Initial reviews of the iPhone X

The new iPhone X is a big departure from the past decade of iPhones.  The screen is edge-to-edge, with a notch at the top.  The home button goes from being the single most distinctive feature on an iPhone to non-existent.  And for the first time, the iPhone uses infrared sensors to recognize your face.  We’ve heard lots from Apple about this new phone, but I’ve been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to hear from independent reviewers.  Yesterday, we saw the first set of reviews from over two dozen media outlets.  (Joe Rossignol of MacRumors has compiled a fairly complete list.)  Overall, the reviews of been incredibly positive.  All of the reviewers found that using your face to unlock an iPhone instead of your fingerprint works really well, and most of them quickly concluded that it is an improvement.  All of the reviewers loved the incredibly high-quality screen (the first iPhone to use OLED) which goes edge-to-edge.  Many of them noted that it takes a little time to get used to the new features, but of course that is true with any technology improvement.  If you want to learn more about the iPhone X, here are the reviews that I recommend:

• If you want something relatively short that covers the key features, Jim Dalrymple of The Loop has this first look at the iPhone X.
• Jason Snell of Six Colors also wrote a helpful review of the iPhone X.  He calls his review “Tomorrow’s iPhone today” and that is a good three-word summary because the iPhone X really does start a new chapter in iPhone features.
• Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch was one of the few reviewers to have the opportunity to try out the iPhone X for a week; most of the other reviewers had less than 24 hours to write their initial reviews.  His review is less technical than others and focuses on how the iPhone X works in real world usage.
• If you want all of the nitty gritty details and you have time to read it, Rene Ritchie of iMore wrote the most comprehensive review of the iPhone X.
• Attorney Nilay Patel of The Verge notes that “the iPhone X looks so good one of our video editors kept saying it looked fake” and says it “is clearly the best iPhone ever made.”
• Lance Ulanoff of Mashable has a longer but very good review with great pictures.
• David Phelan of The Independent in the UK was of the other very few journalists to have over a week with the iPhone X.  His written review is good, but I thought that his short video review (at the top of his written review) was one of the best videos for getting a sense of what it is like to hold and use the iPhone X.
• I’ll mention two other video reviews which are excellent.  First, David Pogue of Yahoo — who has been reviewing iPhones since the original iPhone 10 years ago — has a great video review at the top of his written review.  He is also the only reviewer to mention and show off the virtual green screen in Apple’s Clips app — a feature which is neat on its own, and also makes me wonder what creative third party developers will be able to do in the future with the advanced front facing cameras on the iPhone X.
• And finally, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal focuses her review on just one new features of the iPhone X: using the new FaceID system to unlock the phone with your face instead of your fingerprint.  She put it to the test, even going to the trouble of having a mask made of her own face.  As you can see in this video (embedded below and also included in the written review), the iPhone X does incredibly well: