With Last year’s iPhone X release, Apple took a big jump forward with a completely new design featuring a nearly bezel-less OLED display, Face ID and the removal of the home button, putting the iPhone a new path going forward.
A year later, we have 2 new upgrades the X series, the XS and XS Max. Of course, when we are talking “S”, we are mainly looking at internal upgrades.
So what has changed? I’ve been using the iPhone XS Max for over a month now, let’s take dive and see what these new phones bring to the table!
Design and hardware
Starting with the obvious, the Max series makes and entry, bringing a 6.5-inch OLED display, an all-new A12 Bionic processor, new 512GB capacity, louder speakers, major improvement on the cameras and an updated display. The iPhone XS now carries an IP68 water and dust resistance rating, and can withstand a dip in up to 2m of water for 30 minutes. The handset’s glass front and back blend seamlessly into the stainless steel frame on the side.
The XS has the same dimensions as last year’s X, and is 3g heavier. The XS Max is more or less the same size as the iPhone 8 Plus with an all screen design and weighs in at 208g (slightly heavier).
On the bottom of the phone, there’s an extra antenna band on the left side, adding another one on the top of the phone also. Everything else is exactly positioned the same way: the volume buttons and mute switch remain on the left side, while the power button remains on the right, and of course the wireless charging is on the back.
Display
Picking up the iPhone XS Max for the first time and seeing that 6.5-inch OLED display makes you fall in love with it instantaneously! Getting a “Plus” series size with an all screen design and pretty amazing! The XS Max’s OLED 6.5 inches display comes with a resolution of 2688×1242 and a pixel density of 458ppi and is absolutely gorgeous. It’s colorful, without looking oversaturated.
Similar to last year’s model, the top of the display houses a notch containing a speaker, and components for its True Depth camera and Face ID system. Of course, the XS supports HDR, both Dolby Vision and HDR10.
Camera
This is one area where the new XS Max has received major upgrades. The first is an improved sensor on the dual main cameras. While the megapixel count (12 megapixels) and aperture (f/1.8 on the wide-angle camera, f/2.4 on the telephoto lens) remming the same as last year’s X, the micron pixel size has been increased to 1.4 microns from 1.22 microns. The update in the micron pixel size means that XS Max can pull in more light.
The XS Max uses a neural engine power which Apple dedicated on the new A12 chip and snap four images every time the shutter button is pressed which in a split-second examine all four images, pulls the best image fragments from each shot and then combines them in one final photo. It simply does the job right!
Here are some photos taken in both the iPhone X and XS Max, the difference in quality is visible, the XS Max captures better light and produces stunning colors.
You can shoot stabilized 4K video with the rear cameras at 60fps with greater dynamic range in comparison to last year’s iPhone X as well.
On the font side, there’s a 7-megapixel selfie camera with an aperture of f/2.2 with stabilization capability, which the iPhone X also didn’t do. This year’s front-facing camera can also record its 1080p footage at 60fps.
Other changes, in how the camera functions also includes the new Smart HDR, which will capture eight frames instead of four when the shutter button is hit. There’s also improved portrait photography where you get the option to adjust the blur after the photo has been taken.
Performance and battery life
Apple’s A12 chipset is super powerful, achieving benchmark scores that are higher than any current Android phone on the market till the time of this review. Apple has also dedicated a big portion of its A12’s power to neural processing, which handles tasks such as running AR, processing heavy graphics, games and photography processing.
Day-to-day, my experience with the iPhone XS has been great. Everything is super fast, fluid, and works how I’d expect. The battery on iPhone XS is also one of the best upgrades, it delivers Apple 30-minutes more over the iPhone X on the XS and an hour-and-a-half over X on XS Max as Apple promised. On an average I am getting around 13-15 hours of screen time on a single charge.
Verdict
The Apple iPhone XS Max, is a great smartphone, and is the best that Apple had done so far, that’s for sure! If you’re an iPhone fan and waiting for that bigger screen to make a come back, then is the one for you! Of course the price tag is not for everyone, but if you are willing, you’ll be very happy. If you are still unsure, you might want to also check out the the iPhone XR, which is now officially released, and will be reviewed soon.
