Finally managed to play with the iPhone X briefly at an Apple store.
The finish seems really sleek, the chrome and glass makes it like a real bling. Handling is really smooth in the hand. However, personally I don't like shiny chrome on my electronics anymore. Heck, even Apple put a muted matte chamfered metal on the SE vs the shiny chrome-like chamfer on the 5/5S. I guess I'm used to the less shiny aluminum materials on previous iPhones. I hope Apple put a matte version for next year.
The screen looks great. It does feel more immersive when using the edge-to-edge screen. One thing I find annoying is that reachability cannot seem to be activated reliably. Seems like it's fine at first try, but next effort to activate it is a hit-n-miss. But it was reliable again once I turn the feature off and on again. Really annoying, and shows that iOS11 still needs a lot of work (the demo unit has 11.1).
Other than that, it feels just like an iPhone. Surprisingly, Apple managed to change up the phone yet keep it the same so people can get familiar with it quickly. I get used to the gestures pretty quickly during my short time playing with the phone. It feels "natural," probably because we are already doing those gestures, albeit for different functions (eg. swiping up for home, we've been doing swiping up for control center for a while, so although the function is new, the gesture itself is not).
I do hope the A11 has enough GPU power for at least 5 years. All these gestures feel fine and natural because the phone can keep up with the UI animation, making every action fluid. It will be extremely annoying if there's a bit hint of lag/stutter. The A7 on my mini2 is already showing its age when it stutters when invoking multitasking in iOS11. I cannot imagine how annoying it would be if the iPhone X, which relies more on gestures, stutters in iOS14/15.
The finish seems really sleek, the chrome and glass makes it like a real bling. Handling is really smooth in the hand. However, personally I don't like shiny chrome on my electronics anymore. Heck, even Apple put a muted matte chamfered metal on the SE vs the shiny chrome-like chamfer on the 5/5S. I guess I'm used to the less shiny aluminum materials on previous iPhones. I hope Apple put a matte version for next year.
The screen looks great. It does feel more immersive when using the edge-to-edge screen. One thing I find annoying is that reachability cannot seem to be activated reliably. Seems like it's fine at first try, but next effort to activate it is a hit-n-miss. But it was reliable again once I turn the feature off and on again. Really annoying, and shows that iOS11 still needs a lot of work (the demo unit has 11.1).
Other than that, it feels just like an iPhone. Surprisingly, Apple managed to change up the phone yet keep it the same so people can get familiar with it quickly. I get used to the gestures pretty quickly during my short time playing with the phone. It feels "natural," probably because we are already doing those gestures, albeit for different functions (eg. swiping up for home, we've been doing swiping up for control center for a while, so although the function is new, the gesture itself is not).
I do hope the A11 has enough GPU power for at least 5 years. All these gestures feel fine and natural because the phone can keep up with the UI animation, making every action fluid. It will be extremely annoying if there's a bit hint of lag/stutter. The A7 on my mini2 is already showing its age when it stutters when invoking multitasking in iOS11. I cannot imagine how annoying it would be if the iPhone X, which relies more on gestures, stutters in iOS14/15.