iPhone Xs review
The world learnt “bokeh”… ˉ\_(ツ)_/ˉ
The Tick-Tock release of the iPhone product cycles meant, the “S”(Second generation) releases are an incremental upgrade to the previous year’s phone.
So this year’s flagship is the iPhone Xs….clever play of words or not….but ridiculous in my opinion (iPhone Xs Max doesn’t cut it)..but moving on.
If I were to pull out my iPhone Xs out of my pocket, its easily confused to be an iPhone X at a glance (if not for the Gold version). So, is it a replacement phone? Upgrade worthy? Read on.
That said, Apple has stopped selling its iPhone X and instead sells the Xs and Xr range. I managed to get my hands on the Xs Max phone, which I will base my review on. The Xr range is yet to be released as I write this.
First of, here are the display specs:
- iPhone Xs - 5.8-inch 19.5:9 aspect ratio True Tone OLED, 2436 x 1125 pixels (458 ppi), 82.9% screen-to-body ratio
- iPhone Xs Max - 6.5-inch 19.5:9 aspect ratio True Tone OLED, 2688 x 1242 pixels (458 ppi), 84.4% screen-to-body ratio
…small prints, iPhone Xs retains last year’s (iPhone X) 5.8-inch and OLED technology at 458ppi.
What is really new here is the iPhone Xs Max has a massive panel (read as gorgeous), larger than the old Plus models due to the edge-to-edge display. The phone is as big as the Pixel 2. The stainless-steel sides are really shiny for the premium look with two more visible antennas, one at the top and one at the bottom next to the speaker grill.
Yes, the speaker grill is asymmetrical due to this band?!
I have read some chatter of poor Wifi and LTE performance on some forums for both models, but will wait to see if this is more wide spread. I never faced this yet though.
On downside for me with the display being edge-to-edge and larger, means that, even with my big hands, to reach the notification or control centre I end up using two hands. Ok, yes you can use the reachability feature but that’s 2 swipes for one thing.
The other downside of the “Xs Max” is that the phone doesn’t take advantage of this large display…maybe another row of additional icon…maybe a landscape mode for the homescreen (SpringBoard)…picture in picture…even stock apps show the exact same information and not taking advantage of the bigger screen size.
Like the iPhone X, the Xs are constructed with a mixture of glass and stainless steel. It sports the same design traits: the elongated switch, the same button placement, the lack of the headphone jack, the same notch, same mute switch, the same fingerprint magnet glass….better to get a case!
Did anyone notice that this year’s exclusive wallpaper somewhat hid the notch getting noticed? Hmmm
Aside from the above, both new models are IP68 water resistance which allows the phones to be submerged in up to 3 meters of water. It’s a big deal but not for me.
Oh Apple mentioned the FaceID being faster this year, but that’s only noticeable side by side with an iPhone X and its not something phenomenal or earth shattering considering it’s a fraction of a second quicker.
Ok, lets talk about the internals as that’s what makes a “S” upgrade.
The most noticeable is the switch to the new “SoC” (System on Chip).
iPhone X had the A11 Bionic, Xs upgrades to the A12 Bionic. Purely on CPU its only 15% faster but the GPU is 50% faster. Maybe this is something that the future apps can make use of? For an average user like me, it does not make a whole lot of difference. If I maybe moved from iPhone 8 or dare I say 6 plus it make a ton of difference.
All that juice to me has made the phone a whole lot faster coupled with iOS 12. It’s the king of responsiveness. But so was iPhone X to me!
The bigger change is the neural engine as touted by Apple which accelerates machine learning. But I am yet to see any apps utilising this yet. So moving on….
Now lets talk about the sound, yes its better on Xs models. What I mean by that is it’s a bit louder and clearer. The stereo effect is still using the ear piece and bottom speakers to make the stereo pair but it sounds better. And the Xs support stereo sound recording while shooting video.
As for the battery, not much there. Still a one-day phone!
Finally, the biggest change or hyped about feature in this year iPhone is the camera.
- Primary rear camera - 12MP, f/1.8 aperture, 1.4μm pixel size, Optical Image stabilisation (OIS), Quad-LED True Tone flash, Portrait Lighting
- Secondary telephoto lens - 12MP, f/2.4 aperture, 1.0μm pixel size, OIS, 2x optical zoom
- Front ‘TrueDepth’ camera - 7MP, f/2.2 aperture
The larger sensor this year means it can take in more lights, which would help shooting in low light conditions. This upgrade puts it up next to the Pixel 2 camera range. Generally it’s a lot better than the iPhone X but the biggest upgrade is in the software.
The “smart HDR” is something Apple introduced this year (maybe it was “dumb HDR” last year!). This combines multiple photos taken at different exposures and combines their best elements into a single shot. Quiet similar in what we see on the Pixel range.
To me, I still think Pixel 2 camera shots are the best when it comes to details shown on the image. That said, the Xs camera shots offers better colours, temperature and processing quality. It does a lot of smoothing and noise reduction!
Yes, this year was introduced to work “bokeh” albeit the Apple way. It’s the ability to adjust the background bokeh (aka blur) on portrait mode shots. As always it was touted to be revolutionary, people quickly compared this up to the Samsung’s “Livefocus” and other apps out there which do the same thing. One thing works to the advantage of Apple, is that it has direct access to the hardware and software making it look better.
Ok here is my verdict on if it is upgrade worthy. To begin with these are expensive phones. Yes, its this year’s flagship phone and has everything which Apple can put into it with headroom for future (i.e. you can keep it for couple of years given all the processing power). Two big improvements this year was the camera and the processor.
Yes, the camera is a big improvement on its predecessor. But if that’s the reason you are buying the phone, you should instead put your 1000 bucks on buying yourself a decent physical camera which does a way better job.
If you own an iPhone X, there isn’t reason to upgrade to this yet as long as you have iOS 12 on it :) It is fast enough for your daily use.
But if you are coming from an iPhone 7 or 8, yes it’s a huge upgrade you get with this phone.
Not saying the Xr range is no better as it has the same processor, same main camera and big screen and cheaper! Maybe it’s better to wait till it hits the street. But if it’s a premium phone you are after Xs and Xs Max will be the phone you are after. Maybe its year of the Max!