Apple iPhone X first impressions: top display, OK camera, but will fans get used to losing home button and fingerprint scanner?
With new-look handset, Apple catches up with Android world of bezel-less, all-screen, button-free smartphones controlled by swipes, and takes a leap ahead with impressive 3D facial recognition that works in total darkness
It is not hyperbole to say Apple changed the world 10 years ago with the release of the original iPhone. Sure, mobile phones, even ones with computing functionality, had existed before that. But the iPhone changed everything by taking what was a niche geek product and making it mainstream, and eventually our most crucial personal item.
This month, Apple is trying to do it again with the iPhone X, and though this is the freshest, most impressive looking iPhone in seven years (since 2010’s iPhone 4), the competition is now very stiff.
Why iPhone X doesn’t have much of an edge in looks – Samsung and Chinese manufacturers went bezel-free in spring 2015
Let’s start by talking about the elephant in the room: with the iPhone X, Apple has belatedly joined the bezel-less, all-screen movement, and it is most welcome. The 5.8-inch “Super Retina” (Apple’s words) display is an OLED panel sourced from Samsung, and although Apple engineers are understandably trying to play down that by insisting that the displays are custom-designed in house after purchase, this is great news for Apple fans.
Samsung’s OLED panels are considered the best in the world by every conceivable measure (Google’s phone, the Pixel 2 XL, has been going through a PR nightmare due to less-than-stellar OLED panels sourced from Samsung rival LG), and the iPhone X’s display, with additional tweaks from Apple’s True Tone software, is just about flawless.
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Blacks are inky, the dynamic range hit all the marks, and at 640 nits the display is significantly brighter than that of the recently released iPhone 8, whose LCD panel has probably been dealt a death blow. It would be hard for Apple to market LCD screens on next year’s iPhones after everyone has seen the X.