Recognising a counterfeit iPhone X

Since September 2017, Apple has been marketing the iPhone X (then XR, XS and XS Max since 2018), the brand's new flagships. With their high-flying screens and increasingly cutting-edge features, they are generating a lot of interest among consumers. But their extremely high prices make them out of reach for a number of people, who are turning to second-hand phones to get their hands on them. Where it gets complicated is that, as with all successful products, there are plenty of fakes out there, and it's important to know how to tell the difference between a fake iPhone X and a real one. In addition to our article on how to tell a real iPhone from a fake, you can find out more about Apple's latest models here.

1 - The screen

It's the big news since the arrival of the very first iPhone X model: a screen that covers almost the entire device, with a small notch at the top to house all the sensors (facial recognition, camera...). The screen on a counterfeit iPhone X is already not an OLED screen. OLED stands for Organic Light-Emitting Diodes, which means that each pixel emits its own light. This technology makes it possible to obtain perfect blacks, insofar as the black pixels are "switched off" and are therefore perfectly black. So if the black parts of an iPhone X screen appear lit up or greyed out and are not perfectly black, they are 100% fake. What's more, counterfeit iPhones X leave large black bands around the phone's screen, which is not the case on an original model made by Apple, which covers the majority of the screen and has rounded edges.

Note the difference in the use of the space at the bottom of the screen between the counterfeit (left) and the original (right).

2 - Notch and screen borders

The notch is the name of the small notch visible in the middle of the screen at the top. As mentioned, it contains all the elements needed to use certain smartphone functions, such as the front-facing camera and the various sensors required for Face ID, Apple's facial recognition technology. Counterfeit phones do not have the notch. To make up for this, these phones do display the shape of the notch, but in software! Basically, it's not a hardware 'part', but a black shape displayed directly on the phone's screen. And it's easy to see. If in doubt, simply take a screenshot. On a genuine iPhone X, the screenshot shows a full screen with no notch visible, whereas screenshots taken with counterfeits show a black shape at the top of the screen, as in the following example:

Screenshot of a counterfeit iPhone X on the left, screenshot of a genuine iPhone X on the right

You can also see that the rounded edges of the screen are also achieved by software, and not because the screen actually approaches round edges. So you can see the little black shapes at the four corners of the screen when captured with a fake iPhone X.

3 - Face ID

Counterfeit phones do not, of course, have facial recognition technology. So they will simply display the front camera... But anyone can unlock them!

4 - The camera

A genuine iPhone X has a quality camera, both front and rear. The clones, on the other hand, have low-end cameras that look cold and blurry.

5 - The software interface

As you might expect, this is by no means iOS, but a modified version of Android. Even if the interface is fairly faithful to the original, a number of elements clearly show that you're dealing with a counterfeit version.

For example, the Appstore (Apple's application shop) encounters errors at launch, indicating that Google Playstore has not worked (and yes, it is Android behind it all).

In reality, these fake iPhone Xs run a version of Android 6.0 with a visual overlay.

What's more, all this little software tinkering is dangerous: these phones are full of backdoors, which make it as easy as possible for hackers to get into your phone and access your data. This can quickly turn into a disaster. What's more, many basic applications, such as the compass, stock market, etc., require access to data that has nothing to do with them, such as text messages on the device. All the information you put in or enter is therefore potentially accessible to malicious people and usable by third parties!

6 - Performance

A genuine iPhone X has high performance, and switching applications or loading them is a breeze. Fake iPhone Xs are slow, struggling to switch from one application to another, although this isn't necessarily catastrophic at first glance. In any case, the components are rather low-end and struggle to keep up, not least because of all the overlay and modifications made to the software and interface.

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We've also written an article to help youavoid buying a fake iPhone 12.