Bucket Tech: iPhone X - First Impressions

The lead up to this week's Apple Event was all about the new iPhone, with the current available model on the market being the 7, in natural Apple progression, the next model to be released would be the 7s but with the 10 year anniversary of the iPhone being this year many in the know said that Apple would skip the S model and unveil the 8. They were bang on the money with that prediction but in true Steve Jobs fashion, Tim Cook and Apple had "One More Thing" up his sleeve for the night... the iPhone X.

Now I know many, when I say many I mean people other than fans of Apple, might be thinking what is this all about? Well, essentially the iPhone X is the iPhone 10, it pays tribute to 10 years of iPhone and it is the baddest one they've made to date. I mean I normally am a bit skeptical of the products they make, sure they're built well, work well but it's more often over hyped and more likely to cost you an arm and both legs. I'm pretty sure the same could be said about the X but the technology being showcased in this phone is great. Fair enough most Android phones have had these features for a while now and when the iPhone 7 was launched I spoke about how we were so used to Apple coming up with these great features but now it's time for them to play catch and that isn't always a bad thing. Sure the technology is out there but with anything, there will be problems, so if someone has invented it, you can borrow and perfect it. I'm pretty sure that is what Tim and his staff did. Lets take a look at some of the key features into this ultimate iPhone.

First thing that strikes you is the display, in previous generations of the iPhone, the displays always have had borders around them and the standard home key which doubled as a finger print reader. Well with the iPhone X, that got tossed out. The entire front of the device is a screen, yip, with a minimalistic frame which houses the 5.8inch super retina display, only a small portion at the top houses some sophisticated tech which includes sensors, a front facing camera and face ID technology. I know what you're thinking, what does it need face ID recognition for? Well remember how I said they phased out the home button, that button also served as a finger print reader for the phone, now with this gone, the iPhone X uses face recognition software to unlock your phone! Now while there have been many memes that's done the rounds making fun of this feature, you got to admit, that is pretty cool. 

Lets talk about the build quality now, I think we can all agree that the iPhones are made pretty well. Can't say the same about the screens but overall when you hold an iPhone is feels like a well made device, not some cheap tacky mobile you bought from a dodgy corner shop. The iPhone X will be manufactured with surgical stainless steel, yes normal steel just wasn't good enough, that they using a high grade class steel to made this device. Here's the kicker though, both the front and the back of the phone will have "durable" glass on the front and the back. Not sure they're going to be using Corningware Gorilla Glass for this or they've developed their own but for the sake of prospective buyers, I hope it's pretty strong stuff. The glass front and back does give the device a super premium look if I could say so oh and the iPhone X will be dust and splash proof, just in case you spill some Apple juice on it. 

Now the most important feature on an iPhone, the camera! The iPhone X like the 7 and 8 will have a dual lens camera configuration but Apple wanted to make it different and rotated the lens, how this helps, I don't really know but long as it takes awesome pictures of food, sunsets and craft beer right? The camera is a larger and faster 12MP sensor. A new colour filter with deeper pixels and new telephoto camera with OIS. It has depth-sensing cameras and precise facial mapping creating striking studio quality lighting effects. Both rear cameras have optical image stabilization and fast lenses for outstanding photos and videos even in low light. With the wide angle and telephoto cameras on the device, this enables optical zoom as well as digital zoom of up to 10 x for photos and 6 x for videos. 

Overall this phone looks the business and really outshone the iPhone 8 which was also launched on the same night, was that a stupid move from Apple though? Killing off their own product with another one of theirs? Well yes and no, the iPhone X is a special device, so it will have a special price tag. It also has the fastest chipset and CPU than any other of their devices so it really depends on what the consumer needs and how much they can afford. Pricing has only been made available in dollars which is pretty useless to us because simply converting it won't give us a true indication of how much the phone will cost us. We will just have to wait and see along with when it will reach our shores. 

Bucket Tech: Hisense C30 Rock

Many ask "what is the best phone on the market?" but often the answer to that is an over priced, smartphone of which 80% of the features you would never use. What about the other phones on offer then? Not the bottom end ones but like the mid range ones that are decently priced and are decent enough devices? Not much gets said about them and I often feel that they don't get as much attention as they deserve. One of those devices is the new Hisense C30 Rock and I had the opportunity to play around with one for the past three weeks and while it not be the best phone on the market it certainly did surprise me in many other aspects.

STYLING

Upon receiving the device, I was please that the box it came in was small and compact and not full of other junk that just ends up taking a lot of space. Unboxing the device was quick and easy and too my surprise the phone was much larger than I thought it would be. It looked great, with a rose goldish/ copper border and screws, rubber sides and what looked like a carbon fiber back (not sure if it was real carbon fiber or not). It gives the phone a real rugged but cool look, which is part of the image Hisense is trying to portray with the device seeing that it's one of the most durable and hardy phones on the market. 

DURABILITY

It's one of the only devices I know of that has an IP68 rating and IK04 shock resistant, so not only is it dust and waterproof but it can also withstand some heavy falls. Reading it on paper and testing it out for yourself is two different things, I was hesitant at first but as the tests went on I became more and more confident with the C30 Rock, where I went as far as pouring a glass of water over it at a crowded bar just to show people how waterproof it is. People we left amazed and so was I. There was a few drop test conducted as well, some purposely and some not so much on purpose, safe to say the C30 Rock didn't even get a scratch from any of them. So full marks on the durability tests and I agree 100% with them calling it "life-dimensional", where its ready to withstand whatever life throws at it. 

PROCESSING

While the device might be pretty impressive in terms of build quality and strength, one still has to remember that it still has to work. The phone has an impressive chipset with the efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon octa-core 64 bit processor at its heart. It has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of on-board storage, with it running Android OS, of which it is the latest version of Nougat, you have access to Google drive so your storage capacity could be endless depending on the size allocated to your account. The phone boasts a 3000mAh battery with quick charge. There's a lot you can do with this phone before the battery dies on you. It even has an automatic battery saving mode to ensure a prolonged battery life. While its not the fastest phone I've used, it still wasn't slow and coped with most of the tasks I used it for. 

DISPLAY

The C30 Rock does have a big screen, a 5.2" Full HD Display with 424 pixels per inch. Its a good screen but felt the quality of it did lack in brightness now and then but regardless, it was good quality to view on. The touch screen is extremely responsive with zero lag and the phone came with some handy tricks. For example, when watching a video, if my eyes for some reason deviate from watching the screen, the phone would pause the video and start playing it again when I focused on the screen again. 

CAMERA

The C30 Rock comes with a 16 megapixel Q-Shot primary camera with LED Flash and takes some decent quality pictures and videos of which I cannot show you none because my SD card that I had in it got corrupted... It's shutter speed isn't the fastest so make sure your hand is steady when taking pics and hold in place until after the picture is captured for perfect results. Pics in low light are decent quality as well. It has a host of modes and settings for you to play with to get the perfect snap.

VERDICT

For the overall product you getting and at the price you getting it at, the Hisense C30 Rock is an absolute steal. If you're not to bothered with too many features and want a good quality phone that does the job and not going to give you heart palpitations if it falls or gets liquid spilt on it, the C30 Rock is for you.