Apple iPhone X long-term review

Introduction  "The future of the smartphone" they said when announcing the iPhone X alongside the expected iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus last September. There is no denying that the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are excellent phones, but their all too familiar form factors ensured they were overshadowed by the new look being flaunted by the iPhone X. "An iPhone that is all display." in the words of Jony Ive, Chief Design Officer at Apple. Now, that's way more impressive.

Build quality

The iPhone X clothes its backside in glass, which was last seen on the iconic iPhone 4, with the two halves being almost coherently married together by a band of surgical-grade stainless steel.
It retains enough iPhone DNA to be identifiable as part of the iPhone family and on the whole is manufactured to Apple's usual high standard. We all liked the heavy premium feel that you get when you hold the device. And this sort of feel doesn't wear off with use.

One notable exception though is where the glass back meets the aforementioned stainless steel band, at the point where the two surfaces meet, the tolerance isn't 'tight' enough. On one of our iPhone X's, it appears that 'glue' is starting to extrude out of the gap, in truth this could also be dirt that is captured in this area. Another of our iPhone X's, even when cased, is starting to gather dirt and dust in this area.
Even more distracting is that you can feel this seam in the day to day use (without a case on) and this is detracting from the high-quality fit and finish elsewhere. We've witnessed this on our iPhone 8 Plus, but somehow it seems less pronounced, maybe the narrower width results in it being held slightly differently.
To better illustrate this, we grabbed the microscope that we use in our in-depth reviews to show you the phone panels and magnified the seam. While we were at it, we looked for micro-abrasions, of which there were a few too.