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Update: Apple's super expensive iPhone X may still be out of the reach of many people but Carphone Warehouse is offering a small reduction on the handset if you can spare the cash. As part of itsiPhone X deals, you can get the iPhone X for £959 SIM-free, down from the RRP of £999.
If you want to save a little more, and don't mind which network you sign up to, Vodafone is offering the iPhone X on a one-month contract. You pay an upfront cost of £919, a one-month fee of £15.50 – taking the total cost to £934 – and get 500MB, 500 minutes and unlimited texts.
Original article continues below
The iPhone X – pronounced iPhone “Ten” – is the expensive flagship handset Apple developed to mark the tenth anniversary of the original iPhone and it's startlingly similar to the Samsung Galaxy S8.
Yet labeling the iPhone X as little more than a look at what Samsung is doing in the smartphone space is a little unfair. Apple may not have invented the technologies it lays claim to, but it has been instrumental in bringing many to the mainstream.
Of course, Apple hasn’t always been at the forefront of tech – it added NFC long after Android phones and is jumping on the AR bandwagon more than a year since Pokémon GO’s peak – but it has the uncanny knack of waiting until consumers are ready to embrace these changes, rather than getting ahead of them. And this is exactly what it's done with the iPhone X.
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As you'll read below, the iPhone X is the best iPhone ever made, but there is a catch. We're reluctant to recommend anyone spend £1,000 on a phone and our list of flaws will reveal why. In a similar vein, Consumer Reports recently published its full breakdown of its iPhone X tests and it's a mixed bag of results. Firstly, the iPhone X did not beat its predecessor, the iPhone 8, during the rigorous review process. The iPhone X's battery life and strength were called into question and its price was a major sticking point for the company.
In the initial drop test, the iPhone X performed "just fine", and it surived four falls onto a concrete surface from a height of 5 feet. However, using a tumbling machine, which includes a rotating chamber that repeatedly drops a phone from a height of about 2.5 feet, the phone fared less well. After 100 tumbles, the glass on the rear of the phone significantly cracked. The screens stopped working properly after 50 drops.
However, Consumer Reports did praise the iPhone X's fantastic display (which we're in agreement with), and its camera is top notch. Despite its criticisms, the iPhone X did make the list of the top 10 smartphones on the market - so it's not all bad.
iPhone X review
Design
Apple deliberately saved its high-end features for the iPhone X and it’s unlike anything it’s released before.
It has the largest screen of any iPhone, at 5.8in and it stretches from edge to edge like those seen on the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note 8. This screen is Apple’s first foray into OLED displays, too, and to fit the larger screen onto the device the home button has been ditched. Instead, there’s a 'notch' that houses the phone’s Face ID camera (more on which later). You’d imagine this might make the handset feel large, but by maximising screen size without increasing the size of the handset, the iPhone X feels smaller than the iPhone 8 Plus. In fact, it’s closer in design and feel to the original iPhone than any of its recent predecessors.
The iPhone X is available in white with a chrome silver trim, and black, with a shiny dark grey trim, and is reminiscent of the iPhone 3GS in look if not build quality. This is a bold move away from its range of previous colours. There’s no gold or rose gold option anymore and neither model quite gives the phone the same stand out quality. iPhones are used (and have been sold as) statement handsets and they’re instantly recognisable; with its screen switched off, the the iPhone X looks very much like A N Other Android phone.
Made predominantly from glass reinforced with steel, a design move enforced by the inclusion of Qi wireless charging, the handset has a habit of picking up fingerprints ridiculously easily. This glass panelling doesn’t feel as cold as the metal handsets of yore, though, and there’s something reassuring about how its warmth adds to how attached you feel to it, even after a couple of minutes of use.
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Aside from the lack of home button, most other design features remain. The power and volume buttons are where you’d expect, preserving a modicum of familiarity. The iPhone X has IP67 dust and waterproofing and there’s still no 3.5mm headphone jack, sadly. To compensate for the lack of home button, Siri and Apple Pay features have moved to the side button, which also needs to be clicked when installing apps. You also now take a screenshot on the iPhone X by holding the right-hand button and volume up together, which feels very “Androidy”. The camera bump is fitted vertically rather than horizontally on the rear (to make room for the Face ID sensors) and this makes the phone noticeably wobble when placed on a flat surface.
All in all, the handset doesn’t have the pizazz or wow factor I was expecting but its specifications are impressive and they have understated, more subtle power which signifies something a little different for Apple.
iPhone X review: Face ID
The unsightly notch mentioned before, which encroaches from the top edge of the screen, replaces the Touch ID home button and it brings with it a new form of biometric authentication: Face ID.
Powered by Apple’s so-called TrueDepth camera system, this includes a number of sensors designed to recognise a person’s face, including a dot projector, infrared camera and flood illuminator (a fancy name for what is effectively a flash), all of which work together to scan your face when you look at it for the purposes of unlocking the phone and authenticating Apple Pay transactions.
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I was cynical at first but Face ID is incredibly slick and swiping up from the bottom of the screen as the phone unlocks soon becomes second nature. Setting up Face ID is far simpler than adding a fingerprint too, you simply roll your face in a circle, and it’s amazing just how smoothly all those sensors work with such little interaction.
Face ID works effortlessly with glasses and without, and even performs in dim or dark conditions. By comparison, Samsung’s iris recognition tech doesn’t work at all if you’re wearing glasses. Although we’ve had more failures with Face ID in the dark than at any other time, we’ve had only a small handful of failures in the two days we’ve been using it.
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