Phonelopnik

by "DaftRyosuke - So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!" (daft-ryosuke)
Published 11/10/2017 at 16:52

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STARS: 1

After much skepticism, I test drove the iPhone X today.

It’s so fucking good. The UI is flawlessly smooth, colors are vibrant, and it feels so well-built and so solid.

The home button is barely missed, except in a few minor scenarios. With some practice, you’ll get used to it easy.

I don’t know if it’s worth $999, but I wouldn’t be upset at all to have it. Bravo, Apple.

Replies (28)

"Wacko" (wacko--)
11/10/2017 at 16:55, STARS: 0

I hate my 6 with ios 11.

"Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap" (ddadragon)
11/10/2017 at 16:56, STARS: 0

I’m not willing to pay a grand but you know....

"DaftRyosuke - So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!" (daft-ryosuke)
11/10/2017 at 16:57, STARS: 0

What’s the issues?

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/10/2017 at 17:05, STARS: 3

I’m firmly in the Android camp but I can at least get behind an iPhone 7 or 8 Plus. Fuck the X. Too many compromises.

AMOLED screens are only new and different in Apple land.

The notch is stupid. Just give it a little top bezel to house the Face ID stuff.

Give it a fingerprint sensor on the back. It still wouldn’t be able to be unlocked while sitting on a flat surface but it would give an option other than holding it directly in front of your damn face.

Apple needs to copy Google Smart Lock from Android which lets you set trusted locations and bluetooth devices that keep the phone unlocked. My phone stays unlocked at home and when it’s connected to the bluetooth in my car.

Unlike Android where apps dynamically resize to whatever aspect ratio of screen, iOS requires developers to build every new aspect ratio into every app. Until every app you use is rewritten for the X aspect ratio, you get big black bars on the top and bottom of the screen.

$999 for this bullshit?

HHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

NNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

"DAWRX - The Herb Strikes Back" (karsonkinja)
11/10/2017 at 17:08, STARS: 1

My question is where does it stop? When do we get a $2000 phone? Consumers have already shown themselves more than willing to pay the premium for the X over the 8 (due to easy financing and upgrade plans), so why not up the ante?

"Chariotoflove" (chariotoflove)
11/10/2017 at 17:09, STARS: 0

Cool. I think you hit on the head. Apple devices have to be encountered in person to appreciate their engineering. I haven’t held one yet, but I’m looking forward to it. I may want one for my next phone, although I don’t know if I can afford it.

"Shady Balkan Subject, Drives an Alfa" (bularmy)
11/10/2017 at 17:36, STARS: 0

I had iPhones and flagship Androids. After buying a “flagship” Chinese phone last month, I am in the, I will never buy again anything other camp. I am not a brand snob, so it was easy to get the mindset to try a Chinese phone.

The value for money ratio for the Chinese phone is ridiculous. You get the same or better performance as 20-30% more expensive mainstream brands and you get a more premium feeling phone, because a lot of them are brushed aluminum backs, with some very decent looking screens.

At this point smartphone advances has become so minuscule, that it is not worth to pay the markup, so on your phone is written Samsung rather than Xiaomi.

"Highlander-Datsuns are Forever" (jamesbowland)
11/10/2017 at 17:47, STARS: 0

Still not showing notifications on mobile browsers.

"chaozbandit" (chaozbandit)
11/10/2017 at 17:59, STARS: 0

$1319 CAD fam

"merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc" (merged-5876237249235911857-hrw8uc)
11/10/2017 at 18:34, STARS: 0

Just a matter of time.

"Wacko" (wacko--)
11/10/2017 at 19:42, STARS: 0

Slow

Slow. Slow typing and dialling have delays

"Alex B" (alexb420)
11/10/2017 at 20:28, STARS: 0

I went from a 6 running iOS 11 to an X. What a world of difference

"Tapas" (tapas)
11/10/2017 at 23:35, STARS: 0

Just don’t do this and you’ll be good to go 

"valsidalv, reminding you that infiniti is an option" (valsidalv)
11/11/2017 at 01:34, STARS: 0

Since you asked: http://vertu.com/ Prices aren’t listed online but expect to pay $10k - 50k for the luxury of ownership.

"DaftRyosuke - So Long and Thanks for All the Fish!" (daft-ryosuke)
11/11/2017 at 12:25, STARS: 1

So that’s the point of that commercial.

"His Stigness" (HisStigness)
11/11/2017 at 22:25, STARS: 0

I know Smart lock isn’t as secure as having it locked all of the time, but I’m not Dr Evil so it’s okay, but that’s pathetic Apple doesn’t have the same feature. It would drive me absolutely nuts to have to look at my phone BEFORE it unlocks and can use it. Google Imprint is so fast and fluid I love being able to have my phone unlocked and ready before I look at it. But, when I’m at home I like being able to unlock it without the sensor.

And the X really does have bezels (until apps update their aspect ratio)? Bahahahahahahhahahahaahhaaha! That’s pathetic!

And speaking of bezels, after all the bitching about the “massive” bezels on the Pixel 2 XL I assumed the Galaxy 8 didn’t have any bezels. I was actually mad to be wrong because they’re the exact same size as the Pixel 2 XL. That’s fucking annoying that reviewers crawl up Google’s ass over bezels and then cite the Galaxy as being bezel less when it’s clearly not.

And I hope to got Google doesn’t do a bezel less XL next year because I want stereo speakers. I didn’t yet the Pixel XL specifically because it didn’t have stereo speakers.

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/12/2017 at 11:36, STARS: 0

The Galaxy 8 bezels are a little smaller than the Pixel 2 XL because of no stereo speakers and the thinner, more tapered design.

This is what an app that doesn’t support the X aspect ratio looks like:

Honestly I don’t even care about bezels. Until the phone manufacturers started hyping how small their bezels were, I was never like “you know what I really need in a phone is less bezels.”

Yes, I like more screen real estate in a smaller overall phone but these tall aspect ratios aren’t necessarily always adding super useful real estate, especially if they’re not any wider than smaller regular screens.

I’d rather have a traditional 16:9 screen that’s 5.5" or bigger than one of these extra tall 5.7" or 5.8" screens like the iPhone X, LG G6 or Galaxy S8. Those are too skinny for me. I’d still go for the bigger version like S8+, V30, Pixel XL 2.

"His Stigness" (HisStigness)
11/13/2017 at 04:05, STARS: 0

I was just reading The Verge’s review on the iPhone X when I came across the nugget that apps not optimized for the X get sized down to the 8's 5.5 screen size. So people are paying a nice premium for a screen they can’t actually use. HA! But, somehow the Pixel 2 XL’s screen is the end of days? Huh?

I get why the S8's bezels are smaller, but I prefer the ever so slightly larger bezels on the 2 XL in order to get stereo speakers, especially now that Google are dicks and got rid of the headphone jack.

I too never really cared about bezels, only screen, and overall phone size. I had the Nexus 6p before I just got the Pixel 2 XL and I passed up on the first Pixel XL not because of the bezels themselves, but what the bezels took away from the phone. The Pixel XL had a smaller screen than the 6p, but it didn’t have stereo speakers, and the phone size was the same. That was just stupid to me. I wasn’t going to buy a new phone that was actually worse than my current phone. And with the regular Pixel 2, I don’t dislike it because of the big bezels, but because of the tiny 5" screen. I think Google could have tried harder and maybe made the screen 5.5".

I also agree with you on the aspect ratio. The S8 doesn’t feel right, and the iPhone X looks wrong.

Another gripe: stop making BS excuses for getting rid of the headphone jack. I’m pretty sure the engineers at Apple and Google are capable enough to make a phone that fits in a larger battery, more tech, and still fit a headphone jack in. They also act as if a headphone jack adds hundreds of dollars to the cost.

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/13/2017 at 10:27, STARS: 0

The black bars in un-optimized-for-X apps is because of how iOS handles aspect ratios vs. Android.

Since Apple is the only company making devices for iOS, they’ve always had devs code for a specific aspect ratio. If they introduce a new aspect ratio, it needs to be specifically coded into apps. Sometimes the aspect ratio is an incremental change, but other times aspect ratios can mean to show a totally different version of the app, like when the iPad came out there were tablet versions of apps, or when the iPhone Plus came out it added the option for a wider portrait view of the same app.

Android has always been more open and since Google doesn’t control the aspect ratios of devices, they made it so the OS and apps would adapt to whatever aspect ratio. It’s easier to support more aspect ratios but you don’t always get a good use of the screen. Like Android tablet apps are often less feature-rich or don’t have nice big UI elements like iPad apps because devs can still make tablet-specific versions of their apps but often just don’t bother since the OS will fill the screen anyway.

Because of this, when Apple introduces a new aspect ratio, it takes some time for all the devs to update their apps to support the new one. In the case of the iPhone X, its screen is taller than the iPhone Plus, but also narrower. When you use an un-optimized app on an iPhone X you get the regular iPhone version, not the iPhone plus version.

I had a Moto X Pure with a 5.7" screen and stereo speakers like your 6P and a similar experience replacing it. I was like, “but what about my stereo speakers?” but I realized that while yes, they were in fact nice, the total amount of time I used them in the 2 years I had the phone was very low. Sure, I’d watch an occasional movie trailer or something at work, but as far as actually sitting and watching something for an extended period of time with the speakers providing audio, ehh, not so much. Most of my mobile device video watching is on my tablet, with headphones.

I ended up with a Galaxy S7 Edge, because I don’t want to pay $500+ for a phone, and even though it stepped down from 5.7" to 5.5", the capacitive buttons help gain back some vertical real estate. No, it doesn’t have stereo speakers, but I don’t miss them terribly much.

Generally I’m fine with the taller aspect ratio. It makes sense, to an extent, because we use our phones in portrait mode by default. It’s just that I don’t want to give up too much width to gain the extra height. The S8, G6 and iPhone X are taller versions of small phones. I want taller versions of big phones, i.e. S8+, V30, Pixel 2.

The headphone jack is another thing I gripe about but in reality doesn’t affect me all that much. I don’t really sit around listening to music on headphones at length. The only time I do that is at the gym and I use bluetooth headphones. My latest pair support the aptX codec and so do (most) Android phones, so these sound pretty damn decent. Otherwise in the car I also use bluetooth and I’m pretty sure my car doesn’t support aptX, but between the summer tires, open intake and upgraded exhaust, my car is kinda noisy. The factory Harman Kardon stereo at least has nice speakers and amps so the music generally sounds nice enough over the noise. My main use of headphones is with a tablet watching Netflix, so I definitely don’t want tablets to lose the jack.

In a phone, if I’m being honest with myself, high quality Bluetooth audio codec support is more important to me than a headphone jack. Sure, I’d rather have the jack than not. But I don’t use it much. Most Android phones support aptX, and Apple uses AAC. Neither of these are universally supported by headphones but they can be found. There are other less-common codecs like Samsung UHQ-BT and Sony LDAC, but usually devices that support these codecs also do aptX. One phone that glaringly doesn’t support any high quality bluetooth codec is the Essential PH-1. That’s on top of not having a headphone jack.

Oh, and the Pixel XL 2 and LG V30 screen issues are with the quality of the panel itself. I haven’t personally used either phone but it’s entirely possible the problems are real. And unlike the iPhone X where plenty of apps already have been redone to the new aspect ratio, and more will be over time, a hardware defect in the screen can’t be fixed. If I were considering either of these phones I’d have to take a good long look at them in person before dropping the cash that either one of them requires.

"His Stigness" (HisStigness)
11/14/2017 at 15:38, STARS: 0

Apple’s aspect ratio policy made sense when they only had one phone size, but now with multiple phone sizes, coupled with the fact Apple can’t allow devs to fix their apps before the release date, because then it would spoil their announcement, it would make more sense to follow Google’s approach and allow the apps to resize for the phone.

While I’m not a developer that seems to make a hell of a lot more sense considering I just installed a very old app on my Pixel 2 XL and it looked just fine. It actually looked wonderful, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

It’s been years since I’ve used Android tablets; since the Nexus 10 there wasn’t anything very nice that I wanted, and I have this incredibly weird problem with being unable to downsize on my devices, so I wasn’t interested in the Nexus 9. The Pixel C would have been lovely, but it was just too much. I was really put off by Google seriously upping the costs of the Google line when they switched to Pixel. My Nexus 10 only cost $400, and I believe it was a damn capable tablet for the money.

Stereo speakers: I agree with you that for most users they end up using headphones, or their tablets, but now that we’re apparently moving away from the aux jack, I would argue that good phone speakers are even more important. I had my Pixel 2 XL for about a week and I went to grab my headphones and realized, “shit, I need the stupid dongle.” But even before the loss of the aux jack, I was a heavy user of my phone speakers for watching a lot of clips.

But after using the Pixel XL’s bottom firing speakers it wouldn’t be the end of the world to lose the stereo speakers, but I think Google, or any maker, should compensate by making dual speakers. I don’t see why that wouldn’t work since there won’t be a headphone jack on the top. And water/dust proofing can’t be a serious issue since Google was able to waterproof the Pixel 2's.

I miss the headphone jack not because of audio issues, but simply because most Bluetooth headphones SUCK. Unless you spend hundreds of dollars you get shitty sound and incredibly shitty connectivity. A lot of it has to do with the phone design, and I hope to god the Pixel 2 doesn’t suck, but I don’t want to have to spend hundreds of dollars to have yet another battery powered device when I can spend around $100 for decent headphones and listen to my phone as long as the phone battery lasts, which is a helluva lot longer than the Bluetooth headphones right now.

But that really comes down to the user. I use headphones all day at work, plus during my bike ride to and from work, so I need headphones that last at least ten hours, 12 to be safe. But none exist as far as I’m aware. That’s why I miss the aux jack.

So now the Pixel XL 2 screen: the blueish tint is not the end of the world. And I’m not saying that as a Google fan boy, or even as an owner of a Pixel XL 2. I am pissed at Google that they have a ton of issues with both phones. Issues that should have been caught in testing. But in everyday use, the blue tint does not bother me one bit. You know why? Because no sane or normal human being spends their time looking at their phone from an off-axis. They always stare at it dead on. And dead on, the Pixel 2 XL’s screen is a gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen. My 6P looks like a twenty-year-old kid’s toy in comparison.

And what irritates me more than all the press Google has gotten, and the lost recommendations: blue tint is normal on OLED screens. Fucking Apple put a disclaimer out that blue tint and burn in was normal. But no one is bitching about that. If neurotic Android reviewers hadn’t even noticed it, no user would have. It just drives me nuts that Google (and Android) is held to some impossible standard, whereas Apple can get away with murder.

And one more thing on the Pixel 2: the color choices. Again we come back to this weirdly high standard Google is held to, and reviewers ripped Google a new asshole on the color choices. I quite like the color choice Google chose for the Pixel 2. Even looking at Samsung phones by themselves I always found them to be cartoonish and ugly. And Google’s new update with the “saturated” mode should definitely sway those people who like the cartoonish colors of Samsung phones.

No offense to you at all if you like it, it is entirely a subjective choice, but I don’t understand why reviewers had to rip Google a new one on something that is entirely subjective. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the hardware, or even the software, it was just entirely a design choice.

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/14/2017 at 17:15, STARS: 0

I understand why Apple still enforces specific aspect ratios. They want to have specific experiences tied to specific aspect ratios. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is debatable, but I at least understand their choice.

I’m definitely not a Samsung fanboy. I dislike bloat. I bought my S7E because it was the best option for what I wanted in an unlocked phone under $500. I switched it off the default color mode because it was too saturated. I have to really try to see any kind of blue shift.  

The off-axis blue shift and low saturation weren’t only knocks on the Pixel 2 XL (and LG V30) screen that I read about. The others were the weird texture on solid colors, poor black detail, and burn-in/image retention on practically brand new phones. I haven’t seen one in person so who knows how bad any of this really is.

Many bluetooth headphones do suck but there are some good ones. Especially if you look for aptX or other high-quality codec support.

I’m actually very happy with my current cheap-ass SoundPeats gym headphones that are 15 bucks on Amazon at the moment. There’s a $22 upgraded version that’s supposed to fix bluetooth connection issues but I’ve had no problem with mine. They sound noticeably better than the PowerBeats they replaced.

There are any number of cans that have 20+ hour battery life, aptX support, and plug-in-ability. Some options:

Smartomi Hoop - $30
Avantree  - $50
BlueAnt Pump Zone - $60
AudioMX AX-05 - $66
Audio Technica ATH-AR3BT - $105
Audio-Technica ATH-SR5BT - $150
Sennheiser HD 4.40 BT - $150

If you also want noise canceling:

iDeaUSA - $70
TaoTronics - $70
Plantronics BackBeat Pro 2 - $180
Sennheiser HD 4.50 BTNC - $200

There’s a million random Chinese ones on Amazon. When you want noise canceling there’s a bigger price gap between the rando brands and name brands.

Seems to me like if you wanted you could have a cheap sporty pair for your bike ride and then some nice cans, maybe with noise canceling, for work.

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/14/2017 at 17:57, STARS: 0

Oh and as far as Android tablets go, yeah the market is pretty thin.

I have a Lenovo Yoga Tab 2 10 from a couple years ago that’s mediocre at best but I like the silly kickstand for watching videos. It’s basically stock but stuck on Lollipop. It’s fine for streaming videos but otherwise a little janky.

My wife usually goes to bed before me and I’ll go in the guest room and watch with headphones while I’m winding down to sleep. I put the kickstand on my chest and rest my hands on it, which is a super low-effort way to hold up the tablet. I often fall asleep like this haha. The newer Yoga Tab 3 Plus has upper-midrange specs and a higher resolution screen.

My wife has an Asus Zenpad 3S 10. Same basic form factor as a nice thin & light iPad. Asus has some bloat but it’s not terrible. Overall a very nice tablet.

Both of these can be had for ~$300 right now. I’ve been tempted to pick up that Yoga Tab 3 Plus for myself but with my older version only being only a couple years old I’m not quite ready to justify a purchase.

"His Stigness" (HisStigness)
11/14/2017 at 21:30, STARS: 0

I haven’t noticed any other quality issues with the screen. I guess if I ever see someone I know with an iPhone X I’ll compare it to that to see, but I think if I can’t see anything now I doubt there’s a widespread issue, of anything wrong outside of super picky reviewers who were looking for problem.

The burn in thing is really odd, especially since I only read of one or two reviewers actually finding a problem. I the CNET maybe had one out of five, and The Verge had none. And I also have to wonder what the hell they were doing to get the burn in. The buttons were not that bright. But the fix they pushed out I’d be shocked it there is ever any burn in from normal use. I see a noticeable difference in the brightness of the buttons, even though Google said you wouldn’t. Plus they’ve programmed in a time delay which should further protect it. And further, with the warranty extended out to two years I’m not worried about anything. I already had Google send me a new phone because I couldn’t get Cast controls to appear in the notification menu, not could I get Android Pay notification to push to the phone. But it’s not a hardware problem. But it was super easy to get a replacement, you just tell them you did a factory reset and they overnight a brand new phone.

With the headphones I was actually talking about ear buds. I never use over the ear phones because I’m always moving around. It makes sense though that over the ear phones have plenty of battery. I was looking into getting some custom IEM’s, though, so I doubt I’ll also get a nice pair of over the ear. I just got a new DAC so when I’m using the IEM I won’t even need the aux jack. But I don’t need a DAC for my Bose, which is why I lament the loss of the aux jack.

I forgot Lenovo makes decent tablets. I mainly look for my mom and she’s cursed with always having issues, so I always go for pure Android with top specs so I have a cushion of about 6 months before she starts having weird ass issues.

I’ve been mulling over getting the Pixelbook and use it mainly as a tablet, and then an actual computer at school. But it will be hard to justify such a stupid high price when the screen is only 12", and it’s 2-3 pounds. But it is incredibly nice. And it’s Google, which I always go for.

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/14/2017 at 21:53, STARS: 0

I’d definitely recommend the Asus 3S 10 for mom duty. It’s not absolute top specs but it has a Mediatek hexacore chip that’s similar to a Snapdragon 652, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB storage, and some kind of better-than-1080p resolution I forget off the top of my head. The Asus skin isn’t too bad. It’s nice and thin and light with small bezels, and generally feels premium.

My wife loves hers. She’s had it about 6 months I think? No problems so far. She actually randomly told me the other day how she’s so happy with the thing.

The Pixel 2 XL theoretically ticks all my boxes, and I can live without the headphone jack, but I just don’t want to spend that much on any phone. I draw the line at $500 and try to keep it for at least a couple years.

"His Stigness" (HisStigness)
11/15/2017 at 16:11, STARS: 0

Thanks, I’ll be sure to check it out.

$850 before taxes was incredibly tough to swallow. If I had kept the Nexus Protect and not traded in a phone, I think it was over, or at $1,100. I only got (or will get when Google’s trade in partner pulls their head out of their ass) $115 for a spare Nexus 5X I had thanks to FedEx screwing up on a warranty replacement. But $850 for, let’s face it, a vanilla Google phone is ridiculous. I only got it because I will pay a premium for a stock Google phone, and wanted a really nice phone. Google doesn’t need to charge that much, but I’m sure they’re thinking is, “Well, Apple costs a lot and billions of people buy their phones, so if we want to compete we need to charge the same.” But when they can’t keep the phones in stock for more than five minutes, have to do immediate damage control, and their trade in process sucks, they shouldn’t be charging a premium. When Toyota starting making Lexus they didn’t come right out of the gate with a car priced the same as an S Class. They sold it for less because there was no brand value or loyalty.

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/15/2017 at 17:08, STARS: 0

I wish more phone companies made better almost-flagship phones. Qualcomm makes the Snapdragon 65x & 66x chips for this purpose but they mostly get used in phones exclusive to Asia. In the US, last year’s flagships become this year’s almost-flagships. I think the fact that most people here buy phones on carrier installment plans vs. unlocked drives this trend.

Probably the only way to get the amount of battery life you’re talking about with earbuds is either wired earbuds with a bluetooth DAC or neckbuds. Not sure if either option is appealing.

"His Stigness" (HisStigness)
11/15/2017 at 23:10, STARS: 0

Well, they make 2nd tier phones, but they’re still priced like 1st tier phones. I don’t know exact numbers but I’m sure the iPhone 8 isn’t much cheaper than the Plus. And even then, they’re different size phones, which brings up another issue: forcing people into larger phones in order to get top specs. Not everyone likes a large phone like the Pixel XL. A friend of mine who got the Pixel 2 mainly got it because he didn’t want a phone as large as the XL. Price was also a large factor.

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/16/2017 at 00:37, STARS: 0

I guess what I mean is there are now multiple levels of flagship but there’s a big gap between the flagships and the midrange stuff because the upper-midrange stuff still uses lower-midrange chips but adds other premium features. There are multiple $400 phones right now that have a Snapdragon 630 in them which is the same basic chip as what’s in $200-300 phones.

I’d like to see more stuff use the new SD660. Its CPU performance is 90% of the 820, GPU is about 50% of it but it’s also 2x the 630 so effectively right in the middle. It has newer bluetooth & quick charge standards. But it can sip power almost as good as the 630. It could make a very nice $400-500 phone.

Instead right now $400-500 means last year’s flagship, or an upstart brand flagship like OnePlus.