Apple and the smartphone race: What does a bezel-less screen have for us?

It’s cut-throat competition in the smartphone world. And if we can call 2017 the year of anything, we’d say bezel-less screens and dual cameras. Apple has had the iPhone 7 Plus with dual cameras since last year but they have been late to the bezel-less screen game. After a bunch of leaks that all proved true, the iPhone X is here (that’s iPhone ‘ten’, not ‘eks’).

First, the naming system. Obviously X denotes the tenth year of the iPhone. But does that mean there will be a iPhone 9 next year? And will the X be another ‘premium’ line up of iPhones? And does that mean the next generation of bezel-less iPhone will be called iPhone X2? It’s all up in the air right now - but let's focus on the X for now.

The most striking aspect has to be the 5.8-inch OLED screen. The size of the screen means that the home button is history. Although the older buttons were designed to be used hundreds of times a day, there were still failures. A big change was the capacitive home button in last year’s iPhone 7/7Plus - it vibrated to simulate a button press. And now the home button has been replaced with a simple swipe up gesture. It works and kind of reminds us of a similar gesture used on touchscreen BlackBerry BB10 phones.

That space in the display houses (from left to right) an infrared camera, flood illuminator, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, earpiece/speaker, microphone, front camera and a Dot projector. Three things in this line up are new and not found on other phones: the infrared camera, flood illuminator and Dot projector. These are central to the Face ID feature and allow for higher accuracy than fingerprints (Touch ID) and allow the system to work in challenging light or if the phone is placed to an angle.


The most striking aspect has to be the 5.8-inch OLED screen. (Image: BCCL)

One of the popular questions about the iPhone X is about the vertically stacked camera module. The iPhone 8 Plus camera module remains horizontal, just like the iPhone 7 Plus - so why the change? The answer lies in the notch we just talked about. Putting all these new sensors into the top part of the phone meant that there’s no space for a camera module behind it. Stacking a camera module behind the notch would likely increase the thickness of the whole device by a large amount. The logical choice was to relocate the camera.

Wireless charging is welcome but not new. Other premium flagships have had it for a couple of years now. Thankfully though, these new iPhones use the Qi (pronounced ‘Chi’) wireless standard for which there are already a lot of accessories. We’ve seen furniture, lamps and cars with built in wireless charging too, so the era of messy cables may be over if this catches on.



As for performance, last years iPhone 7/7Plus were already the fastest in the smartphone world and the new A11 Bionic chip in these phones promises even more. These are 6 core CPUs; with two performance and four high efficiency cores. All 6 cores can function at the same time if required. We’ll wait till we get the devices in for testing but we’re suspecting that the A11 will decimate all competition once again.

And we have to speak about the camera too. The dual camera in iPhone X does portrait mode, just like the iPhone 7Plus. This mode has improved tremendously and is one of the best at providing believable bokeh effects and background separation. A new feature on both iPhone X and 8 Plus is Portrait lighting. While in portrait mode, you can simulate different lighting conditions. You can also go back to previously captured portraits and change lighting. This needs the dual camera to work so it won’t be available on the iPhone 8.


Wireless charging is welcome but not new. Other premium flagships have had it for a couple of years now. (Image: AFP)

However, there have to be drawbacks. We were hoping to see the ProMotion screen (essentially double the screen refresh rates for smoother animation, also found on the iPad Pro line) on iPhone X. And we can’t help but think that Face ID is a workaround for not being able to incorporate fingerprint scanning under the screen. Under screen finger scanning technology, while available, was probably not ready for prime time yet. And if Face ID is a workaround, what about people who cover their face for religious reasons? What about people who are vision impaired?

And finally, Wired put forth an interesting perspective on privacy. It’s hard to ‘hide’ your face from someone (like police, a phone thief, customs official) who wants to coerce you into unlocking your phone. All they need to do to unlock the phone would be to hold it in front of your face.

As for all the other features, we will wait to pass judgment till we have some proper time with the devices. The iPhone X is going to launch November 3, while the iPhone 8/8 Plus will be available September 29.