Living review of Apple's all-new iPhone X

The Good A great blend of handheld comfort and a big, gorgeous OLED screen. Rear telephoto camera outshoots the 8 Plus in low light, and the front camera snaps impressive portrait selfies. Face ID generally works fine.

The Bad New interface and no home button mean major adjustments, and key features such as the Control Center are harder to reach and use. It’ll take time for most apps to be optimized for notched screen. The phone is hella expensive, and the all-glass design means a case and an insurance plan are musts. Shorter battery life than iPhone Plus models.

The Bottom Line iPhone X is an overdue and winning evolution of the iPhone, but you’ll need to leave your comfort zone to make a jump into the face-recognizing future.

iPhone X in Brief

For people who want:

Edge-to-edge design.
Optically stabilized ƒ/1.8 and ƒ/2.4 dual-lens rear camera.
Depth-aware front-facing camera.
Face detection biometrics.
Tomorrow's iPhone today.

Not for people who want:

Classic iPhone design.
Home button.
Fingerprint identity biometrics.
Gold or other color options.
Lower pricing.

If you want a familiar iPhone experience, iPhone 8 is ready and waiting for you. If you want a radical new design, with as close to an edge-to-edge OLED display as possible, a TrueDepth camera and Face ID on the front and an even-better-than-iPhone-8 dual camera system on the back, and you have the cash for it, then get iPhone X and enjoy not only tomorrow's iPhone today, but the best damn product Apple's ever made. And that's saying a lot.

iPhone X 'Design'

When you lift the iPhone X from its box you’ll be struck by just how different this device looks.
Gone are the chunky bezels that have graced the front of the iPhone since the original device was launched 10 years ago with an all-screen design filling almost the entire front of the phone.
This all-new look means you get a much bigger 5.8-inch display in a device that's physically smaller and much easier to hold in your hand.
In fact, when you first set eyes on the iPhone X you might be surprised by just how small this smartphone actually is.
Measuring in at 143.6mm it’s only just bigger than the standard 4.7-inch iPhone 8.
Other nice design touches include a truly stunning glass and metal case which makes the iPhone X feel reassuringly solid and much less slippy to hold.
Glossy edges around the side of the device also provide an added touch of bling with the shiny stainless steel reminiscent of the original iPhone.

There’s very little not to like about the way the iPhone X looks but there are some minor niggles.
The dual-lens camera on the rear of the phone is a bit of an eye sore and for some strange reason its edges feel quite sharp when they touch your skin.
There’s also a slightly odd lip at the top of the screen where Apple has placed the speaker and front-facing TrueDepth camera.
This black bar hasn’t particularly bothered us but you should be aware that it does slightly hinder the viewing experience especially when watching content on the otherwise perfect display.
And what a screen this is.
Apple has included an OLED Super Retina display for the first time on their iPhones and we really like what we’ve seen.
The US technology giant hasn’t followed some of its rivals with over the top and saturated colours.
Instead, this display brings a much more true-to-life experience which we definitely prefer.

Specifications

In terms of processor, RAM, storage and battery the iPhone X offers the following:

A11 Bionic chip
3GB RAM
Six-core CPU
An Apple-designed GPU (which has three cores and is capable of powering AR at 60fps, as well as enabling new machine learning and 3D games.)
Storage of 64GB or 256GB
Battery life that’s two hours more than the iPhone 7, according to Apple.

The iPhone X represents a new direction for Apple. Many of the new features you are seeing for the first time the iPhone X will probably soon appear on all iPhones and iPads. Here we have Face ID and a collection of components that can be used for Augmented Reality in ways that we probably can’t even imagine right now. We also have Apple’s first OLED and HDR screen - the first time Apple has felt that OLED can meet its exacting requirements.
The iPhone X doesn't get all the new features though. There are plenty of features that the iPhone X shares with the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus - including the A11 Bionic Chip. Below we will look in more detail at screen, gestures, Face ID, core internals, cameras and battery life.

Screen

The key benefit to having a screen that covers the entire face of the phone is that Apple has been able to fit a 5.8in display into an iPhone that is actually smaller than the iPhone 8 Plus, which has a 5.5in screen.
But there’s more to it than that. This is the first time an iPhone has been available with an OLED screen. It’s actually the first time an OLED has been available that met Apple’s standards and the screen does indeed look stunning.
OLEDs have a lot of excellent features including absolute blacks for a superior contrast ratio and a wider viewing angle, but they can suffer from screen-burn - a ‘ghost’ image that remains on the screen (something plaguing the Google Pixel 2), colour shifting can also be a problem. Apple says that it has taken steps to guard against screen-burn and burn-in mitigation appears to be built into iOS 11. Read about how to avoid screen burn on the iPhone X here.

The iPhone X's OLED enhances the look and feel of iOS 11 without saturating the colour palette quite as much as on the Samsung Galaxy S8. Colours are bold and bright and the whites more true to life, but perhaps a shade more yellowy than on the iPhone 8 Plus. Viewing angles are excellent, with a decent range of brightness settings, including Apple’s True-Tone feature that adjusts the display based on the ambient lighting conditions.

Price

We absolutely adore the iPhone X but it does come with a very futuristic price.
Owning this flagship device will set you back at least £999 for the 64GB model and this increases to over £1,100 if you want 256GB of storage.
This is now the most expensive iPhone ever and makes all of the flagship Android competition look like an absolute bargain.
Contract deals aren’t much cheaper either with most prices starting from around £60 per month plus a fairly hefty upfront fee.