Even though iPhone X is one of the most anticipated smartphones of this year, its launch wasn’t as exciting. Apple today announced the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus at its new headquarters. And as the features of these three phones were being unfolded, we realised how most of the leaks were turning out to be true eventually.
iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus
Like Apple did during today’s announcement, we’ll also talk about the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus the first. The duo is the ‘regular’ set of iPhones that follow the annual update cycle and this year was no different for them. Leaving their names aside, the two phones are just an incremental update over the last year’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
Both the phones look exactly the same as their predecessors except the back, which is now made out of glass. This sandwich design will now come in three colour options – Silver, Space Gray, and Gold Finish. The glass design has been chosen to incorporate Qi wireless inductive charging, like what leaks had confirmed earlier.
The display on both the devices comes with the same size and meagre resolution as the earlier devices did but the internals have got a significant boost. Apple calls its new processor A11 Bionic SoC that is a six-core processor coupled with an improved GPU. Like the case has always been, the processing power of both the iPhones would remain unmatched. Their RAM capacity will be known only after someone tears the devices down as Apple doesn’t reveal this piece of information.
Their cameras have also been significantly improved, as per Apple, and both the devices can now shoot slow motion 1080p videos as 240fps. The all-new iPhones will be shipping with only two storage variants – 64GB and 256GB, and they will be priced at $699 and $849 respectively for the iPhone 8 and $799 and $949 for the iPhone 8 Plus for the same storage variants. Pre-orders will begin on September 15 and they will ship a week later.
iPhone X
The iPhone X was the star of the show today and the rest of the launches were just the fillers. Once again, the leaks proved to be absolutely correct for many of the features and specifications of the iPhone X. To start with, the phone does come with an edge-to-edge 5.8-inch display that has a resolution of 1125 x 2436 pixels. The screen resolution seems a bit low buy the 2017 standards despite offering a respectable 458ppi.
This is the largest display any iPhone has ever had and probably the best one as well. Apple has used an OLED panel which is superior to the conventional LCD displays in all the aspects. Apple calls the display Super Retina Display.
Touch ID has been omitted in favour of Face ID, which Apple believes to be much safer than the fingerprint scanners. Apple has made some software as well as hardware changes to accommodate the functionalities of the home button. The iPhone X users will have to swipe up from any screen to go to the home screen and the enlarged lock button can be used to summon Siri.
In line with what we had earlier reported, the Face ID will make use of 3D capturing technology to make unlocking the device fool proof. It becomes even important as Apple Pay now relies on Face ID instead of Touch ID. The cut out on the top hosts a bunch of sensors to make this happen and it also has sensors to let you unlock your iPhone X even in dark.
Apple has used a new neural engine that recognizes the changes that have happened to your face over time and will adapt to them. This ensures faster facial recognition in any condition and you don’t need to register your face multiple times. The iPhone X will virtually project 30,000 IR dots on your face to read its detailed features and store that dot-map securely as a reference for future use.
All the other features and specifications are same as the iPhone 8 Plus, including the dual cameras and processor. The storage variants of iPhone X are also 64GB and 256B but their pricing is a bit higher. The iPhone X will start at $999 for 64GB variant and will go all the way up to $1149 for the 256GB variant. It will go on sale on November 3, a week after being on pre-orders.
