5 Things I Love About iPhone X

iPhone X is now my primary phone since Jan 27 and I have since put my iPhone 6s and iPhone 7 Plus into storage. I got the 256GB version of iPhone X for $2249 and that was inclusive of Apple Care.

Although it’s expensive, I still feel that it’s valued for money.

Here are five things that I love about the iPhone X.

Face ID

Using Touch ID to unlock your phone with it is pretty convenient, compared to typing in your passcode, especially when your passcode is more than 6 characters long. However, Touch ID doesn’t really work when your fingers are wet. It’s particularly irritating if you are suffering from hyperhidrosis because your fingers are wet most of the time. I spent half of the time unlocking my phone using my passcode. Face ID changes the way phone is unlocked.

With Face ID, I just need to glance at it when the display is on and swipe up. It works correctly like 98% of the time. The times it doesn’t work is when I didn’t put the phone far enough for the camera to detect my face correctly. All you need to do is to cancel the passcode screen, reposition the iPhone, and swipe up again. And it will work again.

Super Retina HD and OLED Display

Apple made the OLED Super Retina HD display way better than the competition. The OLED used made blacks really black. When you play games like Inside, you actually feel like you are in a dystopian world because of the OLED display. Combined with the Super Retina HD, everything looks crisp and sharp.

With the wide color gamut, colors from videos and games are just popping out and looks great. It just made the whole viewing experiences much better than iPhone 7 Plus.

Overall Design

The all screen design with the thin bezels immerses you into whatever you are viewing. The way it follows the edge of the phone, joining up to the highly polished stainless steal band which then transit to a glass back made everything look really seamless. It is almost like the whole device is one solid thing.

And the controversial notch on top of the phone? It was one of the most unique and striking feature of the phone. It made the phone easily identifiable. In someway, it looks like the phone has very nice looking horns. I love just how original it was.

Size

At 14.36cm tall and 7.09cm wide, iPhone X is smaller than iPhone 7 Plus at 15.82cm tall and 7.79cm wide. It is much easier to hold and with it’s all screen design, screen estate is not compromise. You still get to see as much content as you can on a iPhone 7 Plus.

On the other hand, iPhone 7 or even iPhone 8 is way too small. The bezels and the home button take up much of the screen real estate and make webpages, images and videos too small for comfortable viewing.

Speakers

iPhone X has better sounding speakers than iPhone 7 Plus. With the volume bar set at center, it’s is louder. The sound are crispier and the bass is more perceivable. Even at a 75%, the sounds produced don’t crackle.

Bonus: Performance

With its new A11 Bionic chip, the phone is snappy and doesn’t have noticeable slowdown when watching videos, or playing games, and listening to music.

Switching between apps when multitasking also doesn’t feel slow and could keep up with me, enabling a more productive day.

Friday Tech News Roundup #21

Below are 10 tech news that I found interesting and are related to topics I care about.

Apple on Meltdown and Spectre bugs: ‘All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected’ – Apple just confirmed that nearly all of its devices are impacted by the serious vulnerabilities affecting processors made by Intel and other chip makers. Mashable

Cybersecurity agency: The only sure defense against huge chip flaw is a new chip – The tech world continues to come to grips with Wednesday’s revelation of very serious vulnerabilities associated with central processing units (CPUs) that affect, well, just about everyone with a computer. Mashable

The iMac Pro is tough to repair but has vastly improved cooling – Apple’s iMac Pro is the most powerful desktop computer Apple has ever created — well, at least until the launch of the all-new Mac Pro later this year. Mashable

Intel claims its new security updates make PCs ‘immune’ to Meltdown and Spectre CPU bugs – Intel says it and its partners have “made significant progress” in rolling out security patches and firmware updates to protect against two major CPU bugs. The flaws were disclosed by Google’s Project Zero team this week, and the industry is scrambling to issue fixes and secure machines for customers. Dubbed “Meltdown” and “Spectre,” the flaws affect nearly every device made in the past 20 years, and could allow attackers to use JavaScript code running in a browser to access memory in the attacker’s process. That memory content could contain key strokes, passwords, and other valuable information. The Verge

Burn-in test shows the iPhone X beating Samsung’s Note 8 and S7 Edge – As more phones are launched with OLED displays, burn-in problems have become even more relevant. As part of its ongoing iPhone X review, Korean tech site Cetizen tested Apple’s handset against Samsung’s Note 8 and S7 Edge in a burn-in test, and it was the iPhone that came out on top. Techspot

iOS 11.2.5 beta delivers Siri-powered, hands-free news podcasts – If you’re the type of person who tends to wake up to a cup of coffee and a newspaper, you might now be able to eliminate both of those steps if you own an iPhone. As reported by 9to5Mac, iPhone owners who opt in to Apple’s iOS 11.2.5 beta will be given the opportunity to stream a news podcast by simply saying “Hey Siri, give me the news.” Techspot

Apple just shared some staggering statistics about how well the App Store is doing – Apple has an annual tradition in early January of announcing how well its App Store is doing. Business Insider

Here’s what happens with your data when you use a Chinese messaging app – Verbal sparring between two Chinese billionaires over data privacy has shone a rare spotlight onto a topic in China that has also dogged global social media companies from Facebook to Twitter: who owns the content generated by the users and how to handle it. Business Insider

Chrome is turning into the new Internet Explorer 6 – Chrome is now the most popular browser across all devices, thanks to Android’s popularity and the rise of Chrome on Windows PCs and Mac computers. As Google continues to dominate our access to the web, information through its search engine, and services like Gmail or YouTube, Chrome is a powerful entry point in the company’s vast toolbox. While Google championed web standards that worked across many different browsers back in the early days of Chrome, more recently its own services often ignore standards and force people to use Chrome. The Verge

Intel Titan Ridge Thunderbolt controllers look to the future and the past – Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) can be pretty awesome, even if getting access to the 40 Gbps of bandwidth isn’t as straightforward as Intel has advertised. The standard has yet to really spread across the entire PC market, as it’s currently reserved primarily for relatively high-end laptops and Apple’s premium products. Intel is hoping to spread the adoption of TB3 with its just-announced JHL7x40 “Titan Ridge” series of TB3 controller chips. Techreport

10 Tech News Roundup #12

Here are 10 tech news that I found interesting.

Apple’s record services revenue suggests growth in Apple Pay, Apple Music – Everyone’s favorite almost-trillion-dollar company reported fourth quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday. And while much of the attention was on stellar iPhone sales, Apple wants to make sure that people know its services business is doing great, too. Techcrunch

Twitter employee deactivates Trump’s account on their last day – President Trump’s infamous Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump went offline briefly on Thursday, setting forth a wave of confusion and emotions. Techcrunch

Dashlane universal password manager comes to Linux, Chromebook and Microsoft Edge – Dashlane, a popular password manager that now reaches 9 million users, is launching today on Linux, Chromebook, and in Microsoft Edge for the first time. The company before required users to install its desktop software to work with web browsers, but with today’s release of Dashlane 5, the software is available as an extension that works directly in the browser. The update also includes other improvements for mobile, like support for Face ID on iPhone X and automatic app logins on Android. Techcrunch

The iPhone X’s TrueDepth camera could be a privacy nightmare – The iPhone X is officially here, and with it comes a bevy of new bells and whistles that Apple promises justify the smartphone’s hefty price tag.

Microsoft’s new HoloLens business push includes 29 new countries – Microsoft first unveiled its HoloLens headset almost three years ago, and the company continues to sell them to developers and commercial customers. While HoloLens seemed like a product that would change a lot over time, Microsoft appears to have found specific customers that are willing to adopt the headsets early: firstline workers and information workers. These might not be consumers at home running around playing games with HoloLens, but the headsets are now being widely used in organizations for remote assistance, training, and prototyping. The Verge

Google is apparently shipping some Pixel 2 XLs without an operating system – Google’s new Pixel 2 XL has been beset by a host of problems since release, ranging from possible issues of screen burn in to a weird clicking noise to failing a quality control test to shipping with empty packaging for a non-existent pair of wired Pixel Buds. The Verge

Razer unveils its first smartphone, the gamer-focused Razer Phone – Razer at a press event in London on Wednesday unveiled its first-ever smartphone, the Razer Phone. Described by CEO Min-Liang Tan as the ultimate in mobile entertainment, the Razer Phone features a 5.7-inch, 120Hz Sharp IGZO display with Ultramotion adaptive refresh rate technology and a quad HD resolution of 2,560 x 1,440. Techspot

Nvidia Charts AI Inroads, Inference Challenge at DC Event – As developers flock to artificial intelligence frameworks in response to the explosion of intelligence machines, training deep learning models has emerged as a priority along with syncing them to a growing list of neural and other network designs. HPC Wire

Bitcoin hits all-time high after CME Group says to launch futures – Bitcoin jumped to an all-time high above US$6,300 on Tuesday, after the world’s largest futures market operator CME Group said it would launch a regulated trading venue for cryptocurrencies in the fourth quarter of 2017. Channel Newsasia

Grab, the Uber rival in Southeast Asia, is now officially also a digital payments company – Grab is best known for rivaling Uber in Southeast Asia, but today the company took a major step into becoming a fintech player, too. Techcrunch