The new iPhone X (pronounced “iPhone ten”) looks nothing like any iPhone we’re familiar with. It’s almost all screen, there’s no Home button and Touch ID has been replaced with Face ID.
But there’s a lot more to the iPhone X than meets the eye. Right from the monstrous new A 11 chip to the new Portrait lighting feature in the cameras. Here are all the best iPhone X features that you should know about.
Also read: These iPhone X Features Are Not Available on iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus
1. All-New Design
The iPhone X doesn’t look like any other iPhone. The front of the device is almost all screen. There’s the infamous notch at the top but that’s it. There’s no chin area. No capacitive Home button, no Touch ID sensor.
There’s glass on the back this time. Apple says it’s the strongest glass ever put on a smartphone. It’s has a 7-layered design with a steel sheet infused in there.
The iPhone X is all about the curves. All four edges of the screen have rounded edges and the curves align perfectly with the rounded corners of the iPhone’s body.
2. 5.8 inch OLED Display
The front of the device is almost all screen. Apple’s calling it a Super Retina Display. It’s an OLED display (another first for the iPhone) that stretches 5.8 inches diagonally, has a resolution of 2436×1125 with a pixel density of 458 PPI.
Plus, the display supports True Tone technology so it will automatically change the color temperature of the screen depending on your surroundings.
The iPhone X also supports HDR (including Dolby Vision). This means watching movies and media mastered in HDR will be an amazing experience on the iPhone.
3. A11 Bionic CPU
The new A11 system on chip is an engineering marvel. We’ve already seen the early benchmarks and it’s an absolute beast. It has a 6 core system. 2 of them are high powered and 4 of them are high efficiency. And the high powered cores are 25% faster than the A10 Fusion chip (70% for high-efficiency cores).
This time Apple has designed its own GPU as well. It’s a 3 core system, which is up to 30 percent faster than A10 Fusion.
4. Dual OIS in Rear Cameras
The rear cameras are placed vertically this time. The telephoto lens gets a smaller f/2.8 aperture and for the first time, the telephoto lens also gets optical image stabilization. Now videos and low light photos will be much better.
The flash has been improved as well. It’s now a quad LED true tone flash.
5. Portrait Lighting
The new Portrait Lighting feature uses the A 11 chip to scan the background of the photo in real time. It then isolates the background from the subject. And this time, instead of blurring it, the software provides you with differents ways for changing the background light. You can even turn the whole background dark, without affecting the subject.
6. Face ID and TrueDepth Camera
There’s no Touch ID authentication system on the iPhone X. Just look at the iPhone X to unlock the device or to pay with Apple Pay.
Everything takes place using the TrueDepth camera system in the top notch. There’s a flood illuminator, dot projector and an IR camera which works together to authenticate your face.
The dot projector matches 30,000 dots on your face. Face ID is designed so that it learns your face. Changing your hairstyle or growing a beard won’t trip Face ID.
Face ID is designed so that it can’t be fooled by photos and even 3D masks. The system works on attention. It will only work when you’re actively looking at your device.
7. Gesture Based Interface
There’s no Home button on the iPhone X. Instead, there’s a bar at the bottom of the screen. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to unlock the phone or to go back to the Home screen. Swipe up and hold a bit to get to the App Switcher. To invoke Siri or Apple Pay, use the Side button.
To bring up the Control Center, you can swipe down on the right of the status bar, while you can access the Lock screen/Notification Center by swiping down on the left of the status bar. You can swipe down in the middle of the Home screen for search.
8. Portrait Mode Selfies
iPhone X is going to take your selfie game to a whole new level. The front facing shooter is still a 7MP unit. But now that we have TrueDepth system in the notch, it can be used to do some interesting things like depth mapping. This brings Portrait mode selfies with depth effect to the iPhone X. Oh and the Portrait lighting feature works here as well.
9. Animoji
Apple has invented its own animated emoji system. They show up as an app in the Messages app. Just hold your iPhone up to your face and the expression you make will be transcribed to the animated emoji. You can send a still to a conversation or record a video as an animoji (along with audio).
You’ll find amimojis like panda, unicorn, robot and even internet’s favorite poop emoji.
10. Wireless Charging
Thanks to the new glass back, the iPhone X supports wireless charging. And surprisingly, Apple is using the industry standard this time. Any Qi wireless charging stand should work with the iPhone. But as this is Apple we’re talking about, they’re working on a better version of the wireless charging base that will charge the iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods at the same time. The AirPower charging pad won’t be available until the next year though.
Bonus: Better Battery Life
Thanks to the new OLED display and A 11’s four high-efficiency cores, the iPhone X has 2 hours more battery life than the iPhone 7. Plus the new iPhone X supports fast charging. You can charge it up to 50% in just 30 minutes. The only downside is that you’ll need to buy a separate fast charger. Apple’s 29W USB-C power adapter is priced at $49.
Will You Be Buying The iPhone X?
Just like the iPhone 8, the iPhone X is water and dust resistant.
The iPhone X only comes in two storage tiers – 64 GB and 256 GB. The 64 GB version costs $999 and the 256 GB version costs $1149. Preorders start on October 27 and the iPhone X will ship on November 3rd.
What do you think of the new iPhone? Will you be buying the iPhone X on day one or will you wait for reviews to make sure Face ID works as advertised? Share with us in the comments below.
