Welcome to your first look and hands on of the freshly revealed iPhones for 2018 and 2019, the iPhone Xs – Xs Max Review. It’s now all finally revealed or more like confirmed what the leaks told us we were going to get, but it’s really nice to actually have the things in person or officially official. So we got the iPhone Xs and the iPhone Xs Max, as well as the iPhone XR. So this post is just going to be all about the iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max. I am going to do a separate review diving all the pros and cons of the iPhone XR because I think it’s actually worth another look. Until then, here is everything you need to know about those two phones.
iPhone Xs – Xs Max Displays / Visuals
The iPhone Xs has the same 5.8 inch display, slightly tweaked but same size as before, where as the Xs Max has a gigantic 6.5 inch display. It is a huge phone, roughly the same size as something like the Samsung Note 9 thanks to the bezels being nice and thin. So two very different sized phones here. The iPhone Xs & iPhone Xs Max OLED displays do look better than the iPhone X OLED screen which already looks great. When I was watching Blade Runner on the iPhone Xs & the iPhone XR, I noticed side-by-side improvements on the Xs. At a maximum brightness, the new display looks subtly brighter and richer, which already looked pretty good. The iPhone XR has a lower-res, lower-contrast LCD, so the iPhone Xs is so what nicer & richer. During normal everyday use, Ito the untrained eye, it is hard to tell the OLED from LCD. The other upside is that OLED screens use less battery power, but then a iPhone Screen Repair which is LCD is some what cheaper the an iPhone OLED screen repair, so the iPhone Xs Screen Repair & iPhone Xs Max Screen repair will, be a bit more expensive.
The new colours were confirmed as well. So same exact silver as the iPhone X last year, same exact space grey as last year. But then the new colour for the Xs is this gold, so it looks pretty classy I guess. I personally probably wouldn’t get the gold as it looks a bit cheesy, but there is only one way to tell on the outside that you have the new iPhone and that’s by getting the gold.
iPhone Xs – Xs Max Specifications
The iPhone Xs is just the same size as the current iPhone X, but it’s really is classic Apple, with the S update like we’ve seen in the iPhone before. It’s a specification improvement, some internal changes, but nothing drastic and no new design. So the biggest spec difference that you’re getting here is it’s rocking the new A12 bionic chip. It’s the first seven nanometer chip versus the X nanometer process from last year. It has nearly 7 billion transistors. All of this basically translates to it’ll be a bit faster. You know, they dropped a couple of quotes, like it’ll be maybe 30% faster, but you’ll notice it in things like launching apps and opening and closing the keyboard and transition animations and things like that. But basically that’s definitely something we’re gonna have to test and see for the full review. Basically what I can be sure of is it will be even faster. Same amount of RAM though, as far as we can tell.
iPhone Xs – Xs Max Cameras
Apple have made some substantial upgrades to the camera on the iPhone XS – Xs Max. The Xs and Xs Max both have the same new cameras. So a pair of 12 megapixel optically stabilised cameras, the primary one being F 1.8, and you get a telephoto as well. And they’re combining these new cameras and lenses with new image signal processing on the A12 bionic chip to take some seriously impressive photos. Now obviously the photos and stuff they show on stage are always going to be awesome, but what’s new this time is also the image processing. We all know image processing means a lot when it comes to smartphone photography and getting good images off these smartphone cameras, like that’s a major reason why the Google Pixel 2 has been so popular, so they introduce big improvements there. There’s improved HDR called Smart HDR, there’s better low light sensitivity, less noise and a really impressive portrait mode. Now in portrait mode, you can go in and edit portrait photos to literally change the F stop of the simulated Bocah, and it’s really good looking. You can see the little lights in the background of the photos changing their blur level. And it’s not just getting more or less blurry like straight up. There actually seems to be like a directional blur based on how far it is in the middle of the centre of the subject. I was really impressed with it and I can’t wait to play with that more. And there’s a bunch of other smaller stuff so there’s technically a new front facing camera, still 7 megapixels, the selfies will also benefit from this new portrait mode and I’m curious since its software based if it will work with a software update to this year’s iPhone X. Make sure you get a good iPhone case as the cameras protrude slightly, so it is easy to crack your iPhone Xs camera glass / lens or your iPhone XS Max Camera glass / lens should you drop your phone.
iPhone XS – Xs Max Other Improvements
iPhone Xs – Xs Max Review – water resistance has been improved to IP68, where as last year’s phone was IP 67 so we’re looking at better waterproofing. Some people think you can literally wash your phone off with water if you want to, but remember that the water resistance reduces the older the phone is as many of the ports and speaker inputs are sealed with silicon based grommets, which lose their effect over time. Most phones get dropped from time to time and this will also reduce the water resistance of the phone. If you should have an iPhone Screen Replacement or any Phone screen repair, the new screen will not be guaranteed to be water resistant.
The speakers are now louder and better in an impressive way. From what I’ve heard, they do a much better job with stereo audio separation and things like moving back and forth across the screen and there’s now dual SIM support. The Face ID is supposed to get slightly faster thanks to the a 12 bionic, but probably not drastically. And there’s also now a slightly longer battery life, literally 30 minutes longer on the Xs and 90 minutes longer on the Xs Max. I gotta find out the capacities, don’t really know those yet, but they’re not drastically bigger. But hey, better is better. I’ll take that. Battery durability should be similar to previous models as nothing has changed yet even though there are rumours that Apple are working towards a fast charge battery, but how will they manage that without messing with the current durability of the batteries, so you should get 3 – 4 years of good service before you need an iPhone XS Battery Replacement or an iPhone XS Max battery replacement.
Should You Buy a iPhone XS – Xs Max?
Honestly, it’s not a must buy for the most people, especially if you have an iPhone X. I think the the biggest difference you’re gonna get is if you go with the bigger iPhone Xs Max. But that thing is going to be expensive. The 512 gig is going to be around £1000. Like that’s the world we live in now. But if you already have an iPhone X, this isn’t some huge must have upgrade. It’s the classic again, the classic S upgrade Apple does with the iPhone and I got no problem with that. Between the smaller and larger, I’m definitely more into the larger phone. That’s just me, but there are still no design changes. Same camera bulge on the back, same stainless steel and glass materials all around. The notch didn’t get smaller or anything. The bezels didn’t shrink, although the notch might feel a little bit smaller on the bigger phone. Um, no 120 Hertz display, no Apple Pencil support. It’s just just a refined upgrade and a new colour. We’ll have to see if it’s worthy or not pretty soon as we work towards the full review, but my gut feeling honestly is I’m thinking that iPhone XR might be the real hit this year. For Apple it’s a bit different.
