Tech

The first iPhone X reviews are here — and they're super positive

By Rob Price
iPhone X
Ooh. Shiny. Hollis Johnson
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  • The first iPhone X reviews are in, and they're highly positive.
  • Reviewers have praised the £999/$999 phone's camera and design.
  • But there are some issues with how apps look on the new screen.


It's just a few days until the iPhone X goes on sale, and the first reviews are starting to pour in.

And there's good news for Apple, and potential buyers: They're highly positive so far.

The iPhone X, Apple's 10th-anniversary device, is the biggest shake-up to the iPhone line in years. It has a radical redesign with an almost edge-to-edge screen, facial-recognition technology called Face ID to unlock the device, augmented-reality features — and a hefty price tag of $999 or £999 (or more), the most Apple has ever charged for a phone.

So is it worth it? Here's what some of the big reviewers are saying.

Apple took a gamble on facial-recognition tech

One of the biggest questions was about Face ID: Would it work? Could it be fooled? How would it measure up to lightning-fast fingerprint scanners?

TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino took the iPhone X to Disneyland and came away feeling positive about the facial-recognition tech:

"Face ID works really well. First, it's incredibly easy to set up. You choose to enable it and then rotate your nose around the points of a clock twice. That's it. Second, it worked the vast majority of times I tried it, it never once unlocked using a picture of myself or another person's face and the failure rate seemed to be about the same as Touch ID — aka almost never. As hoped, it's definitely faster than the first generation of Touch ID, though perhaps slightly slower than the second gen."

That said, The Verge's Nilay Patel encountered some difficulties with Face ID in bright sunlight:

"I took a walk outside our NYC office in bright sunlight, and FaceID definitely had issues recognizing my face consistently while I was moving until I went into shade or brought the phone much closer to my face than usual. I also went to the deli across the street, which has a wide variety of lights inside, including a bunch of overhead fluorescent strips, and FaceID also got significantly more inconsistent ... For now I'd say FaceID definitely works well enough to replace TouchID, but not so well that you won't run into the occasional need to try again."

Another hot topic: the notch. It's the weird cutout bit at the top of the screen that houses the camera and other sensors. When the iPhone X was announced, some people thought it looked hideous, while others didn't see the problem.

Here at Business Insider, Steve Kovach has been testing the iPhone X, and his in-person impressions are positive:

"I don't mind the notch. In fact, I kind of like it, and I think it blends in nicely to the rest of the phone's software interface. The sides of the notch display the time, battery status, and Wi-Fi and cell signals. By default, photos and video don't bleed into the notch unless you double-tap them for a zoomed-in view. You barely notice the notch in most cases, and it looks especially nice when scrolling through apps like Twitter and Facebook."

iPhone X
The notch can be polarising.  Hollis Johnson

It's pricey — really pricey

BuzzFeed's Nicole Nguyen, meanwhile, highlighted the high price point, but said that for some people it would be worth it:

"I've been living with the iPhone X for a week, and I'll say right off the bat: This phone isn't for everyone ... The X (technically pronounced 'ten,' but call it whatever you want) is really only for people who use the *heck* out of their phones. I'm talking about a ton of photo taking, video shooting, social-media performative exhibiting, gaming, web browsing, etc. This is a device for a power user, not a casual smartphoner who texts and uploads an Instagram every once in a while. The iPhone 7 or 8 (or, hell, even the iPhone SE) are totally sufficient for those folks."

And iMore's Rene Ritchie has effusive praise for the new device:

"So far it's the most fun I've had with any gadget since the original iPhone. I'm not being hyperbolic here. There are shortcomings. There are things I'd love to see changed. But I can't stop using it. The new display is beyond gorgeous. HDR is glorious. Fluid navigation gestures are sublime. Face ID is so fast I'm forgetting I have a passcode. Attention aware interactivity is the bomb."

iPhone X
Yup, you can turn your face into an animated poo.  Hollis Johnson

What about the camera?

A quality camera is an essential part of any high-end smartphone these days, and the iPhone X hasn't disappointed reviewers.

Over at Mashable, Lance Ulanoff said the X's shooter outperformed that of the iPhone 8, released last month, and was comparable to many dedicated non-phone cameras:

"The iPhone X rear dual camera is the best camera I've used on a smartphone. It takes excellent wide and 2x optical zoom photos in a wide variety of conditions. However, increasingly, the playing field is leveling out as Samsung lowers the color saturation to a more real-world vibe, Portrait Mode become more common, and upstarts like Google prove they can learn from everyone else and start off strong. No one will be disappointed with the iPhone X's photographic capabilities, but be prepared to get in more than one argument about which smartphone has the best camera. I still prefer Apple's, though."

Some third-party apps are proving problematic, though. The X's new screen shape has left some apps looking odd. This, in time, will be fixable — but for now, it mars the experience a little, as Business Insider's Kovach wrote:

"Many of my apps haven't been redesigned for the new screen size, so they show up with thick black bars on the top and bottom to mimic the aspect ratio you'd get on a regular iPhone screen. It looks like a lot of wasted space.

"Other apps have been refitted for the iPhone X screen but have made a bunch of funky design choices. For example, some have large chunks of unused space at the bottom near the home bar. And I saw at least one app that showed the home bar bleeding into the menu icons at the bottom of the screen."

All in all, it's a definite thumbs-up for the iPhone X.

It's not perfect, and the exorbitant price tag will understandably be a deal-breaker for many. But it doesn't sound as if Apple fans who can afford it will end up disappointed.

Here's a longer list of reviews and first impressions:

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Reporter Rob Price sitting at a table
Rob Price
Rob Price was a senior correspondent at Business Insider, based in San Francisco. He wrote investigations and long-form features about platforms, people, and power in Silicon Valley.His stories variously led to attorney general investigations, large-scale internal reviews at major tech companies, high-profile personnel departures, citation by state and federal lawmakers, and the closure of a well-funded startup. His 2022 story on the Bitfinex hack is being adapted into a feature film, and in 2024 he received an SPJ NorCal Excellence in Journalism award for his reporting on AI and relationships.Rob's scoops and exclusive stories were cited by The New York Times, Bloomberg, the BBC, Associated Press, Reuters, CNBC, Politico, The Guardian, Axios, and many other national and international publications. His writing has also been published in or syndicated by The Washington Post, The Independent, Vice, Slate, and elsewhere, and he appeared on CNN, the BBC, CBS, Reuters, ABC Australia, and other broadcast media to discuss technology, business, and culture.He worked for Business Insider from 2015 to 2025. Prior to joining the features team, Rob covered Facebook and Silicon Valley, and before that wrote about tech business, policy, and the gig economy in London. Between September and October 2019, he was acting executive editor for Business Insider's UK bureau. He also sat on the board of directors for the San Francisco Press Club, the leading non-profit media advocacy group in the Bay Area, and was a volunteer crew member at the Marine Mammal Center, the world's largest animal hospital for marine mammals. You can contact Rob Price via email at robaeprice@gmail.com, or +1 650-636-6268 (Signal / WhatsApp / Cell). Selected stories:— They spoke out against their employer. Then they were hit with trade secrets suits.— The rise of 'shadow stand-ins'— App, Lover, Muse: Inside a 47-year-old Minnesota man's three-year relationship with an AI chatbot— Deel Speed: The inside story of a $12 billion HR startup's breakneck growth— Private islands, flying cars, and psychedelic parties: Inside the wild post-Google lives of Larry Page and Sergey Brin— 'I want your Instagram account': First came the threatening texts, followed by the SWAT teams. Then someone wound up dead.— Inside Iconiq: How Mark Zuckerberg's banker built a secret Silicon Valley empire and made billions— Gaia was a wildly popular yoga brand. Now it's a publicly traded Netflix rival pushing conspiracy theories while employees fear the CEO is invading their dreams— A drunken late-night assault allegation has roiled the secretive world of Mark Zuckerberg's private family office. Personal aides are speaking out about claims that household staff endured sexual harassment and racism from their colleagues.
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