It’s that time of year again and we have a new iPhone in town, the iPhone Xs review. The iPhone XI mean XX is supposed to be the fastest iPhone ever with an even better camera, but of course that comes with a price, so what are you actually getting here? Are the differences worth an upgrade, well let me help you decide with our iPhone XS review.
I’ve got to be honest here, a lot of people won’t think twice about upgrading to the latest and greatest iPhone. If you like Apple products and can afford the price tag, it makes sense. But this review is more for people that are on the fence about it.
iPhone Xs Review – First Impressions
Apple has remained faithful to last year’s design. It’s a luxurious glass on glass build with a stainless steel edge. In fact, they’re so faithful that if you put this year’s iPhone next to its predecessor, they look almost identical. Apple tends to find a design that works and sticks with it. The camera bump doesn’t quite match up, though, which should make last year’s cases a bit of a tight fit.
iPhone Xs Review – Display Screen
Apple says that the XS should be more resistant to physical trauma thanks to the new Gorilla Glass 6. That said, judging by some drop tests we’ve seen on the Internet, you should probably put some protection on it just in case as this is an OLED screen, so a New iPhone XS screen repair will put you back a tidy penny or 2, iPhone Xs Screen Repairs can cost as much as a new mid range phone. On top of that, the Xs Max has a truly excellent screen, actually the same as last year’s. The 5.8 inch OLED display is really bright, has a wonderful sunlight, legibility, and some of the best colour accuracy we’ve seen on the smartphone. The True Tone feature makes things look even better by adjusting the white balance according to the ambient light.
There’s only one glaring issue. You still can’t hide the notch or even watch full screen content without the notch cutting into it. Considering that most Android phones with the notch can pull this off, and it could easily be fixed with software, the only reason could be stubbornness from Apple. Screen time gives you statistics about the time you spend on your phone or in different apps. You can set limits for yourself here too, if you’re trying to break a bad habit.
Water Resistance & Sound – iPhone Xs
The phone has slightly better water protection this year, earning an IP68 rating over IP67. It’s not a huge jump, but it allows for a little extra Peace of Mind in deeper water. Another example is the headphone solution. This year there isn’t even a 3.5 millimetre adapter in the box. Apple hopes people will switch to Bluetooth headphones or shell out nine bucks for a dongle at the Apple Store. At least the stereo speakers are improved. The earpiece speaker is bigger and louder, so the setup is more balanced than the iPhone XS
The left and right channels will even switch when you turn your screen upside down, keeping the sound consistent
iPhone XS Battery Life
with the battery of around 2600 milliamp hours. One area which isn’t stellar is battery life. Though it is similar to last year’s iPhone X, the X S scored a 72 hour endurance rating in our proprietary tests, lower than most of the phones we revealed so far this year. However, if you do get low, you can’t charge back up really fast, provided that you spend some money on one of Apple’s fast MacBook chargers. That bulky charger can get you from zero to 55% in half an hour, but the one provided in the iPhones box only charges a 22% in the same amount of time, about as fast as a wireless charger. There have been reports of issues with charging where the phone won’t begin to charge unless you wake it up first. Luckily our unit didn’t have any of these problems, but since there hasn’t been any official statement from Apple yet, we don’t know how many phones are affected. We hope there’s a software fix coming pretty soon.
iPhone Xs Performance
The iPhone Xs runs on Apple’s latest chipset, the seven nanometer A12 Bionic. On top of being faster, it also comes with a more powerful GPU and new neural engine, and a new image signal processor or ISP for the camera. In benchmarks, the iPhone Xs tops the charts, scoring higher than anything we’ve seen from an Apple or an Android phone. Compared to last year’s iPhone X, it looks to be about 15% more powerful. Just remember that since the phone is glass, instead of heat dispersing metal, it will warm up under heavy use.
Some of you which expected battery life improvements with the new processor may be disappointed, but you have to remember we’re getting the same battery life this year with much better performance. So that’s the benefit of the new fabrication process, the new chips that works together with the newest Apple software, iOS 12, to create a lightning fast experience. When using the phone, everything feels much faster than on iOS 11, including animations, app launching times, and browsing menus. iOS 12 introduces a few changes here and there as well.
There’s also a new app called Measure, which uses augmented reality and motion detection to measure objects. It isn’t totally accurate, though.
And finally, Apple’s infrared scanning Face ID, the only biometric way to unlock this phone, is faster now, thanks to AI. And you can add a second face or an alternative appearance too.
The iPhone X S has a similar 12 megapixel dual camera setup as the iPhone X.
iPhone XS Review – Camera
The wide angle camera is F 1.8 while the telephoto sits behind an F 2.4 lens, both with OIS. However this time the main shooter has larger pixels which should allow in more light for less noise and better dynamic range. The camera also benefits from the new image signal processor and the chipset deliminated shutter lag and enables a new smart HDR through image stacking. The camera interface hasn’t really been changed at all unfortunately. To modify the image or video settings you still have to exit the camera and go into the phone settings menu, but regardless, the daylight samples we snapped with the iPhone Xs don’t disappoint. There are plenty sharp with nice rendition, accurate colours and low noise.
With smart HDR on, the camera stacks multiple frames to improve dynamic range and contrast. On top of that, there’s more fine detail captured and sharpening looks more natural. We suggest leaving this mode on when shooting.
When zooming in, the telephoto Cam produces images of almost the same calibre as the wide angle one. There’s just a bit narrower dynamic range and low light. The new sensor working with Smart HDR offers noticeable improvements thanks to the OS, bigger sensor pixels and image stacking. The iPhone Xs succeeds in producing great noise free low light images with even exposure, and that’s why using a higher ISO and faster shutter speeds than the iPhone X. Unfortunately, the iPhone Xs still won’t use the OIS telephoto camera when zooming in low light. It digitally zooms and crops the output of the main camera to achieve the zoom effect, which takes its toll on image quality.
In portrait mode, the results are quite good, separation has improved and the bouquet effect is a bit more natural than it was on the iPhone X camera. The blur strength is adjustable afterwards too.
For selfies, the iPhone Xs has the same 7 megapixel F 2.2 front facing camera the iPhone X Front Camera. Smart HDR is also available here. There’s plenty of resolve detail. They’re not the best we’ve seen in the contrast and colours are very good.
One thing that stands out though is that there’s a touch of skin smoothing, beautification which you can’t switch off. It only appears when Smart HDR is not turned on. The HDR image is really sharp, even better than the iPhone X, but even with HDR off, image quality is not bad at all. You can take portraits with a selfie camera, and subject separation is excellent. You can now choose different portrait lighting options for the front Cam too.
It can now record 1080 videos at 60FPS, but only the 30 FPS ones benefit from smart as she are, and the new Always On video. Stabilisation works well, but the field of view is so narrow that it’s pretty hard to fit yourself in The frame.
4K videos at 60FPS are quite excellent from both the wide angle or the telephoto Cam. There’s impressive dynamic range OS, plenty of detail, good contrast and nice colours.
4K videos taken at lower frame rates as well as 1080 videos have the same impressive quality. Plus they enjoy additional cinematic video stabilisation and expanded dynamic range thanks to the Smart HDR, but on top of the great visuals, the iPhone Xs can capture sound with wide stereo separation. This creates a sense of space skipping richer sounds.
Would I buy an iPhone Xs?
The iPhone X S Without a doubt it’s the best iPhone to come out so far, bringing the best performance on the planet, a flagship level camera, top notch stereo speakers and an awesome OLED display. The only real shortcomings I speak of are the average battery life and the fact that Apple wants you to give them more money for a decent charger and a headphone adapter. Of course the money is the biggest issue here. For this amount of cash you could buy a decent mid range phone and a lot of cool stuff on top of that sample turning into a luxury brand. I don’t know how I feel about that, but regardless, people will
of course by the latest and greatest iPhone, and I also wouldn’t blame them. It smooths out the kinks from last year’s iPhone X and sets the bar for the rest of the smartphone world to aspire to. If you’re a fan of the Apple ecosystem and are due for an upgrade, the iPhone Xs definitely deserves our recommendation. I am sure you agree… that level of convenience makes perfect sense.
