iPhone X Full Features, Release Date and price

Apple breathes new life into its 10th anniversary iPhone

Brace yourself for the iPhone X price and release date that Apple announced on Tuesday. It costs more than any prior iPhone and ships later than expected.

That's the only bad news, though. Apple claims the iPhone X, which is pronounced 'iPhone 10', is worth your money and the extra wait time. This is Apple's 10th anniversary iPhone, and it's making big changes for 2017.

The iPhone X wasn't the only smartphone announced by Apple CEO Tim Cook on September 12. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus were unveiled at the Steve Jobs Theater on Apple's new campus, too.

That said, the iPhone X is the flagship phone you really want. It takes Apple's ten-year-old smartphone design in a bold new direction. It also leaves behind the familiar physical home button and tried-and-true fingerprint sensor.

Is it worth the extremely high iPhone X price? What are the big features you need to know about? We have all of your iPhone X answers right here.

iPhone X design

New glass design that enables wireless charging
Bigger display, but smaller than Plus phones
Easier to hold than an iPhone Plus phone, too

Remains water-resistant and comes in only two colors

Apple managed to make the iPhone X bigger, yet smaller at the same time. It'll have a more expansive 5.8-inch edge-to-edge screen (that's the bigger part), but the size is actually smaller than a Plus-sized iPhone. It also feels lighter.

How? The iPhone X dimensions give you a shorter height of 5.65 inches (143.6 mm) and, importantly, a smaller width of 2.79 inches (70.9 mm) vs a Plus phone. It weights a lighter 6.14 ounces (174 grams), too.

The iPhone X will be easier to hold in one hand. Even if you were turned off by the Plus size, you should still be able to upgrade to iPhone X without a problem.

What iPhone X colors will you be able to get on day one? Space Gray and Silver will be the only two options available. No red, gold, rose gold or that rumored blush gold colors this time around, which is disappointing.

iPhone X screen

Vibrant 5.8-inch edge-to-edge AMOLED screen
Apple's 'Super Retina Display' makes its debut
Quad HD+ display with a 2436 x 1125 resolution

Apple's new iPhone X screen is considered an all-screen display, or what it calls a 'Super Retina Display.' It's not elegantly named, but it comes with perks.

It uses a 5.8-inch OLED display, a first for an iPhone since it's used LCD displays before. Apple says it's the first OLED that's great enough to be on an iPhone.

This is also Apple's first edge-to-edge display, which means it lacks bezel at the top and is missing the home button at the bottom. It replaces them with more screen. It doesn't have curved screen sides like Samsung's phones, however.

It goes well beyond the 1080p screen ceiling Apple gave us on past phones and it'll crank the resolution of 2436 x 1125 pixels, delivering a Quad HD+ picture.

The iPhone X display is built for HDR and its superior contrast video playback. It can deliver a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio on Dolby Vision and HDR10 content, and we expect to see Amazon Instant Video and Netflix onboard right away.

3D Touch returns for more granular pressure-sensitive touchscreen controls, which usually amount to hidden shortcut menus within apps. If you're upgrading from an iPhone 6, this will be new to you.

Wireless charging with AirPower

Apple's AirPower pad can charge multiple devices
iPhone X also charges with existing Qi chargers

Plugging in your iPhone X could be as easy as dropping it on a wireless pad, and that's the idea behind the new iPhone X wireless charging feature.

Sure, wireless charging isn't new (yes, it's been on Android phones for years), but Apple will debut a new AirPower charging pad that can charge every new Apple product: an Apple Watch, AirPods and the iPhone X. The pad itself will use a USB-C cable to

This wide-shaped charging pad makes it easy to recharge everything at once compared to plugging each gadget in with a Lightning cable or fetching that inductive Apple Watch charger. However, Apple didn't lay out how much the hassle-free AirPower pad will cost, and we know it won't launch until next year.

It also requires a new AirPods case, one that has wireless charging built into it. Just when you thought iPhone X was expensive enough, it makes you want to buy all sorts of accessories (that's how they get you, right?).

Convenience often has a high price and a long wait. In the meantime, Mophie and Belkin are making wireless chargers, and standard Qi chargers should work, though most will simply charge a single device.

No more home button

Bezel-less iPhone X screen eliminates the home button
Flick an open app upward to return to the home screen
Control Center is now a swipe-down-from-the-top gesture

You won't find a physical home button on the iPhone X, or any home button at all. Apple's all-screen design doesn't have room for it or the fingerprint sensor.

Having no home button and Touch ID sensor is going to be the biggest change that long-time Apple users will have to get used to the new iPhone controls.

How do you return to the home screen without a home button? Simply flick an open app upward from the bottom, like you're throwing it aside. This, oddly enough, if you new home button. You bypass the lock screen the same way (once you're authenticated with Face ID or a password).

The fanned-out multitasking menu can be accessed by dragging an app upward, but pausing for a second (don't let go) and it'll appear with other open apps. You can also swipe along the very bottom edge of the screen to switch between apps more quickly. This shortcut is akin to the browsing the watch faces gallery on an Apple Watch.

Since the swipe-up-from-the-bottom gesture is now occupied by the return to home mechanic, Control Center has been moved to a swipe down gesture. Just slide your finger down from the top-right-aligned battery icon and you can see the new iOS 11 Control Center dash.

The Sleep/Wake button can become the side button (also matching the Apple Watch). Holding it in for a second summons Siri, and double pressing it brings up Apple Pay, which can be authenticated with Face ID.

Apple likens all of these swipes to slide to unlock, which everyone misses. We'll have to test out the new gesture mechanics see if this has the same natural feeling. This could become second nature, though some people will undoubtedly complain at first (they always do).

Face ID replaces Touch ID

Unlock your phone simply by looking at it
More secure than the fingerprint sensor
Also used in conjunction with Apple Pay

Without Touch ID, how do you unlock your iPhone X? Apple claims to have made this easy with the debut of Face ID.

"It's the future of we how unlock our smartphones," said Apple executive Phil Schiller at the company's launch event.

To pull this off, the iPhone X uses its front-facing 7MP TrueDepth camera and its multiple sensors (infrared camera, dot projector, etc) to map your face. It even works in the dark, according to Apple.

Apple claims that Face ID won't be spoofed by photos, which Samsung had an issue with on the S8 and Note 8. The company went so far as to work with Hollywood mask makers to prevent even the most advanced hackers from breaking into your new iPhone X.

Touch ID failing you has a 1 in 50,000 chance. The chance a thief (or the FBI) can look at your iPhone and unlock it with Face ID? It's now a 1 in 1,000,000 chance.

The science behind Face ID is extremely complex and interesting. It's almost ripped from the headlines from a newspaper – one that's printed in the future. The fact that it gets better at recognizing your 3D mug over time has us intrigued.

iPhone X dual-lens camera

Redesigned 12MP dual-lens camera
Telephoto lens OIS and a wider aperture
Portrait Mode enhanced by Portrait Lighting

Apple says it has redesigned its cameras, though it sticks with much of the same specs as last year: You get 12MP cameras with every new 2017 iPhone.

Of course, if you want a dual-lens camera you have to go with the iPhone X or iPhone 8 Plus, and if you want optical image stabilization on both the wide-angle and telephoto lenses, you'll have to buy the iPhone X.

OIS helps make up for hand shakiness when taking photos. The camera lens actually moves with your unsteady hands. Now it's on the telephoto lens, too, so you photos with 2x optical zoom can be blur-free as well.

The iPhone X camera sensors are also larger and faster, capturing what Apple calls "deep pixels" with either an f/1.8 aperture (wide-angle) or improved f/2.4 aperture (telephoto) lens. It also uses its new A11 Bionic chip and machine learning to optimize for scenes even before an image is taken.

Last year's Portrait Mode gave us bokeh-rich (background-blur-added) portrait photos. This year, Apple is introducing Portrait Lighting. It can transform the light in a scene, going as far as changing a background, or apply lightning to a persons face, as if they were being hit by lights in a studio. It reminds us of a live version of Instagram, but done on the phone's default camera app.

Apple's ridiculously tricked out TrueDepth camera

7MP front-facing camera takes Portait Mode selfies
TrueDepth is full of face-mapping sensors

Apple's iPhone X TrueDepth camera is no ordinary selfie camera. It's 7MP, but packs more technology than we've ever seen in a front-facing camera array.

It adds Portrait Mode to your selfies, giving us the first iPhone that doesn't have a single fixed-focus camera. This means your selfies can exhibit that stylish background blur, too.
Depth of field is way better than the Beauty Mode that's popular on Android phones. The blur effect deserves to be on the background, not your skin.

What else is packed into the screen cut-out at the top besides the 7MP camera? An infrared camera, flood illuminator, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, speaker, microphone and sophisticated face-mapping dot projector.

The TrueDepth camera is a beast, between Portrait Selfies, Portrait Lighting Selfies (nope, it's not just on the back camera), Face ID, and Animoji.

Animoji

Combines animations with emoji, of course
Mirrors your facial expressions quite accurately
Like a more advanced versions of a Snapchat mask

Animoji has Apple taking emoji to the next level, utilizing its TrueDepth camera to mirror your facial expressions on an animal or... other creation, like the poo emoji.

Apple's Messages app is already exploding with fun stickers and special effects and we didn't think we'd be using a year ago. The same is being said of Animoji. If they seems a bit meaningless and silly now, check back with us in a year.

It's no surprise that Apple is working with Snapchat on using the front-facing camera to bring new, more realistically contoured masks to its photo-sharing app. There's a lot of potential behind this expression-driven creation.

iPhone X specs

Double the number of high-performance cores
Translates into more power for 3D games and AR

Apple has debuted its new 'A11 Bionic' chipset with the iPhone X, and it'll have a six-core processor to power all of the latest 3D games and AR technology.

What does that mean? The six-core iPhone X chip has four high-performance cores, double the two high-performance cores on the four-core iPhone 7 Plus.

In case you're wondering, the other two cores we never mention in each phone are energy-efficient cores – there's no need for powerful chip engines running when your phone is lying idle on a table. It's smartly designed.

We won’t know the RAM until someone pries open an iPhone X, as Apple doesn’t reveal its RAM specs. But one report has suggested the iPhone X will come with 3GB of RAM , the same amount we saw Apple pack into the iPhone 7 Plus.

iPhone X battery life and fast charging

Lasts two hours longer than last year's iPhone 7
First fast-charging iPhone: 50% recharge in 30 minutes

Apple gave us a big headline at the iPhone X launch: it will last two hours longer than the standard-sized iPhone 7.

It'll amount to all-day battery life, depending on usage. You can easily pare down  battery consumption with low-power mode in iOS 11 to have it last even longer.

What's interesting is that the iPhone X will be the first Apple phone (along with the new iPhone 8 and 8 Plus) with fast-charging capabilities. This can give you a 50% charge in just 30 minutes. Previously fast charging was limited to newer iPad Pro tablets and the original 12.9-inch iPad Pro.

You will have to spring for the separately sold Lightning-to-USB-C cable and adapter. The iPhone X comes with a normal lightning cable and underpowered 5W charging adapter – smaller than even the iPad charger.

iPhone X price

More expensive than any other iPhone
64GB iPhone X: $999, £999, and AU$1,579
256GB iPhone X: $1,149, £1,149, AU$1,829
US carriers are charging $42 a month

The iPhone X price starts at $999, £999, and AU$1,579, which makes it the most expensive iPhone ever made. And that's for the iPhone X with 64GB of storage.

The 256GB iPhone X will cost $1,149, £1,149, AU$1,829. Sadly, there's no option in between, if you were hoping for a 128GB iPhone X.

It's also available in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar, with the 64GB iPhone X costing AED/SAR 4099 while the 256GB model is AED/SAR 4729

To put the iPhone X price into perspective, it doesn't cost much more than a 4.7-inch iPhone 8, which has a one inch smaller screen and received a basic specs boost, wireless charging, and a similar glass design. In the US, the iPhone X costs an extra $300, but over the course of 24 months, it's is only an additional $3 each week.

US carriers like Verizon and AT&T are charging $42 a month for one year and allow you to upgrade to a new iPhone next year if you trade in your device. The Apple's iPhone Upgrade program starts at $49.91, but includes AppleCare+.

iPhone X release date

You'll have to wait longer for it to come out
Pre-orders begin Friday, October 27
Ships starting Friday, November 3
Supply is expected to be extremely limited

The iPhone X release date is Friday, November 3, and that's a lot later than the usual September launch date for new iPhones.

It's a month-and-a-half delay from what we're used to. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus will ship right on time on September 22. Can you wait for the iPhone X?

iPhone X pre-orders start Friday, October 27. That's later than normal, too. All of the delays are due to its new, Samsung-made OLED screens being in short supply. Expect the iPhone X to be instantly out of stock on launch day until Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

For those living in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait or Qatar, iPhone X pre-orders also start on October 27, but the handset will arrive in stores a day later, on November 4.

Augmented Reality features

Apple just created the world's largest AR ecosystem
New demos are launching with iOS 11
It even works on older devices (A9 chip and higher)

Apple is very bullish on augmented reality, favoring AR over VR. CEO Tim Cook mentions AR during every one of Apple's quarterly earnings calls these days.

iOS 11 beta is already transforming your world into a virtual playground, with games that create digital objects on empty tables when you look through an iPhone or iPad. Home furnishing giant IKEA, meanwhile, is creating practical furniture measuring tools. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

That's why AR is going to play a big part on the iPhone X, although any exclusive features it gets may be minimal, as older iPhones has AR capabilities, too.

You can find out more about the iOS 11 AR experience on the iPhone and iPad, which is coming to all Apple devices with an A9 chip or newer.