Before you read on, spend a few minutes reading Jim Dalrymple’s iPhone X first take.

With that as a foundation, read Matt Panzarino’s Disneyland-based iPhone X review. It’s fun, informed, and interesting.

Too much to excerpt the whole thing, but here’s a bit on Face ID:

Going in to this review, my threshold for “success” was whether Face ID worked as well or better than first-generation Touch ID. I didn’t expect it to nail the speed of the second-gen sensor, which is incredibly fast. As long as it landed between the two I would be happy.

Face ID works really well. First, it’s incredibly easy to set up. You choose to enable it and then rotate your nose around the points of a clock twice. That’s it. Second, it worked the vast majority of times I tried it, it never once unlocked using a picture of myself or another person’s face and the failure rate seemed to be about the same as Touch ID — aka almost never. As hoped, it’s definitely faster than the first generation of Touch ID, though perhaps slightly slower than the second gen.

The “slightly slower than second gen” comment is interesting. I wonder if that will improve as users develop the swipe up timing muscle memory. Certainly, the timing should improve with next generation processors.

I experience failure with Touch ID at least once a day or so, almost always due to sweaty fingers from a workout or, perhaps, dirt of some kind on my fingers. Face ID eliminates that issue (my only complaint about Touch ID).

At several points, the unlock procedure worked so well in pitch black or at weird angles that I laughed out loud. You get over the amazement pretty quickly, but it feels wild the first few dozen times you do it.

So important. Really glad to read these reviews, hear the positives on Face ID in the wild.