Apple iPhone XS and XS Max - Hands On Review By Digital Trends

Apple's newest iPhones are its most expensive to date, but are they worth the hi a thousand dollar plus price tag, or should you wait for the iPhone 10 our? Let's take a closer look in our iPhone 10s and 10s max review. This is the iPhone 10s, and this is the iPhone 10s Macs. As you can see, the iPhone tennis is almost identical to the iPhone 10 from last year, down to the same exact 5.8-inch screen size. There are a few differences, though Apple has cut down on the circles here on the bottom over here you can see on the old iPhone 10. You have six circles on the left edge, whereas on the newer models you have fewer, so they're not really asymmetrical and Apple did that because they want to add this antenna band here. The fit of that antenna band should mean it supports faster and stronger LTE networks, and we did a quick test where we managed to see that the iPhone, 10s and 10s max did get slightly faster speeds than the iPhone 10 on AT&T network.

But it wasn't really substantial enough to really see a difference in day-to-day use. One thing to know about the iPhone 10 s, if you're coming from an iPhone 10, is that your case might not be able to fit on this current model because the camera module is a hair taller than it was on the iPhone 10. So these are I phone 10s cases from Apple, so they'll fit. But some cases like this iPhone 10 case might have a little trouble, and you can see that there's a little there's, there's no gap where there is sort of around on this top edge it and the sides it's a little cutting it, cutting it a little close here. So yes, it'll fit fine, but it might just be a little tight fit on some other types of cases which might impact camera performance.

We really like the size of the 5.8 inch iPhone 10s, it's comfortable, it's easy to grip, and you can easily access all parts of the screen with one hand. The iPhone 10s max, on the other hand, is a different story now, if you're coming from an A+ device. So this is the iPhone 8 plus, or you know, 7 plus would be the same size and 6 plus as well. If you're coming form of those plus devices, you can see that the iPhones are very similar in size. They almost have the same exact body.

I believe that a plus might be a hair taller if anything but mover over on the front, and things start to get a little different for the 8 plus it's much easier to access this screen, because the screen doesn't go all the way to the top for the 10s max. It's actually a little tougher to reach I think we think it's one of the harder iPhones to use, because it's quite often difficult to really reach that top edges. When you really need to especially with one hand, of course, it's not so bad when you're using two hands, but this extra screen real estate does come at a cost because it does sort of make it a little more difficult to reach these little top gestures, sometimes especially when you're in an app like the email app, and you want to go reach that back button. Of course, you can always use the reach ability feature to access those top parts of the screen or with one hand, but it's just something you don't really have to deal with on the better sized iPhone 10 S. At the same time, there's a special feeling you get when the iPhone 10s max it's and your palms, and you stare at its massive 6.5-inch screen. Everything just feels so super-sized that it's hard not to enjoy the extra screen real estate, it's absolutely perfect for watching movies or shows, especially since the phone supports, Dolby Vision and HDR 10.

This is Iron Fist season 2 on Netflix, which supports HDR. You can see the colors really popping, and it's easy to see, details and dark scenes. Even better is the improved speakers that deliver wider stereo sound. They get plenty loud indoors, allowing you to truly feel immersed in what you're watching, but they can quickly become tough to hear when watching something outdoors in noisy environments. It helps that these are both OLED screens.

If black holes are inky deep, you can hardly see the notch at the top and the screen is positively sharp. At 2 6 8 8 by 12 42 resolution on the 10s max and 2 4 36 by 11 25 resolution on the 10s. It's a screen, you won't want to stop staring at, and we also didn't have any trouble glancing at it outdoors, although we did have to crank the brightness all the way to the max true tone. Technology is back as well. You can see it turned on right there, but it does essentially is change the tone of the screen to adjust the surrounding light in your environment so that it's more pleasant to look at, and we think it does a pretty good job.

We do like the larger screen on the 10s max, but don't expect to see more content over the iPhone 10s, for example, let's open up Twitter and you can see that you're still sort of getting two tweets at a time. So just because you have a much larger screen on the iPhone Menace max doesn't necessarily mean that you're always going to get much more content to look at. It's not necessarily the case in every single app. Some apps are maybe a little better optimized to handle the bigger screen, and we're not sure if this will change. If developers do some tweaking still choosing that iPhone 10s max over the regular 10s is a purely subjective decision, and we encourage you to go to the nearest carrier or Apple Store to handle one for yourself to see if it's too big or just write.

As a note, Apple no longer includes a lightning ?, 3.5 millimeter, headphone jack dongle in the Box. All you get is this lightning ?, basically earbuds, lightning, cable and this little adapter right there. It's a little ridiculous, since a lot of people still have headphone, jacks or earbuds that use that jack and considering what you're paying for both the 10s and 10s max it's. The least Apple could do to really include a headphone jack in there. The other new addition is the gold color.

Previously it was only the silver and a Space Gray model available. Now you can get the gold color, and it actually looks kind of shiny and elegant around the edges, and it really looks kind of like a gold bar. But then, when you on the back, it's a little more pinkish I'd say little, not so much as gold as you'd expect kind of similar to the older iPhone 8 plus, but that's the gold color and of course again you can get silver and Space Gray. If you want everything else is more or less the same, that is, if you're coming from an iPhone tent, the glass is more durable than ever, but it's still a fingerprint magnet. If you choose to forego a case, the stainless steel frame feels nice to the touch, and it's also stronger than the aluminum used on devices like the iPhone 10, our or the iPhone 8 plus, but for many people the iPhone 10 S will be their first foray into using an iPhone without a home button, which means there will be a period of adjustment to get used to the gesture navigation system.

It shouldn't take too long because we think it's a much more intuitive way of interacting with iOS, and it's far better than the new gesture controls included in Google's new Android 9.0 Pi. It may also take some time getting used to face ID which lets you'll unlock the phone by just glancing at the screen. Apple said face. I'd is far more secure than its old touch. I'd system.

That's all made possible due to the true depth camera in the top-notch above the screen face. I'd is slightly faster on the iPhone 10 s, and it's leaps and bounds better than when it was first introduced. Last year we've had fewer issues, unlocking the phone in the dark, we're genuinely starting to enjoy using it more than fingerprint sensors on other phones and now with iOS 12. You can actually set up an alternate appearance for a second person to unlock your phone like your child or your spouse. The iPhone 10 s is powered by Apple's a12 Bionic processor.

It's Apple's, first mobile processor built using the seven nanometer process. It has a six point: nine billion transistors and Apple said it cannot deliver stronger performance while still being more efficient than last year's an 11 Bionic, there's a neural engine inside again for machine learning tasks, but Apple said it now has six more cores for a total of eight that allow it to process five trillion operations per. Second, those are mind-boggling numbers, but at the end of the day, all you need to know is that this is the most powerful smartphone in the world right now, whether it's augmented reality gaming or playing graphically intensive games like asphalt, 9, legend or simply swapping between multiple apps. As you juggle different tasks, you won't have any issues running almost any app or service on the iPhone, 10s and 10s. Max paired with this buttery smooth performance is the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system.

Io's 12 we've covered all the features in our iOS 12 review, but some of our favorites include grouped notifications, where you can see multiple notifications in grouped messages, which is always very handy and, of course, who doesn't like emojis, where you can sort of. Basically, it's an extension of an emoji, and you can create and send the same sort of avatars, except based on your own likeness. So now you can create and customize exactly how you would want to look. You can record a message, so the character can say anything you want, and it does a perfect job of tracking your facial expressions. Even your tongue sticking out there's plenty more in iOS 12.

You can check out our iOS 12 review for more while on a surface level, it may seem as though Apple hasn't changed the camera from the iPhone 10. There are some significant improvements under the hood in the iPhone 10s and the 10s Macs. It's the same dual camera system, a 12, megapixel standard lens with an F 1.8 aperture paired with the 12 megapixel telephoto lens with a 2.4 aperture both have optical image stabilization, and you can capture 4k video up to 60 frames per second. The image sensor, however, is larger, which helps with better low-light photos. As usual.

There's almost zero lag when trying to snap a photo. The camera app is quick to launch and easy to operate, and it snaps photos. Fast. Images are often well detailed with good color, but there are two areas where dramatic improvements are visible. The first is low-light and also smart HDR.

It may be a little difficult to see here, but low-light photos will definitely be an improvement on the iPhone 10s over the iPhone 10. On the left hand, is the iPhone 10 photo on the right is if one from the iPhone 10s, as you can see, the area at the bottom here is much brighter here on the iPhone 10 s and much more clear and detailed, or is if you zoom in on the iPhone 10 photo. You can start to see a way more grain, and especially over here where the building is it's completely fuzzy, and over here on, the iPhone 10s photo it's much sharper. The biggest improvement is smart HDR. Essentially, the camera snaps multiple photos more than ever before, and it's essentially taking three different exposures in one shot that enables it to combine all these shots to get the best exposure level best color detail the best overall photo, and it's really visible when you compare it to the iPhone 10, which just uses traditional HDR, as opposed to smart HDR on the iPhone 10s.

This is a good example. The sky was really bright in this photo and the trees were much darker. The iPhone 10 tried to really blow out the trees over here, and it like there's almost like a fade highlight over the trees, whereas the iPhone 10s photo actually kept the green color that that brighter green color that you got from the trees, with the more appropriate white balanced sky and in general, it's the more pleasing photo to look at, and another good example is over here in the front you know everything is crystal clear on both they look great, pretty well exposed, maybe a little nice and brighter on here on the iPhone 10s. But if you really look at the background is when you can see that the gray sky is really visible there and everything looks much more pristine in focus and clearer, whereas here on the iPhone 10, the sky is completely blown out of white, because it's just not doing that. Smart HDR exposure, correction and as a result, it doesn't look as nice as this photo where you can sort of see that it's an overcast sky as opposed to just a plane, blown out overexposed sky on the iPhone 10 portrait mode has improved in the iPhone 10s.

You can see that smart HDR is in action. In the background those digital billboards aren't as blown out as they might be on the iPhone 10 Apple does have some issues still, though, with maintaining the accurate cutouts around the subject. For example, my hair is cut off around here and here, but we really like the blur that Apple has and there's much more detail, especially in low-light situations. At the same time, we do think the Google Pixel does manage to capture way more detail in a single photo, and it does a much better job of accurately kind of taking in a hair for a count, as opposed to the iPhone 10, and also it does a pretty good job of maintaining that background. Both of them do actually with the HDR feature and not over blowing those digital billboards.

So while we think the pixel does take the more shareable photo, we, there are a lot of more improvements that have happened with the iPhone 10s and that's just with the selfie camera. There are also improvements, of course, to the rear camera, for example right here. This is a portrait mode photo taken with the rear camera. It looks great, the cutouts are accurate, but the blur is strong and if these are different modes, this is with the studio, lighting and contour lighting and stage mono. If you want to see a comparison with the iPhone 10, this is the iPhone 10 photo compared to, sorry.

This is the iPhone 10 portrait mode photo compared to this one. So you can see, while this one is retains a lot of color, and it doesn't seem blown out in any way, shape or form. When you go to the iPhone 10 photo, you can see that it really can can't handle those highlights that bright light shining at the subjects face, and all that is purely because of smart HDR being able to capture more photos and combine those different exposure levels to create a well-balanced photo and what a neat new feature that Apple, announced with portrait mode is that you can now edit the blur intensity behind the subject by just tapping the edit button. And then you can use the slider to sort of remove the blur completely in post. If you want, if you want a different type of shot, or you can even increase the blur for a cooler effect, although it might still look a little strange, sometimes if it doesn't accurately get those cutouts, the iPhone 10s will offer about a full day of battery life and not much more with it's 26:58 William hour battery inside after a heavy day of testing, including music streaming watching videos taking lots of photos and running benchmarking apps.

We total nearly 6 hours of screen on time. That meant the iPhone 10s started at a hundred percent at 7:30 a. m. and hit 24 percent by around 5:30 p. m.

again. This was with high usage, and we averaged about 30% by the end of an average workday. The iPhone 10s max, on the other hand, has a bigger battery. It's a 31 74 million powered battery, and we went from 100% at 8 a. m.

to 20% by 9 p. m. so it was significantly about two hours. I'd say a longer time. You'd be able to use this for potentially even more because that was also with about media to high usage.

We don't think that with either of these phones, you'll ever be able to really get to two days of use or carrying over more than a day unless you're really using these phones very lightly, perhaps a little. But you definitely will need to charge it at some point early in the next day, but these are largely phones that will get you through about a full day of usage. Wireless charging is supported again, except this time. Nothing has really changed It's if there is a tighter coil design, which means that these phones will charge slightly faster than the previous iPhone 10. We haven't noticed a too much of an improvement.

It is a slight improvement, but you really still will be waiting quite a long time at least two hours or long or depending on the wireless charger you used to get this from zero to 100%. The iPhone 10s Mac starts at ten ninety-nine for the base, 64 gig model, but there's a 256 gig storage option available for 1249 or a massive 512 gigabyte versions for 1449. It's available today from the Apple Store, as well as a variety of retailers and carriers, and you can check out our buying guide on digital Transom to find the best deals, the iPhone 10 s starts at $9.99 for the 64gb model, there's also a 256, and it goes all the way up to 13 49 for the 512 gigabyte model. It's also available today from a variety of retailers, carriers and the Apple Store. The iPhone, 10s and 10s Macs are modest upgrades over the iPhone 10, for example, have their IP 68 rated over the iPhone tens ip67 water resistance rating? If you have an iPhone 10, we don't think there's much of a reason to upgrade to these phones.

Unless you really want that big-screen iPhone or really like those camera enhancements. Even if you have an iPhone, 8 or 8 plus, we don't think there's much of a reason to really upgrade it's only really, if you have an older iPhone, 7, iPhone, 7, plus, or something older than that these are really enticing and meaningful upgrades. That being said, there is a third iPhone. We are still waiting to hear from, and that's the iPhone 10 R, which comes out in October, we'll be playing around with that when it comes closer to release state, so we'll be able to tell you really whether that's the better value, but on paper it seems like it is the best value for the money for 750 dollars. You're getting many of the same features, the same single lens camera on the back, the same, a 12, Bionic processor.

That gives you that terrific performance, and you're getting that same edge to edge design with face ID for $750. That sounds like a pretty good deal, but again that's something that will have to wait. So if price is a factor in your buying decision, if a thousand dollars or $1,100 is a little too out of your reach, then we think you should definitely wait for the iPhone 10 are in October.

Source : Digital Trends