iPhone X Review – Pushing Me to Android

[nicklmg]

Buy iPhone X on Amazon: http://geni.us/nzfMhwb

 

Is the "no Home button" layout of the iPhone X the way of the future, or will it drive those on the fence back to Android?

 

 

[KenjiUmino]

1 minute ago, nicklmg said:

Buy iPhone X on Amazon: http://geni.us/nzfMhwb

 

Is the "no Home button" layout of the iPhone X the way of the future, or will it drive those on the fence back to Android?

android phones dropped physical buttons long ago

[lufihengr]

Damn it's a hard choice between the Note 8, iPhone X and 8 plus.

The note 8 has android, the X has the notch and no Touch ID, and the 8 plus looks the same as my 6 plus...

 

[nicklmg]

11 minutes ago, KenjiUmino said:

android phones dropped physical buttons long ago

They still have on-screen buttons by default. Apple is trying to get away from using buttons at all.

1 minute ago, lufihengr said:

Damn it's a hard choice between the Note 8, iPhone X and 8 plus.

The note 8 has android, the X has the notch and no Touch ID, and the 8 plus looks the same as my 6 plus...

 

Personally, I just ended up getting an 8 Plus a few weeks ago (after having a X on pre-order). Have zero complaints so far, it's the best iteration of the 6 bodystyle by far.

 

X seems cool but as Linus said it's a very first-gen idea. I'm excited to see what comes with a X v2 or v3.

[lufihengr]

2 minutes ago, nicklmg said:

They still have on-screen buttons by default. Apple is trying to get away from using buttons at all.

Personally, I just ended up getting an 8 Plus a few weeks ago (after having a X on pre-order). Have zero complaints so far, it's the best iteration of the 6 bodystyle by far.

 

X seems cool but as Linus said it's a very first-gen idea. I'm excited to see what comes with a X v2 or v3.

What phone did you have previously? 

I have usually also skipped any 1st gen devices. I know its not really first gen but it kinda is, right? 

[nicklmg]

21 minutes ago, lufihengr said:

What phone did you have previously? 

I have usually also skipped any 1st gen devices. I know its not really first gen but it kinda is, right? 

I had 6s before with massive issues.

 

It's definitely 1st gen. It's a totally new interface so there's going to be a bunch for them to still figure out. Don't get me wrong, it's a very polished first gen and I know quite a few people that love their new Xs, but for me the interface needs to mature a bit still. Software isn't there yet.

[lufihengr]

12 minutes ago, nicklmg said:

I had 6s before with massive issues.

 

It's definitely 1st gen. It's a totally new interface so there's going to be a bunch for them to still figure out. Don't get me wrong, it's a very polished first gen and I know quite a few people that love their new Xs, but for me the interface needs to mature a bit still. Software isn't there yet.

The 8 plus is starting to feel like the right option. Cheaper too

Thank you Nick for saving me €€€

Edit: with the saving, I can afford floatplane! 

Lmg marketing team on point. 

Edited November 19, 2017 by lufihengr

[Enderman]

You're using the phone wrong.

To open up multitasking properly you do not swipe up and wait, you need to swipe up and to the right to open it instantly.

Watch MKBHD's video.

 

It sounds like you need to spend more time actually using the phone because there are likely other parts of the "review" which are probably wrong too...

Such as it not actually being the brightest OLED screen.

[TrigrH]

49 minutes ago, Enderman said:

You're using the phone wrong.

To open up multitasking properly you do not swipe up and wait, you need to swipe up and to the right to open it instantly.

Watch MKBHD's video.

 

It sounds like you need to spend more time actually using the phone because there are likely other parts of the "review" which are probably wrong too...

Such as it not actually being the brightest OLED screen.

Doesnt matter, he nailed the most important part:

 

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, TrigrH said:

Doesnt matter, he nailed the most important part:

 

Uh, most people don't use their phone to listen to music, or they use wireless or lightning headphones.

0 dongles or adapters.

[TrigrH]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

Uh, most people don't use their phone to listen to music, or they use wireless or lightning headphones.

0 dongles or adapters.

Who are these people lmao? Literally everyone I know uses the headphone jack to watch youtube or listen to music on their phone. Wireless headphones are more expensive and another thing that you have to charge, which can be a pain if you only use audio infrequently. As for the lightning headphones, you might as well use the stupid dongle lol.

[nicklmg]

56 minutes ago, Enderman said:

You're using the phone wrong.

To open up multitasking properly you do not swipe up and wait, you need to swipe up and to the right to open it instantly.

Watch MKBHD's video.

 

It sounds like you need to spend more time actually using the phone because there are likely other parts of the "review" which are probably wrong too...

Such as it not actually being the brightest OLED screen.

We mentioned the swipe up & right.

 

Note 8 has highest possible peak brightness in a small area - X has highest average brightness for the whole display. Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-x-display-is-the-best-made-by-samsung-improved-by-apple/

 

Quote:

"I recall the Galaxy Note 8 having a reported brightness over 1,000 nits, but Dr. Soneira explains that the Note 8 can produce up to 1,240 nits for only small portions of the screen area. For full screen brightness, the Note 8 can produce up to 560 nits with automatic brightness compared to the iPhone X full screen at 634 nits."

[nicklmg]

1 minute ago, TrigrH said:

Who are these people lmao? Literally everyone I know uses the headphone jack to watch youtube or listen to music on their phone. Wireless headphones are more expensive and another thing that you have to charge, which can be a pain if you only use audio infrequently. As for the lightning headphones, you might as well use the stupid dongle lol.

It's also important to remember that the headphone jack has only been gone for what... 2 years? If someone bought a pair of IEMs that cost hundreds of dollars 3 years ago they're probably not just going to throw those away. Dongles are becoming a sad part of daily life for many people these days.

[kirashi]

3 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Uh, most people don't use their phone to listen to music, or they use wireless or lightning headphones.

0 dongles or adapters.

I do, in the car, all the time. Car does not have Bluetooth, and I don't see Apple providing me with a voucher for a free car with Bluetooth, or at the very least, a Bluetooth adapter that plugs into the aux port on my car. More importantly I don't want to deal with the connection issues that Bluetooth brings, let alone the reduced quality you have to deal with.

 

Don't get me wrong - I love my Logitech UE9000 headphones I've had since 2012, and will be very sad when they die. However, the number of times I have to re-pair them to my Note 3, XPS 15 laptop, or iPhone 5C when they've been paired for months prior is enough to make me go back to using the 3.5mm jack instead.

 

Technology that works seamlessly is absolutely amazing, but I have yet to experience a Bluetooth device that reliably connects every time after the first pairing, and that's not even factoring in my disdain for the lack of battery life on our current products. le sigh I guess I'm just a modern technology enthusiast with old school roots.

 

 

Oh, and as for the iPhone X, I just have to say nope.jpg because of the cutout above the screen. Yes, I realize some Android phones have done this too, and they're also nope.jpg just as much. I develop websites as a second job, and I'll be damned if I'm going to redesign things around a notch that might be different on multiple phones on the market. The most I'd do is throw a 5% margin on the side of the site when the user rotates their phone, and even then I'd probably not because Apple's made a make-work project out of this.

[Enderman]

Just now, kirashi said:

I do, in the car, all the time. Car does not have Bluetooth, and I don't see Apple providing me with a voucher for a free car with Bluetooth, or at the very least, a Bluetooth adapter that plugs into the aux port on my car. More importantly I don't want to deal with the connection issues that Bluetooth brings, let alone the reduced quality you have to deal with.

Pretty much all new phones being made don't have a headphone jack.

It's an old technology that is being phased out.

 

You can use a lighting to 3.5mm or USB-C to 3.5mm cable and not have to use any adapters.

[nicklmg]

1 minute ago, kirashi said:

Technology that works seamlessly is absolutely amazing, but I have yet to experience a Bluetooth device that reliably connects every time after the first pairing, and that's not even factoring in my disdain for the lack of battery life on our current products. le sigh I guess I'm just a modern technology enthusiast with old school roots.

TBH these days, in my experience, Bluetooth devices don't have many pairing issues. Or maybe I'm just lucky. But my QC35s connect to my laptop literally every time with no issues, and my Airpods have been incredible. They've literally changed the way i listen to music because it's just instinctive to use them. I thought they were dumb until I tried them - now I'm hooked.

2 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Pretty much all new phones being made don't have a headphone jack.

It's an old technology that is being phased out.

 

You can use a lighting to 3.5mm or USB-C to 3.5mm cable and not have to use any adapters.

Many headphones (even high-end pairs) do not have removable cables, so for many that's not an option.

[Enderman]

5 minutes ago, nicklmg said:

We mentioned the swipe up & right.

 

Note 8 has highest possible peak brightness in a small area - X has highest average brightness for the whole display. Source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/iphone-x-display-is-the-best-made-by-samsung-improved-by-apple/

 

Quote:

"I recall the Galaxy Note 8 having a reported brightness over 1,000 nits, but Dr. Soneira explains that the Note 8 can produce up to 1,240 nits for only small portions of the screen area. For full screen brightness, the Note 8 can produce up to 560 nits with automatic brightness compared to the iPhone X full screen at 634 nits."

The way it was said in the video was as if you NEEDED to wait for the stuff to pop up, and up to the right is much faster, I guess linus decided to do it slowly to show the gesture.

 

Also, nits is a measure of intensity, aka candela per square meter.

This means it is independent of area. So technically the note 8 still has higher nits.

 

Also, this source shows several phones, including the note 8, at higher than 634 nits.

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note8-review-1659p3.php

Not sure how reliable it is.

Not that anyone should ever use a phone at these brightness levels anyway.

 

1 minute ago, nicklmg said:

Many headphones (even high-end pairs) do not have removable cables, so for many that's not an option.

The person I replied to was talking about hooking up his phone to a car, not to headphones.

Obviously you would need to get new headphones if you didn't want to use an adapter and they had no removable cable.

[patrick3027]

9 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Pretty much all new phones being made don't have a headphone jack.

It's an old technology that is being phased out.

 

You can use a lighting to 3.5mm or USB-C to 3.5mm cable and not have to use any adapters.

Kek, JerryRigEverything nailed it on why he wants a headphone jack: 

 around the 1:10 mark. 

 

Wireless headphones are great and you know what, you can use them even if your phone has a headphone jack. So why not have a headphone jack? 

[nicklmg]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

The way it was said in the video was as if you NEEDED to wait for the stuff to pop up, and up to the right is much faster, I guess linus decided to do it slowly to show the gesture.

 

Also, nits is a measure of intensity, aka candela per square meter.

This means it is independent of area. So technically the note 8 still has higher nits.

 

Also, this source shows several phones, including the note 8, at higher than 634 nits.

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_note8-review-1659p3.php

Not sure how reliable it is.

Not that anyone should ever use a phone at these brightness levels anyway.

Interesting. Seems like there's a bit of disagreement in the space then... both GSM and DisplayMate seem to be pretty reliable in my experience so it's weird to see that delta.

[nicklmg]

1 minute ago, patrick3027 said:

Wireless headphones are great and you know what, you can use them even if your phone has a headphone jack. So why not have a headphone jack? 

Removing headphone jack saves space and (I think?) potentially helps with waterproofing, so I get why manufacturers are doing it. I also get why people are frustrated by it.

 

I'm 100% wireless these days so it's neither here nor there for me.

[kirashi]

14 minutes ago, Enderman said:

Pretty much all new phones being made don't have a headphone jack.

It's an old technology that is being phased out.

 

You can use a lighting to 3.5mm or USB-C to 3.5mm cable and not have to use any adapters.

A USB-C to 3.5mm cable is an adapter, just with a long cable in the middle, and is completely incompatible with all my other devices, so it's not an option. Plus, as @nicklmg said, those of us with non-removable cables on products are stuck using an adapter, which most of the time isn't even included in the box, or costs way more than it should to replace.

 

To be clear, my issue isn't with new technology - it's with the complete lack of transition period across all devices by manufacturers. People talk about Android fragmentation, which definitely is bad, but can be resolved in software. Now we've got hardware fragmentation, where current devices you buy may not even be compatible with other devices due to complete lack of care for the consumer. When CD drives became common place, manufacturers didn't immediately remove floppy drives from PC's - you had both. Same goes for VGA to DVI, and now DVI to HDMI and HDMI to DisplayPort.

 

There are some exceptions, of course, but video cards that only have miniDP ports are not common at all - they still include HDMI, DisplayPort, and some even DVI. Same thing goes for toothbrushes even - we have both electric and manual. If moving to the latest greatest is the name of the game, why do stores even carry a wall of manual toothbrushes? Why not just sell a smaller selection of electric brushes are higher markup with proprietary chargers and heads? Make them only work with proprietary toothpaste you have to buy from the store that's also marked up an additional 50% with no benefit over the old non-proprietary toothpaste?

 

If this sounds like a stupidly silly argument, it's because it absolutely is, and is exactly the same thing as arguing against having both USB-C and a 3.5mm jack in current devices, at least until the transitional period is over, allowing consumers to enjoy their $1500 IEM's they had custom-fit to their ears at a professional Otorhinolaryngologist.

 

Just now, nicklmg said:

Removing headphone jack saves space and (I think?) potentially helps with waterproofing, so I get why manufacturers are doing it. I also get why people are frustrated by it.

I'm 100% wireless these days so it's neither here nor there for me.

While it might save space, we don't need space to be saved - I want a slightly thicker phone so I can actually get 3-5 days of battery life out of it, let alone even a day, and manufacturers have been making waterproof phones long before headphone jacks were being removed, but manufacturers are using it as an excuse to remove the headphone jack.

 

6 minutes ago, Enderman said:

The person I replied to was talking about hooking up his phone to a car, not to headphones.

Obviously you would need to get new headphones if you didn't want to use an adapter and they had no removable cable.

Yup, but I've also been looking into getting Ultimate Ears IEM's which are expensive and only use the 3.5mm jack. Even if they were offered in USB-C variants, that would render them useless with all my other devices that don't have USB-C, so am I supposed to carry adapters around everywhere with me (an extra inconvenience) or are you going to fund the second pair of IEM's for me? I'm not trying to be a dick here - I'm just a technology enthusiast who happens to also be a consumer with limited monies that expects my products to just work, as the manufacturer's promise.

[nicklmg]

2 minutes ago, kirashi said:

-snip-

I think part of the issue is that there never will be a transition period if some don't pull the plug on 3.5mm. Headphone manufacturers don't want to force consumers into a standard that they're not used to (since no one likes change), and why would they spend extra money on R&D for new connector types if they don't have to? (edit: especially if it doesn't cause a noticeable improvement to their own products)

 

Someone has to do it, and the phone manufacturers are the ones who want it, so they're pulling the plug on the connector to move the industry forward.

 

It's a rough transition, but I get why they're doing it. Doesn't mean we have to like or agree with it though  haha.

[Enderman]

1 minute ago, patrick3027 said:

Kek, JerryRigEverything nailed it on why he wants a headphone jack: 

around the 1:10 mark. 

 

Wireless headphones are great and you know what, you can use them even if your phone has a headphone jack. So why not have a headphone jack? 

Cause the connector only serves one purpouse, and it's a big waste of space when you could just use a USB-C port or lightning port to also provide audio.

If you want a phone with a headphone jack, there are still a few options that have it so get one of those.

My point is that the large majority of people are fine without it, and in order to save space and reduce complexity, it is a good engineering design choice to remove it.

 

1 minute ago, nicklmg said:

Interesting. Seems like there's a bit of disagreement in the space then... both GSM and DisplayMate seem to be pretty reliable in my experience so it's weird to see that delta.

Maybe their methodology is different? The article I linked said they shine a light into the sensor to force it to max brightness.

[Enderman]

2 minutes ago, kirashi said:

A USB-C to 3.5mm cable is an adapter, just with a long cable in the middle, and is completely incompatible with all my other devices, so it's not an option.

 

It's not an adapter, it's a cable.

You plug one end into one device and the other end into another device, with no additional converters/adapters.

Do you also call your phone charging cables that are mini USB "adapters"?

 

Also, why would it be incompatible with other devices?

If you other devices have 3.5mm input and your phone is USB C, then you use the same cable for all the devices.

 

2 minutes ago, kirashi said:

If this sounds like a stupidly silly argument, it's because it absolutely is, and is exactly the same thing as arguing against having both USB-C and a 3.5mm jack in current devices, at least until the transitional period is over, allowing consumers to enjoy their $1500 IEM's they had custom-fit to their ears at a professional Otorhinolaryngologist.

I don't think you understand how technology works.

You give people two options and they won't switch to the new one because they are too lazy to.

Apple is doing a great job by forcing people to switch to USB C and thunderbolt 3 on the macbook pros.

That's what is needed to push technology forward.

 

Otherwise your car would have a USB port, a 3.5mm port, a CD drive, a tape drive, and record player all at the same time.

[captain_to_fire]

iPhone 8+ for me this December. I just couldn’t swallow Apple’s atrocious decisions with the iPhone X. 

The iPhone X is the dumbest looking iPhone imo

Edited November 20, 2017 by hey_yo_