iPhone X review : the best iPhone ever, but it's good enough ?

Apple iPhone X review: The best 

smartphone you can buy

Pros :

         Gorgeous display; Stylish design; Great camera; One of the fastest phones around.

Cons :

       Astonishingly expensive; Notch isn't particularly attractive; UI changes are a little off-putting.

    Verdict :

       The iPhone X is far and away the best iPhone that Apple has ever made. But with such an exorbitant price and such such stiff competition from the likes of Samsung and others, the iPhone X doesn't distinguish itself enough to earn a full recommendation. It's the best iPhone ever - but it's not the best smartphone.

Ten years ago, Apple irreversibly changed the tech industry (and, let’s be honest, the world) with the iPhone. Fast forward a decade, and its lasting impact is obvious to this day.

However, Apple isn’t the powerhouse of smartphone innovation it once was. Recent generations of iPhone have been facing stiff competition from high-end devices like the Samsung Galaxy S8, which has been impressing consumers with its excellent camera, attractive design and powerful features.

Enter the iPhone X.

Released to commemorate the iPhone’s tenth anniversary, the iPhone X (as in ‘ten’) is Apple’s shot at reinventing the smartphone all over again. It’s banking on a couple of stand-out new features to accomplish this goal, including the ‘Face ID’ facial recognition system and an edge-to-edge OLED display.

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Design 

In many ways, the iPhone X is a radical departure from Apple's recent style, but it also harkens back to the glory days of the iPhone's first few generations. Glass-backed with a metal band around the edges, it looks like a hybrid between the iPhone 3 and iPhone 4 - particularly in the white colour option, which features a shinier chrome trim compared to the darker-edged black variant.

While we really like the white version's chrome-finished edges, the actual backing isn't nearly as appealing. We'd much prefer an option combining the more attractive black backing with the lighter trim. The iPhone X also suffers from the same drawbacks that all glass-backed phones have in common: the glass is vulnerable to shattering, and it picks up fingerprints like nobody's business.

Aside from these issues, however, the design and build quality are as impeccable as you'd expect from Apple. The iPhone X feels reassuringly weighty and solid in the hand, and is markedly less slippery than previous iPhones. At 174g, it sits neatly between the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus in terms of weight, although it's the thickest of the three devices by a fraction of a millimetre. As with the iPhone 8, it's also got IP67 waterproofing.

The real star here is the iPhone X's edge-to-edge screen. We'll talk in more detail about the screen's quality later, but from an aesthetic standpoint it's an undeniable improvement. It looks absolutely gorgeous, and is easily as eye-catching as rival devices like the Galaxy S8. Despite the fact that the 5.8in screen is the largest iPhone display ever, the bezel-minimising design also means that the iPhone X actually has a smaller footprint than the iPhone 8 Plus.

There is, however, one very large and very obvious fly in the ointment, in the form of what Apple has dubbed 'The Notch'. This cutout section at the top of the iPhone X's display houses the Face ID camera, speaker grille and other assorted sensors, and it looks ugly as sin.

The normal icons and status indicators you'd expect to find on a phone, such as the clock, Wi-Fi icon and battery level, are crammed in awkwardly on either side of The Notch, which is a distracting and ugly blight on an otherwise gorgeous phone. Frankly, we think Apple would have been better off following Samsung's lead and writing off the top few millimetres of the device's body in order to have an uninterrupted display.

Display

If you can get past how unsightly The Notch is, the iPhone X's display is a showstopper in just about every other way. Apple's first device to use AMOLED screen technology, it's got a 2436 x 1125 'Super Retina' resolution with a pixel density of 458 ppi.

The company's devices have a well-earned reputation for creating flawless displays, and the iPhone X shows why. It proved to be almost perfect in our tests, with 98.8% coverage of the sRGB colour gamut, spot-on contrast and a maximum brightness in excess of 500cd/m2.

However, the edge-to-edge design causes problems here, too. The home button has been ditched entirely, which means that Apple has had to completely change how iOS's navigation works for this device.

Instead of pressing the home button to get back to your apps list, you now have to swipe up from the bottom of the screen. This just doesn't work as well as having a button - far too often we found ourselves accidentally scrolling up a page rather than going back to the home screen, and it doesn't feel anything like as convenient as a button.

Similarly, the notification drawer is now opened by swiping down from the top, Android-style, while the control centre is accessed by swiping down from the top right-hand corner specifically. Siri and Apple Pay interaction has also been moved to the side button. None of it feels as smooth or intuitive as it used to, which is a shame given how attractive the rest of it is.

Specs, performance and battery life

It should come as no surprise that this phone is the fastest we've ever seen. Just like the iPhone 8 Plus, the iPhone X is powered by Apple's A11 Bionic processor, with 3GB of RAM and an M11 motion coprocessor for added oomph.

As a result, the iPhone X's performance is blazing. Its scores in our benchmark tests were more or less equal to the iPhone 8 Plus (although it was very slightly slower at multi-core operations) but it's measurably faster than the rest of the competition. It's considerably ahead of Samsung's current crop of flagships, scoring more than double what the Galaxy S8 managed in our single-core tests.

Battery life isn't quite as rosy, however. In our video playback tests, the iPhone X managed to go just 9hrs 22mins before dying - significantly behind what we'd expect from a 2017 flagship. The iPhone 8 Plus, for instance, lasted nearly 14 hours.

We suspect this is due to the large, power-hungry screen sucking up the charge, but it's possible that this result is deceptive - we've experienced a discrepancy between test results and real-world battery performance before with phones like the original Google Pixel. We'll update this once we've had time to use it for a longer period.

 Thankfully, Apple has finally added wireless charging, meaning that topping back up should be smooth and hassle-free. Even better, it's based on the universal Qi standard used by Samsung, Lenovo and others, rather than a proprietary method. We're hoping this is the kick up the backside the rest of the industry needs to start adopting wireless charging - it's an incredibly convenient feature that has been unfairly overlooked for far too long.

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Camera

A superb camera has long been a staple of the iPhone range, so it's heartening to see that the iPhone X's snapper is still as good as ever. It's using the familiar dual-lens layout, with two OIS-enabled 12MP lenses - one f/1,8 wide-angle lens and one 2x telephoto lens.

Performance is once again excellent in both bright and dim lighting conditions and while it can't quite live up to the Pixel 2's world-beating camera, it's certainly up there with the best of them. There's also a number of nifty software features, such as support for bokeh-style portrait mode shots via the front-facing camera and 'portrait lighting' to digitally simulate different lighting conditions.

There's also 4K video recording with built-in video stabilisation. If your main interest in the iPhone X is for photography, you definitely won't be disappointed - although we'd still recommend the Pixel 2 for the truly snap-happy user.

Features

The loss of the home button also means the loss of the Touch ID sensor, which brings us to another of the iPhone X's shiny new features - Face ID. Using Apple's new 'TrueDepth' camera system, this new facial recognition technology allows you to unlock your iPhone just by looking at it, as well as authenticating Apple Pay purchases.

The face recognition is smooth and speedy; registering your face takes mere seconds, it can recognise you with or without glasses and it even performs well in low-light conditions. It also powers the 'Animoji' messages, which allow you to record messages in the form of a poop emoji, among others. As facial recognition technology goes, it really is rather impressive.

There's a slight flaw in its implementation, however. Face ID doesn't unlock the device instantly; instead, you have to wake the screen, look at the phone to authenticate your identity, and then swipe up from the bottom to actually open up the device. This adds a couple of extra steps compared to Touch ID, and feels noticeably less smooth and intuitive. It's also a bit of a pain for Apple Pay transactions, which also now involve an extra step.

Apple has also jumped on the augmented reality bandwagon, and the iPhone X features support for all the various AR games and experiences on the App Store. While these can be a fun diversion to while away a lunch break there's little of genuine interest here.

Verdict

The iPhone X is without doubt the best iPhone Apple has ever produced. Even if it's not the groundbreaking feat of engineering that Tim Cook would have you believe, it's still an incredibly impressive device on paper.

Here's the problem, though; there's nothing particularly special about it. It's unique within the iPhone family, to be sure - it's the first ever iPhone to feature facial recognition and an edge-to-edge display, for one thing - but all of its tentpole features are party tricks that the likes of Samsung and Huawei already have.

Couple that with the fact that the iPhone X costs almost £1,000 for the basic 64GB version, and this phone starts to look laughably overpriced, even by Apple's lofty standards. For the price of an iPhone X, you could pick up a Samsung Galaxy S8 and a Vodafone Smart V8 to use as a backup - and you'd still have more than £250 left over.

This insanely high price makes it a tricky proposition for businesses, as well. While the facial recognition technology may be attractive for organisations with high security requirements, it's lacking the business-specific features boasted by Samsung's flagships like DeX and in-built MDM support. It's also a significantly larger investment, comparatively.

The rest of the market has caught up to Apple in a major way. As its competition gets slicker and more refined, Apple looks more and more likes it's being left behind by its rivals. The iPhone X is the best iPhone ever - but that doesn't mean what it used to.

Specifications

Processor : Hexa-core Apple A11 Bionic RAM : 3GB RAM Screen size : 5.8in Screen resolution : 2,436 x 1,125 Screen type : Super AMOLED Front camera : 7-megapixel Rear camera : Dual 12-megapixel Flash : quad LED GPS : Yes Compass : Yes Storage (free) : 64GB Memory card slot (supplied) : N/A Wi-Fi : 802.11a/c Bluetooth : 5.0 NFC : Yes Wireless data : 4G Dimensions : 143.6 x 70.9 x 7.7 mm Weight : 174g

See Also : iphone X all Features & tips

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