I purchased an iPhone X on pre-order and it arrived this past Friday. This IFOD is my review after using the X for 3 days.
One Sentence Summary: I love almost everything about the iPhone X – it’s a big step forward.
Biggest Change – No Home Button: There’s no home button on the X. You tap the phone to wake it and then it scans your face to unlock the phone. Whenever you are in an app, you just swipe up from the bottom of the phone in place of the home button. There are other gestures that replace the double pressing and holding down of the home button.
I got used to no home button quickly – within a few hours. I much prefer having no home button. I realized that when after using the iPhone X for a few hours I picked up my iPad Pro. It seems clunky to use the home button now. A number of times I’ve tried to use the gestures from the X on the iPad. The lack of home button and gestures seems more efficient and intuitive after a mere three days of use. Love this change.
Face ID: I much prefer the Face ID security to the fingerprint scanning security on other iPhones. The Face ID works very quickly and seamlessly. It worked so well that I actually thought I didn’t have it turned on. I spent time trying to turn it on soon after I set my phone up. Turns out it was on – it was just recognizing my face very quickly.
By my estimates it recognizes my face and unlocks 95%+ of the time. When it doesn’t recognize it the first time, it does on second try. It works perfectly in complete darkness (it uses infrared) and worked fine when I was wearing a hat and sunglasses. It seems to have a much higher success rate than the fingerprinting scanning technology, which often requires multiple tries and doesn’t work at all with wet hands. Again, I have become frustrated at having to use fingerprint scanning on my iPad.
Size: It is barely bigger than and iPhone 6, 7, 8. Barely. It is smaller than a iPhone 6 Plus, 7 Plus or 8 Plus. But it has a bigger screen than the plus.
Screen: The screen is really amazing. It’s an OLED screen vs. the LEDs used in other iPhones. It almost looks like the images/text are on the surface of the phone. The resolution is fantastic. Here’s an explanation from Apple of what an OLED screen is: Super Retina Display
The screen goes to the edge of the phone. There is a “notch” at the top of the screen where the front facing camera, infra red scanners, etc. live. The notch is not an issue except for a few apps I used that didn’t seem to be optimized for the X – the notch covered some of information. I imagine this will be fixed by app makers over time.
Animojis are Fun: A really fun thing is the new animojis that can be used when texting. It’s hard to describe what they are. Here are two that I made:
Link to videos if the embedded ones above don’t work:
The Camera: I haven’t spent much time taking pics with the X. So far, portrait mode is the most notable change – both for the main camera and for selfies.
Do Not Disturb While Driving: This is actually an iOS 11 feature that should be available on any iPhone upgraded to iOS 11. What it does is make your phone unable to send or receive texts or notifications or otherwise be used while you are driving. I set mine up to send a response text saying that I’m driving and will get back to them when I’m no longer driving. So far, I love this feature. No longer do I have to use willpower to not look at a text (or occassionally sneak a look).
To set this up go to: Settings > Do Not Disturb > Do Not Disturb While Driving (close to bottom) and choose for it to activate “Automatically” or “When Connected to Car Bluetooth.”
Wireless Charging: Have not tried it yet.
does it recognize you with the hat, sunglasses and the wig?
I was on the fence but after reading your review I’ve decided to go for it!