It's not ever so slightly. I don't have to think about positioning my phone or my head to get FaceID to work. I just pick up my phone and look at it as I would to interact with it. Sure it would be nice if I didn't have to pick it up and could just leave it sitting on a table and unlock from an angle. It would also be nice if TouchID worked through gloves or with wet fingers. These systems have limitations. For me personally, FaceID beats TouchID. If the table thing is important for you, you can sell it and get the iPhone 8 instead. Perhaps they will combine FaceID and TouchID in a future model, or at least expand the dot projector so that it works at wider angles. I think they will do the latter.
As much as I prefer FaceID to the TouchID on my iPad, they will have to make a couple of advances to FaceID before it will be ready for the iPad: The iPad is meant to be as much of a tabletop device as it is meant to be handheld. It will need to work in landscape as well as portrait orientation, and it will need to work at a bit more of an angle. I often use my iPad on a table at a shallow angle. I don't really do that with my iPhone, because for me an iPhone is a handheld device. The only time my iPhone X is usually sitting on a flat surface, it's on a stand at a steeper angle on my desk. The stand makes it much more visible and easier to interact with when it comes to notifications. It also allows FaceID to work flawlessly. If I see a notification come in out of the corner of my eye, I can just look at my iPhone and it unlocks to display the full text. I get that we don't all use our iPhones the same way, but i'd say the way FaceID currently works is that it assumes you are holding your iPhone in your hand (or that it is at least mounted at a distance and angle that facilitates viewing and unlocking). If tabletop usage is important for you, waiting for a future version of FaceID with a hopefully more forgiving angle requirement might be necessary.
