iPhone X review

OUR VERDICT

The iPhone X was a huge gamble from Apple, but one that really paid off. Losing the home button and altering the design was a dangerous move, but one that was sorely needed after years of similarity and the premium design, extra power, all-screen front mix together to create - by far - the best iPhone Apple's ever made. It's impossible to give a perfect score to something that costs this much - but this is the closest to smartphone perfection Apple has ever got.

+ FOR

• Great screen
• Premium, strong design
• TrueDepth camera is powerful

- AGAINST

• The most expensive flagship phone around
• Metal rim can scuff without case
• 
  

The iPhone X is the huge leap forward that Apple's handsets needed. Aside from the original iPhone in 2007, this new iPhone is set to have the biggest impact on Apple’s smartphone direction ever.

[Update: We've been using the iPhone X for a few weeks now, so check out our updated findings throughout this review]

Apple itself is calling it the future of the smartphone, the embodiment of what it’s been trying to achieve for a decade. But while the iPhone X is all about premium parts and an all-new experience, it’s a huge gamble for the Cupertino brand too as it tries to reclaim some leadership in smartphone innovation.

Losing key, reliable elements like the Touch ID fingerprint scanner, the home button; introducing new methods of navigating and unlocking the phone – and charging a lot more for the privilege – seems risky for a company that was already treading new ground by doing away with the traditional headphone jack last year.

But the iPhone X is the handset we’ve been demanding from Apple for years – a world away from the increasingly-tired designs that those who just want a new iPhone have had to make do with. 

iPhone X Price and release date

• Released on November 3
• The most expensive flagship phone on the market
• Comes in 64GB and 256GB options

It’s almost pointless to discuss the price of the iPhone X – it’s the most expensive flagship phone on the market, but iPhone users are more willing than most to look past cost. 

But, while the focus here is going to be on the technology, we still need to at least mention the price and release date.

The iPhone X costs $999 / £999 / AU$1,579 for the basic, 64GB model. If you want the larger 256GB model it’s going to cost you $1,149 / £1,149 / AU$1,829 for the privilege.

Word is that Apple is looking at a cheaper variant for 2018, as it looks to bring the bezel-less form factor to a lower-cost, non-OLED variant... but that's strictly rumor for now.

If you want to buy the iPhone X you can already pre-order it – the window for doing so opened on October 27. We mention that because while the iPhone X release date was November 3, stock it still rather limited. However, we're seeing more available than anticipated, despite rumors of the phone selling well, so if you want one it shouldn't be too long before you can get your hands on one.

Screen

• By far the best screen on an iPhone
• Clear, vibrant colors
• Notch at top slightly irks, but doesn’t get in the way

The first thing you’ll notice about the new iPhone is hard to miss: the new screen blazes into your eyes the second you pick up the handset.

The 5.8-inch OLED display is, quite simply, the best thing Apple has ever crammed into an iPhone. It’s leaps ahead of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus for so many reasons: the sharpness, the quality, the fact that it fills the whole front of the phone, and the color reproduction.

It’s also using a new, longer, screen, but while it looks larger than the iPhone 8 Plus’ 5.5-inch display on paper, it’s only marginally bigger in terms of actual screen real estate – it’s just stretched upwards.

OLED technology means you’re getting deeper blacks and more blinding whites, so everything from websites to the photos you take will look a little better. 

Some will point to the fact that Samsung has been using OLED screens on its phones since the first Galaxy, but Apple counters that by saying it’s only now that the technology is good enough for its phones.

On the face of it that sounds defensive, but when you use the iPhone X you can see it’s a screen that’s incredibly, well, Apple. 

It’s not the sharpest or most colorful screen on a smartphone, but it’s clean, crisp and doesn’t suffer from terrible color shifts when you move it around. It’s a great display to look at, and that’s what you want on a phone.

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It's also been dubbed the best in the world, by the esteemed DisplayMate testing, showing that it's the brightest and more color-accurate OLED on the market and good off-centre brightness shifts - showing Apple can tune the tech from Samsung really well.

The term ‘bezel-less’ has been bandied about for the iPhone X, but that doesn’t really tell the right story. Yes, there are slight bands around the edges of the screen, but they don’t mar the experience – they give the fingers something to land on, preventing accidental touches of the screen.

Apple could reduce these further in the future and offer a more visually-appealing iPhone, but on the X the experience is still striking.

Talking of visual appeal, the notch at the top of the iPhone X is something that’s going to divide opinion, and that’s fair. Apple has taken this little chunk out of the top of the screen to house the new TrueDepth camera, and it encroaches on the display.

In portrait mode it’s hard to notice it’s there, and the way the notifications bar spills around it is nice. 

However, place the phone in landscape mode and it’s far more noticeable; it’s an irritant when you’re watching movies, as when we wanted to expand them to fill the screen (one of the real beauties of having a longer display) elements of the action were cut out by the notch.

The longer screen is also thinner though - this means there's less real estate for typing. We didn't notice this at the start, but when flipping between the X and an older iPhone, you'll really see there's less space for your digits to tap onto.

While we’re talking about that longer screen, the 18:9 format is something we’ve seen on a number of other phones this year, and in the Android world the apps are largely encoded to fill the display just fine.

On the iPhone X, however, that’s not the case, with many apps we used packing massive black bars above and below the display. That's quickly started to improve though, and each day more apps update for the longer screen.