XR, but that’s a fair bit more expensive.

However, for the time being at least it still shouldn’t be too tricky to get an iPhone 8 Plus, as while Apple itself has stopped selling the phone, it’s still going to offer the handset through other retailers according to Rene Ritchie (a tech blogger and YouTuber).

How long that will remain the case for though is unclear, so if you want an iPhone 8 Plus you should probably buy one sooner rather than later.

Via GSMArena

James Rogerson

James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.