TechCrunch reviews Apple’s iPhone X: ‘Like using the future of smartphones, today’
“Four phones and three years ago, I took the first iPhones to ‘go big’ to the ‘happiest place on earth’ for a road test,” Matthew Panzarino writes for TechCrunch. “The review struck a chord, and it remains the one people talk to me about the most. So I’m back on my… business… and did it again. I’ve had the iPhone X for a week and decided to put it back through the same gauntlet.”
“Early last week, I went to Cupertino to pick up the iPhone X,” Panzarino writes. “Now, let’s answer the question everyone wants to know… Face ID works really well. First, it’s incredibly easy to set up. You choose to enable it and then rotate your nose around the points of a clock twice. That’s it. Second, it worked the vast majority of times I tried it, it never once unlocked using a picture of myself or another person’s face and the failure rate seemed to be about the same as Touch ID — aka almost never. As hoped, it’s definitely faster than the first generation of Touch ID, though perhaps slightly slower than the second gen. At several points, the unlock procedure worked so well in pitch black or at weird angles that I laughed out loud.”
“Now, about that notch. It’s caused a lot of consternation and I completely get why people hate it. They view it as a compromise — and it is,” Panzarino writes. “In use, I have to say, the notch is just zero problem for me. I don’t give a rat’s ass about it. I know I’ll probably catch heat but I’m not carrying water for Apple here. I think it is absolutely a compromise but, after using Face ID and the True Depth camera for other stuff, I am willing to deal with it… If, however, you use your iPhone for data entry or browsing or whatever in landscape, the True Depth camera is going to be bang in your way, especially if it’s on the left. No getting around it. If that bothers you, don’t get an iPhone X.”
“Overall, using the iPhone X well takes some time. It’s a big change from a physical home button to a completely swipe-based interface. But it’s fast, fluid and a lot of fun once you get used to it. Before you know it, you’ll forget you ever had to whack a home button to get things done,” Panzarino writes. “There are some rough edges here and there. The notch isn’t for everyone, and the screen does have some color issues at extreme viewing angles. But overall Apple bet big on a bunch of technologies all at once on the iPhone X and it delivered almost across the board. It really is like using the future of smartphones, today.”
MacDailyNews Take: Hey, we’re no dummies. We’re already working on “notch acclimation” (dealing with it, in Panzarino’s parlance) ahead of our iPhone X deliveries on Friday:
