The iPhone X: A New Era, The Same Phone
As Apple just recently announced the brand new addition to their iPhone line, many people are starting to wonder if the $999 phone is really worth the new features and specs.
The iPhone X, as Chief Design Officer Joni Ive said on Apple’s announcement video, is all screen. It’s all about the 5.8-inch Super Retina Display that “fills the hand and dazzles the eyes”, according to Apple. It has an
OLED screen, which is a first for the iPhone that has a 1,000,000 to 1 contrast ratio.
Also, the 7-megapixel front camera of the phone has added facial recognition sensors for Face ID, which is the newest kind of security and can adapt to the owner's facial changes, even in the dark.
Face ID can also be used to authenticate and pay through Apple Pay. It claims to be enabled by the TrueDepth camera and projects and analyzes more than 30,000 invisible dots to create a precise depth map of one's face. The camera can also analyze more than 50 different muscle movements that can mirror facial expressions in 12 Animojis.
Although in Beta version, the TrueDepth camera features the new Portrait Lighting in Portrait mode, which can produce studio-like photos in an instant.
iPhone X also reinvented the Dual Camera feature, with both 12-megapixel cameras that have optical image stabilization and fast lenses that are good for taking photos and videos even in low light.
However, the real deal with the iPhone X is the new A11 Bionic chip. Apple claims that it is the most powerful and smartest chip in a smartphone, with a neural engine that’s capable of up to 600 billion operations per second.
According to the Apple website, the iPhone X has a faster CPU with four efficiency cores that are up to 70 percent faster than A10 Fusion, and the two performance cores are up to 25 percent faster.
Apple Claims A Lot, But Is It Worth It?
The iPhone X has a lot of weight on its shoulders as Apple hypes up everyone on its new features and how they are reinvented. The phone costs $999 (around P50,000) and it is too much money to spend for a new phone that’s similar to probably every iPhone out there.
As observed, Apple releases a new phone roughly every year and it’s alarming to see how people would clamor over the new phone when their old or current ones are doing fine. $999 or P50,000 can get one to pay his or her tuition fee in school or buy a laptop with more uses than a phone. Better yet, that money can be used to help millions of lives around the world, suffering from sickness, poverty and those who have been affected by calamities.
There are so many other phones in the entire world that have higher megapixel cameras or dual cameras, have face recognition, and have fast CPUs but for a lower price. Now, is the iPhone X really worth it? At the end of the day, it's just a smartphone. Almost everyone in the world has a smartphone. So, what makes it special? The brand? The price range? The “new” specs that will get old in a few months because technology is advancing every minute?
The iPhone X delves into the new era of technology that might slowly progress from facial recognition to holograms; however, the specifications and everything that comes with it just follows the fact that it’s still the same phone like those that have been released throughout the years. It still has the applications that the old versions had and the only thing that’s updated is the software.
Apple is also rumored to be releasing the iPhone X in extremely short supply when it arrives. So, do consider the $999 cost and it’s the same as slightly cheaper ones, like the iPhone 8 or Galaxy Note 8 that can give you what you need for less.
What is new with the iPhone X? Is it new? No, it’s a revamped version of your old phone. It’s similar to getting your phone a new phone case and updating the software. That’s it and that’s only what it’s worth.
