The iPhone X is the huge leap forward that Apple's handsets needed. Aside from the original iPhone in 2007, this new iPhone is set to have the biggest impact on Apple’s smartphone direction ever.
Apple itself is calling it the future of the smartphone, the embodiment of what it’s been trying to achieve for a decade. But while the iPhone X is all about premium parts and an all-new experience, it’s a huge gamble for the Cupertino brand too as it tries to reclaim some leadership in smartphone innovation.
Losing known, reliable elements like the Touch ID fingerprint scanner, the home button; introducing new methods of navigating and unlocking the phone – and charging a lot more for the privilege – seems risky for a company that was already treading new ground by doing away with the traditional headphone jack last year.
But the iPhone X is the handset we’ve been demanding from Apple for years – a world away from the increasingly-tired designs that those who just want a new iPhone have had to make do with. he fervor around this phone tells that story – everyone wants to know if the new iPhone X is worth having, partly because it actually represents a new iPhone, and that fervor is such that they don’t seem to care about the cost.So… is the iPhone X worth having? Will it change the direction of an industry where many of the specs Apple has put in – wireless charging, bezel-less displays and face recognition – are already on the market?
We've had the iPhone X in our grasp for a few months now, and it's easily one of the best smartphones around - but there are still a few things that might niggle.
iPhone X Price and release date
Released on November 3
The most expensive flagship phone on the market
Comes in 64GB and 256GB options
It’s almost pointless to discuss the price of the iPhone X – it’s the most expensive flagship phone on the market, but iPhone users are more willing than most to look past cost.
But, while the focus here is going to be on the technology, we still need to at least mention the price and release date.The iPhone X costs $999 / £999 / AU$1,579 for the basic, 64GB model. If you want the larger 256GB model it’s going to cost you $1,149 / £1,149 / AU$1,829 for the privilege.Word is that Apple is looking at a cheaper variant for 2018, as it looks to bring the bezel-less form factor to a lower-cost, non-OLED variant... but that's strictly rumor for now.The initial issues with stock are now over, and you can grab the handset in a a number of ways - with the iPhone X colors pretty limited this year, and the option of two storage sizes your main choices.
By far the best screen on an iPhone
Clear, vibrant colors
Notch at top slightly irks, but doesn’t get in the way
The first thing you’ll notice about the new iPhone is hard to miss: the new screen blazes into your eyes the second you pick up the handset.
The 5.8-inch OLED display is, quite simply, the best thing Apple has ever crammed into an iPhone. It’s leaps ahead of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus for so many reasons: the sharpness, the quality, the fact that it fills the whole front of the phone, and the color reproduction.
It’s also using a new, longer, screen, but while it looks larger than the iPhone 8 Plus’ 5.5-inch display on paper, it’s only marginally bigger in terms of actual screen real estate – it’s just stretched upwards.OLED technology means you’re getting deeper blacks and more blinding whites, so everything from websites to the photos you take will look a little better. Some will point to the fact that Samsung has been using OLED screens on its phones since the first Galaxy, but Apple counters that by saying it’s only now that the technology is good enough for its phones.On the face of it that sounds defensive, but when you use the iPhone X you can see it’s a screen that’s incredibly, well, Apple.
It’s not the sharpest or most colorful screen on a smartphone, but it’s clean, crisp and doesn’t suffer from terrible color shifts when you move it around. It’s a great display to look at, and that’s what you want on a phone.It's also been dubbed the best in the world, by the esteemed DisplayMate testing, showing that it's the brightest and more color-accurate OLED on the market and good off-centre brightness shifts - showing Apple can tune the tech from Samsung really well.The term ‘bezel-less’ has been bandied about for the iPhone X, but that doesn’t really tell the right story. Yes, there are slight bands around the edges of the screen, but they don’t mar the experience – they give the fingers something to land on, preventing accidental touches of the screen.
Apple could reduce these further in the future and offer a more visually-appealing iPhone, but on the X the experience is still striking.Talking of visual appeal, the notch at the top of the iPhone X is something that’s going to divide opinion, and that’s fair. Apple has taken this little chunk out of the top of the screen to house the new TrueDepth camera, and it encroaches on the display.In portrait mode it’s hard to notice it’s there, and the way the notifications bar spills around it is nice.
However, place the phone in landscape mode and it’s far more noticeable; it’s an irritant when you’re watching movies, as when we wanted to expand them to fill the screen (one of the real beauties of having a longer display) elements of the action were cut out by the notch.The longer screen is also thinner though - this means there's less real estate for typing. We didn't notice this at the start, but when flipping between the X and an older iPhone, you'll really see there's less space for your digits to tap onto.While we’re talking about that longer screen, the 18:9 format is something we’ve seen on a number of other phones this year, and in the Android world the apps are largely encoded to fill the display just fine.
On the iPhone X, however, that’s not the case, with many apps we used packing massive black bars above and below the display. That's quickly started to improve though, and each day more apps update for the longer screen.The issue with apps using the black bars is that it makes the iPhone X look like any other handset from Apple - even an iPhone 3GS – and given the screen is the main visual differentiator on this phone, and you want every app to fill the display nicely. There are now very few apps left that have these bars above and below, with most expanding the screen to fill the whole front of the phone and curve around the notch.The new display on the iPhone X also showcases a new feature for Apple: HDR playback. The phone can show movies encoded in the HDR10 and Dolby Vision formats, and combined with the OLED display the images offer so much more depth and realistic color reproduction.
If you’re watching a scene with explosions in it, the effect is incredible on the iPhone X – much like with all OLED screens.However, it’s inherently harder to make out detail in darker scenes in HDR movies – that’s something you’ll need to adjust to. Compared to the LCD screen of the iPhone 8 Plus, there are times when you can see less of the action, but compare them side by side and you’ll see that the overall richness, depth and quality for watching movies is just higher on the iPhone X.Like the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, the X uses a True Tone display, which mimics the lighting conditions around it and will adjust the white balance accordingly. It’s not a reason to buy the phone on its own, but it’s a really premium little extra that you’ll grow to like.
The design of the iPhone X is very much a mix of old and new. The new parts are obvious: this is a phone with very little bezel, a glass back and no home button.But it's also got the familiar rounded shape in the hand – in fact, it harks back to the days of the iPhone 3G, feeling similar when picked up.What you will sense when holding the iPhone X for the first time is that this is a premium handset. It feels expensive, with the weighty steel rim on the outside blending in impressively with the curved glass all around.The silver version of the X comes with a polished stainless steel band, while the black option has a similar dark coloring that's been attached through a process called vapor deposition.
That means the band’s color isn’t painted on... it's inside the metal itself, giving the premium feel we're used to from Apple. A word of warning: after a few days carrying the phone in the pocket, unencumbered by a case we are starting to see a few examples of scuffing on the rim, so it's worth thinking about putting this in a case, or at the very least a skin, if you want to keep it looking nice.While it weighs less than the iPhone 8 Plus (174g compared to 202g), the iPhone X feels a lot heavier in the hand, in a good way. You’ll feel like this is a strong, solidly build handset (and don’t forget, it’s still IP67 water-resistant) and you’d be right – despite it being glass front and black, Apple believes it's made the strongest iPhone yet.
One negative thing to say about the design: it's a smudge sucker. The outer band gets covered in fingerprints in no time at all, and the glass front and back will happily accept any oil your fingers want to deposit on them.And while the rear of the phone is glass, as on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, there’s a different design language at play with the iPhone X. Every button is elegantly embedded into the rim of the phone, yet there’s a sharpness to each key that comes from them being machined in a certain way.The same is true of the protruding camera bump on the rear of the phone – the edge is sharp, where on the iPhone 8 it rolls into the case. This shows that Apple is taking a new design direction with the X, hinting at the short-term future of iPhone design.
In terms of how the iPhone X feels in the hand, well, it’s surprisingly easy to use one-handed. It balances naturally in the hand, with the glass and metal combination feeling grippy enough to do so, and most thumbs will be able to roam comfortably over the slippery surface like a little flesh-colored penguin.You’ll need to drag down the notifications panel and Control Center with the digits of your other hand on most occasions, but generally the iPhone X is a good mix of phablet-sized screen while being ergonomic enough to use in one hand.A special mention to Apple for the way it’s incorporated the speakers into this tightly-packaged phone – the sound is really something, with full volume making the phone reverberate with audio.
Despite one of the speakers firing downwards from the bottom of the iPhone X, you can easily listen to movies without headphones – and the irritated glances from colleagues when we tested out this phone in the office shows that the sound can carry pretty far too.There have been reports of a crackling speaker in some models - however, we've not seen that in the wild and our model was able to crank to full volume with ease.In terms of sound, it’s worth reiterating that there’s no headphone jack on the new iPhone range – Apple has made a big bet that it can convince users to leave their 3.5mm headphones behind, but it still annoys for now if you don’t have a decent pair of Bluetooth headphone or lose the adapter that comes in the box.
The camera on the iPhone X is very similar to the one on the iPhone 8 Plus, with some small differences.
For instance, while both have a dual 12MP sensor array (for taking zoomed-in pictures, or capturing depth perception in a scene) the iPhone X has an f/2.4 aperture, where on iPhone 8 Plus it’s f/2.8, and only the wide-angle lens has optical image stabilization.It's also been dubbed the best camera on the market by DxOMark, although only for still images, showing the technical prowess of the sensor.Before we get too far into the performance of the rear camera, let's talk about the front-facing TrueDepth camera, which is a 7MP affair but with some smart capabilities to make the iPhone one of the best selfie-taking cameras on the market.
The camera, as the name suggests, can sense depth incredibly well, so the new Portrait mode – debuted on the iPhone 8 Plus – can be used with the front-facing camera to take excellent selfies.Not only will this blur the background, you can also use the Portrait options to change the lighting of the scene, or cut yourself out of the picture altogether and place yourself on a black background.The lighting alterations, adding things like contoured lighting to your visage, don't really add a huge amount, and some of the 'stage lighting' pictures that cut you out of the image don't always trace the edges of your head and body perfectly. But when it does work, the iPhone X's camera is out of this world – it delivers stunning shots that are rich with detail, and while it's not the best smartphone camera on the market it takes natural-looking photos very well, and that's something a lot of people will celebrate.
Those pictures look far better on the X’s OLED display too, thanks to the improved contrast ratios and better colors, although sharing the same pictures to an Apple TV shows they’re a little brighter than on the phone screen.While the iPhone X is a long way from being the first handset from Apple to use Live Photos, this feature is improved in iOS 11 – being able to loop, bounce or long-expose photos is a fun little extra that you can share with friends well.
The overall speed of snapping and quality of the iPhone X camera is strong, as you’d expect from a flagship handset from Apple with the new A11 Bionic chip inside.Low-light performance is a touch better than from previous iPhones – although it’s curious the way the iPhone 8 Plus and X have different apertures, yet deliver the same kind of zoomed-in low-light performance.In real terms, the f/2.4 aperture and optical image stabilization on the zoom lens should mean better low-light photos, but when you’re zoomed in sometimes you’re not actually using the optical lens (which is designed for the task) in favor of the more dark-adept 'main' lens.
This is a good thing. Instead of using the zoomed-in sensor for low-light pictures, the iPhone X uses the wide-angle lens (which has better low light capabilities) and uses digital zoom to get the best looking snaps.It's hard to say why Apple has bothered to improve the other sensor if this is what it's going to do, but the main thing is picture quality and that's coming through well.Some of the shots from the iPhone X are astonishing – the performance in lower light conditions, when the light is fading, is really strong, although the slower shutter speeds do lead to a touch more noise and blur.The camera could do with booting a touch faster from the lock screen (although you can now 3D Touch - push hard - on the photography icon to load the camera, rather than swiping), but generally it’s hard to fault the natural, clear and crisp photos you’ll get from the iPhone.
The battery on the iPhone X is, according to the same Chinese regulatory filing as we mentioned earlier, is 2716mAh, which makes it a touch larger than the iPhone 8 Plus.That's quite a large power cell from Apple, but given the larger screen with more pixels to power, it makes sense.While the iPhone X battery life isn't mind-blowing, it's certainly better than some iPhones of old - it's more than acceptable.Some real world use: in heavy testing, we managed to run the iPhone down in just a shade over 12 hours. But that included 30 minutes of Netflix trying HDR mode, walking to work and listening to Bluetooth music on Spotify, using a portable hotspot on the train, taking sample images with the camera and testing Face ID over and over, and playing some games.
The next day, it got closer to 9PM with a slightly lighter load, but still spending a lot of time testing - both of these were expected. It was also impressive how long the iPhone X held on while watching a movie with only 5% battery left and power-saving mode turned on... we got a good 35 minutes of watching before it finally gave up.But when put into lighter use - just pulling the iPhone X out once in a while to send a message, take a few pictures at a wedding and navigate on GPS for around 30 minutes, we were at 25% by midnight.
And overnight it only lost 5% battery life before the morning - again, a good result. It's not the absolute best we've seen from a phone, but if you're someone that suffers with an iPhone that drains quickly you'll be pleased with what's on offer here, and most days you'll get home with plenty of power to spare.Based on the data that we've pulled from using the iPhone X in a variety of scenarios, we've found that it'll last a good 18 hours per day with some heavier usage - that includes a tonne of Bluetooth streaming, WhatsApp, Facebook and browsing the internet, all things that are pretty tough on the battery.
The reason it seems to do better than some might expect is the screen - the OLED technology has proven to be very effective at sucking less battery.That's shown in our testing: we ran the same 90 minute, Full HD video at full brightness from 100% charge - and the iPhone X set a record-breaking score for an Apple handset.Where most (including the iPhone 8 Plus) lost around 25% battery, the iPhone X managed an incredible 10% drop - that's unheard of in our tests, and given the X has more pixels to drive from the same A11 Bionic chipset on the 8 Plus, it's only the OLED technology that's the differentiator.
Source: https://www.techradar.com
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