iPhone 8 screen to be much bigger than Apple's iPhone 7 Plus, report claims

Removing the bezels from the side of the display should keep the phone relatively small

An iPhone is displayed in a store in London (Reuters)

The iPhone 8 is going to be bigger than any phone Apple has ever made, according to a new report.

The company will make an iPhone 7s and 7s Plus, in the same sizes as the models they replace. But the real new phone will be the iPhone 8 – a phone much bigger even than the 7 Plus.

The new phone's OLED screen will stretch across 5.8 inches of the front of the screen, according to a new report from Nikkei Asian Review. That's in comparison to just 5.5-inches for the current iPhone 7 Plus.

But the iPhone 8 will save space by getting rid of the bezels that wrap around the display on the front of the phone, allowing the screen to take up most of the handset's size. And it will feature a curved display to save even more space.

Not all of that display will be used in the traditional way, and it might not even be the same shape as the current iPhone. Instead, the phone could feature a special "function area" at its bottom, allowing for easy access to certain features, extra display space for things like pictures and mimicking the behaviour of the MacBook Pro's Touch Bar.

The extra size – as well as a range of other features, like 3D scanning that will be able to see people's faces – will allow Apple to charge more than $1,000 for the new phone, according to reports.

In keeping with that, it is expected to be the most radical redesign that any iPhone has ever had. That's expected to come in part to mark the 10th anniversary of the iPhone.