SmartPhone Spotlight: iPhone X

Apple wants an iPhone that is entirely screen. One so immersive the device itself disappears into the experience. And so intelligent it can respond to a tap, your voice, and even a glance. With iPhone X, that vision is now a reality. Say hello to the future.

The Great

• Everything
• Great screen
• Premium, strong design
• TrueDepth camera is powerful
• Insanely Powerful

The Not

• The most expensive flagship phone around
• Metal rim can scuff without case

The Conclusion

A great blend of handheld comfort and a big, gorgeous OLED screen. Rear telephoto camera outshoots the 8 Plus in low light, and the front camera snaps impressive portrait selfies. Face ID generally works fine. iPhone X is an overdue and winning evolution of the iPhone, but you’ll need to leave your comfort zone to make a jump into the face-recognizing future.

The X

It’s ten years since the iPhone was first unveiled and Apple has marked the occasion with a new iPhone that doesn’t just jump one generation, it jumps several. Apple has leapt straight from iPhone 7 all the way to X, or the roman numeral for 10. The iPhone X is the handset we’ve been demanding from Apple for years.

The Interface

Gone are the touch ID and home button, this brings about a new interface on the X. One reliant on gestures and swipes. While at first you may think It now takes longer, requires more steps and additional gestures to use and navigate the new user interface of the iPhone X than any of its predecessors, which is a major step backward and the cause of many frustrations. Once you adjust to this interface it is quite intuitive and quick. Jump in and embrace it, it will become second nature.

That Display and the Notch

Turn on the iPhone X, and it’s easy to forget almost every other phone released this year. Apple’s leading the bezel less  smartphone design trend, where the edges around the screen melt away to offer an immersive all-screen experience. Technically, other phones may have slightly smaller bezels, but I like the approach Apple took here. They have upgraded to the OLED screen from LED and it is brighter, more beautiful and needs less power.

The notch above the X’s display, which cuts out a small chunk of the upper screen to make room for the phone’s front-facing camera and sensors, doesn’t impact many apps or videos. In fact most I’ve tried put any critical info below that notch by default. But that does mean the effective display area is even smaller, with black bars on the top and bottom. My only issue with the notch is that it now removes the battery percentage icon from the display. Now I have to use the drag down gesture to check the percentage.

The Camera

The Camera is insane, Dual cameras and new facial land marking create dramatic studio lighting effects in Portrait mode.  The photos generally turned out great. Low-light gains aren’t as dramatic as I expected compared to the already excellent iPhone 7 Plus, but the photos I’ve been taking have generally looked phenomenal.

Portrait Mode, which debuted last year, now supports flash photography and HDR. The 8 Plus and the X add a new photo technique called Portrait Lighting, a beta feature that adds simulated 3D lighting to faces and even strips out backgrounds to create a studio-shot effect.

Face Id

This is the biggest wow on the phone. The X looks at me, verifies I am me and unlocks. It is slightly longer then not using a pass code, but works great. I’m blown away by how well it works when I am wearing glasses or late at night in dark room. The biggest bonus to this is not just the ability to unlock my phone with my face, but sign in to everything with my face. All the apps, websites and verification that constantly need info from me now just input by verifying my face. Its amazing.

And Animojies. They were fun for like 7 mins.

The Final Thought

This is  the Cubans, baby. This is the Cohibas, the MonteCristos. This is the This is my Eiffel Tower. This is the Rachmaninoff’s Third. The Pietà. It’s completely elegant, it’s bafflingly beautiful.