Living with an iPhone X

No phone has received as much attention this year as the iPhone X, and while some of this is due to the phone's high price point, the iPhone X does live up to the hype; after using it for the past few weeks, I've been particularly impressed by its face detection and improved camera. Despite a couple of misses—I would still like to see a headphone jack—the iPhone X ($999.00 at Verizon) has proven to be fast, reliable, convenient, and probably the most exciting iPhone in years.

At 5.65 by 2.79 by 0.3 inches and weighing 6.14 ounces, the iPhone X is pretty compact for a phone with a 5.8-inch display. Its size lands it between the iPhone 8 ($319.99 at Best Buy) , with its 4.7-inch display (measuring 5.45 by 2.65 by 0.29 inches and weighing 5.22 ounces), and the iPhone 8 Plus ($699.99 at T-Mobile) , with its 5.5-inch display, which measures 6.24 by 3.07 by 0.3 inches and weighs 7.13 ounces (The iPhone 7 ($288.00 at Visible) and 7 Plus were similar).

In other words, with the X, you're getting a display almost as large as the 8 Plus (bigger diagonal dimension, but smaller area), but in a notably smaller, lighter, and easier to carry package. Apple isn't the first to offer a near bezel-less display—LG and Samsung, among others, were first here—but the new form factor is very nice, and makes the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus look dated in comparison. As with this year's top Android phones, the display is elongated—it has a 2,436-by-1,125-pixel display in a 19.5:9 aspect ratio. I've grown accustomed to taller displays over the course of the year, and now like them very much. Yes, in applications such as YouTube, you do get black bars on the side if you're viewing many videos while holding the phone horizontally (although you can often zoom to get them to fill horizontally, but at the expense of some lost content vertically, which isn't worth it). The black bars don't really bother, and in other applications, I'm very happy to see more text when holding the phone vertically.

The iPhone X is also the first iPhone with an AMOLED display. I have found such displays to be bright and vibrant on the Samsung line for the past several years, and Apple's implementation is at least as good. The display looks very nice from any angle, and holds up well in bright sunlight. The iPhone X's display tends more toward warmer colors compared with Samsung, but both displays are excellent.

One design feature that has received significant attention is the "notch" on the top of the display where the front-facing cameras live. It is an interesting design decision—LG and Samsung place their cameras in a tiny bezel above the screens. In some cases, it gives the screen slightly more room for individual applications, as the signal strength and battery gauge share the same horizontal space as the cameras. While it does initially look a little strange, it's something I got used to early on. In PCMag's review, my colleague Sasha Segan mentioned several issues with apps, and while some could be formatted a bit better, I didn't find anything to be too problematic.

Unlike any of the other recent iPhones, the X doesn't have a home button, so you'll have to learn a few new tricks, such as swiping up from the bottom of the screen to see your home page, swiping up and holding to see all of your open apps, and swiping down from the upper-right hand side to bring up the control center. This is a change from the other iPhones, but it didn't take me long to get used to it.

Not only has the iPhone X done away with the home button, it also removes the Touch ID fingerprint sensor, in favor of a new Face ID face detection system. The idea is that you set up your phone to use your face to unlock it, even for things like approving payments. To make this work, Apple has added what it calls its TrueDepth camera system, which includes an infrared camera, a dot projector, a flood illuminator, and a proximity sensor to measure the contours of your face to ensure it's really you. While there have been a few reports of twins or children tricking the sensor—so it may not be as secure as possible—Apple says it's actually more secure than a fingerprint for most people. In my own use, it's been incredibly accurate, and the feature works in all sorts of lighting conditions, whether I have my glasses on or off. I've also found it to be fast and reliable—much better than the face recognition that Samsung offers on its Galaxy S8 ($720.00 at Verizon) series. I can still see where a fingerprint reader, in addition, could offer more security and more convenience—when you want to open your phone without actively looking at it, for example—but I have to say I've been quite happy with Face ID.

The new front-facing, 7-megapixel, f/2.2 camera should also enable some new augmented reality apps, though I haven't seen much yet. One unique feature is animated emoji or "animoji," in which you animate one of a dozen icons—everything from a panda bear to poop—by moving your face; you can then send these animoji in Messages. I can't say it's something I've had a use for yet, but maybe I'm just the wrong demographic.

Cameras

The front-facing camera can also be used for selfies, of course, and when you enter "portrait mode" it takes the data from the camera and combines it with the depth sensor to create a bokeh look with a blurred-out background. The rear-facing camera has a similar feature (as did the 7 Plus) that uses the two rear-facing cameras, and in general, I've been pretty happy with the look of these "portrait" photos. Both cameras also offer a new feature called "stage lighting" which blacks out the area around the person whose portrait you are taking. This is an interesting effect, but it's not perfect and I can't say I used it very often.

The rear-facing cameras include two 12-megapixel sensors, a main camera with f/1.8 aperture, and a 2x "telephoto" lens with f/2.4. (This is a step-up from the secondary camera on the 8 Plus, and has the advantage that both lenses feature optical image stabilization.)

In general, I was quite pleased with the photos I took on the iPhone X. As with most of the modern, top-end phones, outdoor photographs in bright light look great, and even photos taken in lower light, as in this shot of Grand Central, look pretty nice.

Low-light, outdoor pictures also looked good. Again, they seemed a little "warmer" (more yellow, less blue) than the ones I took on the Galaxy Note 8 ($329.97 at Amazon) , and a bit less "blown out," but both showed a great deal of detail. Both cameras, of course, have lots of settings, so you can change ISO and color balance.

I also was happy with portrait mode, and Apple continues to offer "Live Photos" (effectively taking 1.5 seconds of video before and after a shot, rendering a moving photo in result). The latest iOS update adds some interesting new effects, such as the ability to create a loop, or a "long exposure" shot using a Live Photo. Overall, the photos I've taken with the iPhone X are simply the best smartphone images I've seen.

For video, both rear cameras now have optical image stabilization, and in fact I saw a much more stable image on videos taken with the iPhone X than with the 7 Plus, Note 8, or LG V6 (though the Note and the LG seemed a bit brighter.) They aren't perfect, but I was generally quite happy with the videos I took. Overall, I'd say the camera is top of the line.

The iPhone X, like the iPhone 8, has the new Apple A11 Bionic processor, with two high-performance ARM cores and four more-efficient ARM cores, along with an area Apple describes as a neural engine and a much faster GPU. In PCMag's tests, these are the fastest phones yet tested. In the real world, the iPhone X seemed very fast and responsive. The real benefits of these processors may arrive when we see real applications that take advantage of them, as well as ARKit-enabled augmented reality applications, but we'll have to wait for these.

In terms of wireless performance, Apple has models with Intel and Qualcomm modems (and apparently a special one for the Japanese market) with different band support; I have been using the AT&T model with an Intel modem. Performance varies on different bands, and while the Qualcomm modem adds a number of features, including carrier aggregation, to reach "gigabit LTE" speeds, Apple is not supporting these features, so the two versions should be similar in performance. In PCMag's testing, the Qualcomm version was slightly faster than the Intel version and both notably lagged the Qualcomm-based Google Pixel 2 and Samsung Galaxy Note 8. In real-world terms, it's hard to compare because I personally used phones on different networks, and thus different bands, and the biggest differences I saw had to do with location and signal quality, not the individual device. In practical terms, the only times I had any complaints about the iPhone X's wireless performance was when I got no signal or a very weak signal; otherwise, I was quite happy. Voice quality also seemed very good.

PCMag's initial battery tests on the iPhone X were underwhelming. Personally, I found it very close to what I have been accustomed to on the 7 Plus—certainly good enough to get me through an average day and partway into the next. I still find I want to charge most phones after a typical day of use, and that hasn't changed.

Like the iPhone 8 series, the iPhone X comes with wireless charging, and a recent update speeds up this kind of connection. Though Apple still hasn't shipped its wireless charger, I've had good luck with Samsung chargers, and just about anything that supports the Qi standard should work. (Note that Samsung and other vendors have supported wireless charging for years.)

The iPhone X is also water resistant, which is very nice. But like the iPhone 7 and 8 series—and the more recent Google Pixel 2 ($92.50 at Amazon) —it lacks a headphone jack. I have wireless headphones and they work fine, but particularly on long flights when I worry about battery life, I find myself using the awkward dongle Apple includes to connect more traditional headphones.

Apple did not include a minor feature that the newest Android phones from Samsung and LG do have: an "always-on" display, which shows some basic details—such as the time—even when the rest of the screen is dark.

Do you need to spend $1,000 on a phone? Of course not. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are very nice phones as well, as are the older iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models. And the Android ecosystem offers many choices as well—from the Note 8 at the top end to a variety of very capable mid-range phones that sell for under $300, such as those from Huawei, Acer, and LG. Compared to the mid-range phones, the higher-end offers increased speed, better displays and cameras, and often a better build quality. At the high-end, the iPhone X's screen and camera best the iPhone 8, and I found the photos taken on the iPhone X to be slightly better than those taken on the Note 8. The Note 8 seems to be faster and offers a larger screen, a stylus, and the ability to plug it into a dock and use it as a desktop; on the other hand, the iPhone X is easier to carry.

For Apple users, there isn't any doubt that the iPhone X is the top of the line, and offers some really nice extras to boot. The new screen is wonderful, the dimensions make even a bigger screen easy to carry, Face ID turns out to be very convenient, and the camera is top of the line; finally, additional AR features should only improve the iPhone X. Sure, it's pricey, but the difference will be worth it for high-end phone buyers.

Here's PCMag's full review.