iPhone X Physical Design
If there’s an ergonomic issue I’m going to have with the iPhone X, it’s the height of the device, not its width. Holding my iPhone 8 in one hand, I can barely reach my thumb up to the top of the screen. But not only is the iPhone X 5mm taller, but the screen extends almost all the way to the top. I can’t keep the bottom of the iPhone X braced with my pinky and use my thumb to tap items high up in the interface. I suppose over time I will either change how I hold the phone in my hand, get used to shimmying my hand up the phone to reach the top, or get used to not one-handing my iPhone as often as I currently do.
For any of you buying glass-back phones that are used to leaving them on your lap or bag or whatever know they are REAL slippery on textiles.
Following a series of six drop tests of the iPhone X, gadget insurance company SquareTrade has labelled the iPhone X ‘the most breakable, highest-priced, most expensive to repair iPhone ever.’
When it comes to hardware, this is the most densely-packed gadget we’ve ever taken apart. Thanks to drastically shrinking the bezels, the iPhone X sports the largest display of any iPhone—in a smaller form factor than the “Plus” devices. That super-sized display needs a super-sized battery, and there wasn’t room with the iPhone’s traditional layout. The solution? An unprecedented degree of miniaturization of the main board. Apple effectively folded the logic board in half—and soldered the layers together—to free up valuable real estate for the Plus-sized battery. In its compact and stacked form, the iPhone X logic board takes up about 70% of the area of the iPhone 8 Plus board. Separated and spread out, the X’s board is actually 35% bigger than the one in the 8 Plus—which leaves plenty of room for new goodies, like hardware to power FaceID.
Looking at iPhone X, you can see how Apple has taken 10 years of those innovations in industrial design and essentially summarized it.
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The iPhone X is a design that condenses the essence of every past iPhone and somehow transcends it to become something entirely new.
iPhone X looks great, but like all of Apple’s phones since the iPhone 5s (and SE), I do not find it comfortable in the hand without a case. The edges are too rounded, though they feel a bit less sharp than the 6/6s/7, perhaps because the X is thicker. Unfortunately, it’s even more slippery than previous models. I’d prefer to see a more sticky surface and more square edges.
