Apple iPhone XS and XS MAX Review By Engadget

Last year's iPhone 10 changed what it meant for an iPhone to be an iPhone home buttons, fingerprint sensors bezels, who needs those. In fact, the changes we got last year were so monumental that reviewing these things, the iPhone, 10s and 10s Macs almost feel anticlimactic. I mean, after all, aside from getting a bigger model. This year is mostly about polish. That's definitely not a bad thing. The 10s and 10s Mac's are excellent phones, and they honestly represent Apple at the top of its Hardware game.

That said, you might want to hold off on buying either one for now. Anyway. Let's take a closer look, there's a lot to dig into here. So, let's start with the most obvious change, the design I'm going to put the 10s down for a bit. Because, aside from some of my new changes, this thing looks just like the iPhone we got last year.

It even uses the exact same 5.8-inch, LED screen, which I'm totally fine with I love the iPhone 10 screen, and it holds up just as well now in this kind of new body. Still, there is no way to tell the 10s from the 10th aside from this neat gold finish that might not sound thrilling, but after using the 10 for nearly a year, this is the design I'd probably recommend for most people. The iPhone 10s max is a different story. I mean just look at it. It's 6.5-inch screen is massive. This is the biggest Apple has ever used for a smartphone and even edges as Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 by a fraction of an inch.

The upshot to this huge super Retina screen is that videos, especially one shot in HD, are look phenomenal and since the screen is so damn big, certain apps and websites show you more information at once. Check this out. The New York Times website will only show you one column at a time on the 10s, but on the next three, not bad, and if you're, I don't know using Apple's mail or messages apps in landscape mode you'll see an extra paint with conversation threads. Here's the thing, though a screen. This big should be able to do more.

Android phones and iPads have been able to run apps in split-screen mode for a while now, and I can definitely see that being helpful here and after searching through just about every app I've installed on the Macs. Hardly any of them have been optimized to use this extra space. Well, that should change over time, but for now the max isn't dramatically better than helping you be productive than the 10. It's just bigger, oh and as a result, you're probably going to have some trouble reaching the top of the screen. Unless you have massive hands, apples, reach ability feature is still here, and it makes it easier to access those faraway icons, but I've just had to get used to shimmying my hand up and down the phone.

A lot apart from this really obvious difference. The 10s and 10s Macs are basically the same phone. Both have improved stereo speakers, which give you more of a sense of space when you're watching movies or listening to live recordings both have Easton's in size, but you can't actually use yet when Apple activates them, though you can attach multiple lines of service to a single device and both iPhones offer up to 512 gigs of storage, which is well frankly, it's a little obscene. The computer I wrote this review on, has the same amount of storage, space and I haven't even filled that up yet. So it would take months of effort to use up all the room on these things, both 10s models shipped with iOS 12, which in my experience, is the most pleasant version of Apple's mobile operating system, I've used in a long time.

I don't take into every new feature here, because we have a full review on engadget. com. You should check out, but here are some highlights. Notifications are finally intelligently, bundled, so you don't have to sit through a sea of alerts. Any more screen.

Time gives you the information and the tools you need to combat smartphone addiction. If you want to I guess and in a nod to power users, you can whip up helpful shortcuts to help you get more done faster, assuming you want to put in the time and really figure out the process. Oh, and emoji are here too in case you want to wear your face on your face. The similarities between the 10s and the 10s Mac's don't end there, but pay attention, because these two are the most important changes you'll find here inside both of these phones. Apples need a 12, Bionic, chipset and in terms of architecture.

It's a huge step forward from the a11 that we got last year. That said, you might not notice much of a difference. If you're coming from an iPhone, 10 apple says the a12 s2 performance cores are up to 15%, faster and yeah. That's a pretty modest increase, apps launch and load a little faster on the 10s than they did on the tenth and multitasking is a little smoother, but none of this is really earth-shattering. Games like fortnight's seem to run slightly better, though thanks to big improvements in GPU performance, Apple says it's something like 50% faster than less the neural engine is where Apple did most of its work.

This year is an outscore CRO processor that can handle up to five trillion operations per second. That means the 10s can handle a lot of complicated learning models on these phones. The neural engine helps face, ID recognize you and unlock a little faster. It makes sure argumented reality. Apps can track objects better and a lot.

More I haven't seen a ton of developers, work machine, learning models into their apps so far, but it's only a matter of time and the neural engine just might be. The iPhone 10s is unsung hero. The last crucial things that 10s and 10s Mac share are its cameras. Apple introduced a brand-new 12 megapixel wide-angle sensor here, alongside a 12, megapixel telephoto camera around the back, and I'll. Just be blunt.

These are easily the best camera save list ever squeezed into a smartphone. The new on by default, smart HDR mode, is a huge help to its stitches together for different exposures. In an instant, so the 10s is capable of churning out photos with surprising detail and dynamic range. The camera experience isn't perfect, though, even with the help of the neural Engine portrait mode still sometimes makes weird decisions about. What's in the foreground and what's not and a new feature called depth, control lets you fiddle with a virtual aperture dial, once you've already taken a photo, but the way that it manipulates the shots, depth of field, just kind of seems weird.

Sometimes at least you can use both these features with the front-facing camera. Now, if we got these cameras last year, I probably would have gushed about them. Here's the thing, though, the competition is just so strong. The pixel twos are more aggressive in their image processing, but that ultimately means you get more pleasant shots without any effort, and while it isn't it's great at exposing all parts of the scene right out of the box, the Galaxy Note lions photos are still stunning, especially on that huge Super AMOLED display, which camera takes the best photos. It's still largely a matter of opinion, and I'm, not convinced alpha gets the camera crown.

This year, but at least it's a tight race, then again I guess we'll see what happens when Google unveils its new pixel soon so yeah. At the end of the day, these are the best iPhones Apple has ever made. Does that mean you should go out and drop $1000 on one of them? Well, if you're currently using an iPhone 10, you can easily skip out on this generation and not feel too bad about it. Once you've installed iOS 12, you really aren't missing out on that much. If you're coming from an older, iPhone or mulling a switch from Android or even buying your first smartphone, you should probably consider waiting until the iPhone 10 are launches later this year.

You might still find that the 10s or the 10s max is the way to go, but until we have a better understanding of where that cheap iPhone 10 brings to the table, we just don't have all the context we need yet.

Source : Engadget