iPhone X in 2021
iPhone X in 2021 the iPhone 10 is a favorite of many people since it
introduced a lot of new things to the iPhone And this phone is not so new anymore and was released in 2017 So it's a few years old now, but you can't buy it new,but you can buy it refurbished from Apple for about 549 to $679, which is way too expensive for what it is.Since you can get a comparable newer phone for that such as the iPhone 12.So you can get pretty close to that price. However,if you pick one of these up on say Craigslist or eBay or gazelle or some refurbished site, you can get them for around $350.And this is a really solid phone for that amount. So as you can see here,we have a few different colors of them.This is the silver version of the iPhone 10.They did have a space gray version as well. And the design introduced face ID,introduced the notch with face ID and the notch is still controversial to this day. And this one not only introduced the notch,but it also has a stainless steel frame, which was really nice.And so I wanted to talk about the design and the new features,and if you should still pick one up today.And so along with face ID in the notch, they introduced they introduced the gestures.
which I really like where you can just swipe between things.
It did take a little bit of time to get used to,but it's something that I really appreciate today. When you just go in,swipe it off the screen, it makes it super convenient to use.And it's very intuitive and sort of second nature at this point. So the stainless steel is nice. It's held up well,now this phone has actually been in a case most of its life,but as we go around the outside edge,this is the part that would have been exposed in this part does have some scratches and you can see it more easily on the silver iPhone than you can on the space gray version.But it's basically the same layout we've had for many years with your power sleep, wake button on the right side,you've got your SIM card tray and then your volume and your volume buttons,and then rocker switch on the top, nothing. And then on the bottom,you've got your,your microphone and speaker and it's symmetrical on the iPhone 10.We don't have that today.And then of course it's using lightning and it supports wireless charging because we have glass front and back.So that's really nice and it helped introduce wireless charging on the iPhone,along with the iPhone eight. And then of course our two cameras.So we'll talk about that in a moment,but one of the nice things about this phone compared to the current phones is it has 3d touch. So when you 3d touch or press on an icon,you get different options.And that's something that a lot of people were not happy about them removing.So when you have 3d touch versus haptic touch on the iPhone 12 pro max that I have here, if I press and hold on, say music,you'll see it pops up much more quickly on the iPhone 10 as opposed to the iPhone 12 max. So you'll see it pops up. It's nice and quick, just like that.If we do the same on say the app store,it's just a faster response because the iPhone 10 is actually measuring the pressure. You're pushing down on the screen,as opposed to just measuring whether or not your in the same place for sometime, like the iPhone 12 series phones do. So with the iPhone 10,you have that nice advantage and there's not making 3d touch displays anymore on the new phone. So it's so somewhat, a little bit nicer.I think a better experience. Unfortunately,they changed the way it works a little bit, but it's still there.And it's much better. Now, aside from 3d touch, it's an LED display Like I said, Apple introduced to LED displays with this,and it's a 5.8 inch Ola display 1125 by2,436 with 458 pixels per inch.It still looks great and it supports HDR and HDR on YouTube.So if you're in YouTube and then we go to one of my videos,tap on the icon here, you'll see that we have the option for HDR If HDR's available now you may or may not have up to the ability to watch 4k.It just depends on the phone. Most of the time you should have it,but it doesn't really matter because you can't see 4k And one thing you might've noticed right there is it was a little jittery swiping the app off the phone.I don't think that's a consequence of this phone being older, but rather iOS 14,having that X effect on not only this phone, but also the iPhone 12 Promax,I've seen the same sort of responsiveness sometimes when closing an app.So it's something to do with the software that I think they'll fix in the future, but this has the, a 11 bionic with three gigabytes of Ram.And it's plenty fast today. You can load games very fast. No problem.So if we go into something like Mario run, for example, you'll see,it will load it about the same speed as you would get on any other phone today.Let me turn the volume down here.It's loading some of this is internet dependent,but we'll go ahead and hit play remix,wait for it to load and see how long it takes. So we've got that.We'll hit start here.Give it just a moment and you'll see it loads just fine. It's going to load in.That was terrible. It loads just fine. It's going to load like you would expect.So it's nice and fast game play will be fast compared to what we have today on any other modern phone. And it works really well. It's nice and smooth,and you're not going to have any issues with things like menus or scrolling going between apps swiping over to apps and scrolling, no issues there.You're going to have the same experience you do on this phone,as you do with an iPhone 12 series phone, as far as speed with most things.Now, as far as battery life, it's pretty good given that it's a few years old,this does have a decent battery, but it's not amazing.It's comparable to an iPhone 12, for example.So this has a 2,716 million power battery with five to six hours of screen on time that battery will get you through the day for most people. And if you take a look at the battery here,this phone is actually my wife's phone.She used it for three years straight until getting the iPhone 12 pro.So if we go to battery health, for example, you'll see it say 85%.After three years, it was charged every single night used all day long,and it was with optimized battery charging when it was available.So this was used regularly all day long, put on the charger at night used again.And if it needed to be charged during the day, it was,there was no mind paid to battery there at all,but most people will experience five to six hours of screen on time using this with regular use,even with iOS 14.3 or four or whatever it is you're using at this time.So you should get decent battery life on it,and you get all the advantages of say the widgets and things.We'll talk more about in a moment now with the cameras.This is where it's going to be a little bit different than what we get today.So for example,the forward facing camera is just not as good as what we have on say the 12 pro max, it's a seven megapixel camera with an F 2.2 aperture,and it records 10 ADP. It does not record 4k like today's cameras.So that part's a little bit of a disadvantage. However,the rear facing cameras seem to be pretty comparable to today You've got an a 12 megapixel F 1.8 wide angle lens, not ultra wide though.You don't get that with this phone. And also a 12 megapixel F 2.4 telephoto.So they don't have the ultra wide, if that's something that you like,but you do get 4 k 60 video. So if we go into say settings, for example,go down to camera under camera,you do get 4k 60 up to 60 frames per second,but you don't get HDR like you do on the newer cameras.So it's acceptable for almost most,almost everything that you're going to use it for. But if you want an HDR video,well, then you're going to want to go with an iPhone 12 series phone.So photos look nice.And many people say this was better than the 10 S as far as the actual photos,the detail is good. The colors are good. And I think for most people,
this is still a phenomenal camera.The forward facing camera is lacking just a little bit compared to the others.But one thing that you get with this phone that you get with the newer phones that you sort of got skipped through through the years is reception.One of the things this phone has that if you get the right version is it will have a Qualcomm modem.Now that was specific to the Verizon version of this phone.So if you get a Verizon version that was actually unlocked,you can use it on all GSM carriers, but it was specific to Verizon and say,
sprint in the United States when they were still around,but you would get better reception with this because what Apple did is switch to Intel modems for some of the carriers on this phone.So it depends on which phone you have, but if you have the correct model,you'll actually get a Qualcomm modem and you'll have better reception and better overall connectivity. So it's really, uh,kind of the one you want to look for is the Verizon unlocked version. Now,one thing that I mentioned in most of my videos about old led screens is they have PWM or pulse with modulation to control the brightness of the display So as you bring the brightness up or down,it's going to flicker the screen faster or slower.Now it's not something you can see with your eyes,but it is something that is there that can bother people's eyes about one in 10 people experiencing an issue, including myself. So from an iPhone 10,when I switched from say an iPhone seven plus to an iPhone eight plus,and then to attend, the 10 was kind of something that bothered my eyes a lot.I can't look at this screen very long without having an issue as far as aha or feeling a little bit nauseated. Now,this was a huge problem up until the iPhone 11 pro max and iPhone 12 series phones,where the actual rate at which they're flickering or the Hz they're using is higher, where it doesn't bother my eyes. So on the iPhone 12 series phones,I don't have this issue and I didn't really have that issue on the iPhone 11,but with the 10 and 10 S it was enough that I actually had to switch away from it and use the iPhone 11, for example,because it has an LCD and it doesn't control brightness that way.So that's just something to consider if that bothers you. Now, of course,with this, like I said, it introduced face ID and face ID is fine.It's not super fast, but it works. It's not as fast as the newer phones.They're much faster when it comes to that. So if you lift up and unlock,let's try it again. I looked at the iPhone ten first. Let's just look at them.You'll see that it's a little bit delayed. If I try it one more time,bring them up. You'll see that most of the time,the 12 pro max will be faster.It has faster face ID than what you get on the 10. The 10 is fine,but it may be a concern for some, as it does cause a little bit of a delay.Sometimes there's no fingerprint sensor. So if you're using a mask, for example,it doesn't unlock as fast and you'll have to put in your passcode and you'lljust have to basically use a touch ID phone if that's a problem for you. Now,another thing people are concerned with is a phone.This old may have an issue with screen burden.So that's not really an issue for most of these phones.So what you can do is actually load a gray wallpaper like this,and look for different ghosting of icons and things that have been static on the display. Usually the clock or the battery icon, where you may see an outline.A few people have had this issue, mostly units that sit in stores all day,
but most of the time, you're not going to see a burn-in in this screen.
Apple seems to handle that really well. A few people do see it,but most of the time, it's not really an issue. So if you want this wallpaper,I'll link it so you can kind of try it, but it's just an all gray wallpaper.You can see if there's burning around the display over time.So that burn-in issue is a concern for some but Apple seems to handle it very well. Now,as far as how long this phone will receive support in the future with iOS updates, while Apple tends to update their phones for at least five years.And in some cases, six with the iPhone 6 S and success plus,so this phone will probably get support up till about iOS. Well,at least iOS 16 or 17 based off of that, they could support it longer.It just depends on what Apple decides to do,but expect at least two more years of solid updates. And so that leads me to,
should you pick up an iPhone 10 in 2021?And the answer to that for me personally,is if you can find one at a reasonable cost, maybe in the $300 range, then yes,this is absolutely worth that amount of money. However,if you can't find one and you're going to pick one up in the six to $700 range,well, then I would probably skip it and maybe get an iPhone 11 or 12 series,or maybe an a leftover 11 pro. For example, at that price point,you can probably find that on just about any site.So around the $300 Mark, three to $400, this is still worth it.But if it's in the $600 range, I might skip it and look for something new.But let me know if you're picking an iPhone 10 up soon,or maybe you're getting rid of yours to upgrade to something else?