Courtesy of Apple
Now that the iPhone X has been out for a few months, most of the kinks have been worked out. I’ve had mine for about four months, so as a well-adjusted iPhone X user, here is a review of the positives and negatives of Apple’s “breakthrough” design.
Stellar New Camera
The major selling point! If you’re debating an upgrade, the camera will sell you on an iPhone X. Whether in Portrait mode or video, the camera is nearly flawless. The colors are rich and resemble the in-person colors. Truly changing the game though is the two-optical zoom, which is why the back of the iPhone X has a vertical camera instead of horizontal. It’s not quite good enough to replace a DSLR, but it’s darn close and nearly indistinguishable!
Photo of me, taken on my iPhone X by my friend, Julia.
The “Notch”
You get used to it. At first it does seem weird, but the design is well-integrated. The top left has the network (lock screen) or the time (home screen or in-app). The top left displays the battery, number of bars, and LTE/Wifi. I think it works well, it just takes a few days to adjust. However, the only downside is watching videos, but by double tapping, it shrinks the image to fit the screen, which is nice because it doesn’t cut off the top and bottom of the image.
Fancy Commands
Ditto as the “notch”: easy to adjust your habits after a few days.
Face Recognition
It works… most of the time. Depending on the angle and the glare, it might not recognize your face. Intuitively, it doesn’t work with sunglasses because they obviously block your face, but it’s still irritating. However, is this revolutionary? Not really. Samsung has had various types of facial recognition for years. My Samsung S4 from 2013 had eye recognition where you could scroll just by moving your eyes. So is this groundbreaking? Not particularly.
Courtesy of Apple
Waterproof/resistant
My lifesaver. I always spill or drop my phone in a puddle. Highly recommend if you are also ridiculously accident-prone.
Sleek Glass Body
Super hip with the rad youths. But it really is nice. Most importantly, you need a case right away. Initially after the release, people were posting photos of shattered phones everywhere, but dropping glass has never ended well before. Just buy a good case and you’re set.
But why does everyone seem to want the newest and greatest iPhone? It’s uncomfortable turning those huge group chats green. Besides that, Apple’s genius is in the advertising. Just walking around Boston, there’s an iPhone X poster or billboard on at least every block. Everyone wants that easy to navigate and sleek new phone.