The Cupertino-based tech giant, Apple, recently unveiled their 10th-anniversary phone, the iPhone X, alongside the regular iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus. The unveiling took place on September 12 at the Steve Jobs theatre on the Apple Campus in Cupertino. "It is the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone," says Apple CEO Tim Cook about the iPhone X. What makes the iPhone X so special? Let us get to know all the special features of the new iPhone.
Display
For the first time ever, Apple used an OLED display on an iPhone, and the company calls it as a Super Retina Display. The display measures 5.8 inches, it comes with a resolution of 2436 × 1125 pixels, and it fits from edge-to-edge and top to bottom. Apple claims that, unlike the traditional OLED panels, their Super Retina Display is way better and it has support for Dolby Vision and HDR10 for incredible high-contrast video playback.
The iPhone X also packs a feature called TrueTone display which basically provides right kind of whites you need by adjusting according to the surrounding lighting. Other highlights of the display include one million-to-one contrast ratio, 3D Touch and great colour accuracy. The biggest missing thing here is the home button, just like before you can raise the phone to wake, else you can now tap on the screen.
FaceID
Previous generation iPhones came with TochID where you can unlock your phone just with your fingerprint. Now if you just look at the iPhone X it recognises you and instantly unlocks the device. Apple is calling this revolutionary technology as FaceID. This is really a complicated technology and it was made possible by TrueDepth camera system which is located in the notch at the top of the display.
You look at the iPhone X, it illuminates your face using the flood illuminator(it works even in the dark), then follows the infrared dot projector which projects 30k invisible IR dots onto your face to create a mathematical model of it. This model is checked with the already stored one which you have set up earlier. Face data isn't sent to the cloud and it is stored in the secured enclave within the device. All this is done in collaboration with the A11 Bionic neural engine.
For the unaware, the FaceID adapts to you down the line and Apple claims that it will not get confused by beards, makeup, hats, hairstyles, sunglasses, etc. According to Apple, the chance that a random person could use their face to unlock your iPhone is 1 in 1,000,000. For TouchID it was 1 in 50,000, and this new technology seems to very promising. Lastly, the FaceID also works with Apple Pay and other third-party apps.
Design and Build Quality
The design is head-turning, and Apple is shaking things up with its all-new design. The metal frame which is made of surgical-grade stainless steel is sandwiched between two glass panels. As we have already discussed, on the front there is a bezel-less display with a tiny notch at the top of the display.
After the iPhone 4s, Apple had adopted to metal design, but now it has resurrected the glass-back to have support for wireless charging. The glass and the metal frame form a seamless surface and make it incredible to hold. On the bottom, there are two speaker grills which are present on either side of the lightning port.
Camera and Hardware
The iPhone X has a dual-camera setup on the rear, featuring dual 12-megapixel sensors. Both the sensors are having optical image stabilization, the wide-angle lens has a f/1.8 aperture and there is a faster f/2.4 aperture on the telephoto lens. Other new features include a new colour filter, deeper pixels, and Quad-LED True Tone flash. Apple says that the pictures taken on iPhone X have great dynamic range, detail, and low noise.
The iPhone X is powered by a 64-bit A11 Bionic chip, and this time Apple made its own GPU in-house, which according to Apple is 30 percent faster than the existing one. The A11 Bionic chip has a built-in neural engine to support FaceID i.e., to process images in real time. The six-core processor is coupled with 3GB of RAM, and this bad boy is powered by a massive 2,716mAh battery. Lastly, the iPhone X also comes with AR capabilities.
Best Competitors
The best rivals for iPhone X will be the Pixel XL 2, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. Despite its not-so-revolutionary design, Pixel XL 2 managed to grab the attention of the people with its bleeding-edge software, and also the single yet extremely powerful rear camera. The Galaxy Note 8, on the other hand, also turned many heads with its beautiful design and the dual-camera setup.
Expected Price, Where to Buy, and Best Deals
The 64GB variant of the iPhone X is expected to be priced at Rs. 89,000, and the 256GB variant might run you Rs. 1,02,000. You can buy the phone through Flipkart, and all the Apple authorised resellers. There is also a word on the street that Reliance Jio and Citi bank might have got some special deals up their sleeves.