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4 TechCrunch writers bought the iPhone X. Here are our thoughts

Happy iPhone X day! A few of us over here at TechCrunch received our new toys today and wanted to share some initial thoughts with y'all.

Leggo.

First up, Megan Rose Dickey, the lunatic who at one point told co-workers she felt like she was on drugs during her initial iPhone X exploration:

I could barely sleep last night because I knew that at some point today, my iPhone X would arrive. After getting showered and dressed, I went on over to my parents’ place, where I was set to receive the shipment.

FedEx arrived around 11am PT this morning and I promptly lost my shit. The first thing I did, obviously, was try out the animoji. Here’s one I sent to my colleague Darrell Etherington.

The animoji are great, but now I want anibitmoji, ya know? Anyway, the Face ID works like magic and I love it.

Next up, Sarah Buhr, who did not feel she was on drugs but was definitely grinning from ear-to-ear when the UPS guy arrived today:

My previous phone was an iPhone 6 with a hairline crack on the screen I never bothered to fix so the X was a much needed upgrade. It's also a beautiful piece of machinery. I'm still setting it up this afternoon but so far Face ID seems to work very well. It even recognizes me with glasses on or off.

The camera lives up to the hype, too. Hi-res, high-quality. I took a pic of my living room against the window and the light and color still balanced well. Nice touch!

One thing I would like to skip is the need to swipe up after the phone IDs your face. The swiping takes some getting used to and there's a lot of swiping with this phone. Why not just ID my face and let me in?

And Darrell Etherington, who reserved the phone for pick-up in-store first thing Friday morning so he could check out the launch-day hype in person:

This iPhone replaces the iPhone 8 Plus I had been using (which is now on its way to a new home with my dad). It's already a huge step-up from the Plus line for me just because of the size, since it's a lot smaller without sacrificing much screen real estate.

I, too, love the Animoji – I've been using them like you'd use voice messages on WhatsApp or WeChat, since they're incredibly easy to record and I feel like if I'm asking about dinner plans it's just better coming from a pig or a panda.

I'm also surprised at how quickly I adapted to Face ID, which I never thought would even approach Touch ID in terms of convenience. I now already find myself assuming it's going to work on the 8 Plus and my iPad Pro, and taking a minute to remember to use my thumb or finger instead.

Fitz Tepper depended on the hospitality of his hotel and a backup order to make absolutely sure he was ready and armed with iPhone X on day one of availability:

I'm pretty weird about needing to get Apple devices the morning they come out. Old-timers will remember my first-ever post on TC was when I camped out at the only store in the U.S. to have the Apple Watch on launch day.

SO, when I found out I’d be in Chicago for a conference on the big day, I had to prepare accordingly. I stayed up until 3am on preorder day and somehow managed to get one sent to my hotel, and another one to my house. The idea was that my flight back home was at 4pm, and there was no way I’d be thwarted by a late UPS delivery. Worst case I’d just have the hotel ship me the second one to return or give to a family member.

Anyways, I’m just now getting it up and running -- and my only initial thoughts are regarding the size and screen. It’s so small! Coming from many years of using iPhone pluses, it’s weird typing on a smaller keyboard. Of course the trade-off is that the device itself feels great, and fits perfectly in your hand.

One other weird thing that’s going to take getting used to -- no home button. I have 10 years of home button muscle memory, and that’s definitely not going to be fixed overnight.

We're by no means trying to sell you on the iPhone X. It's super expensive and a lot of us will be paying it off for quite some time. But if you like the latest and greatest technology, this is it. Check out TC's official iPhone X review here.

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