The biggest misconception about "S" model iPhones is that they’re just the "tock" to the previous "tick" release, and there isn't much reason to upgrade because Apple recycles the same design.
That couldn’t be more incorrect. The iPhone 3GS brought speed, more storage, autofocus for the camera, and video recording; the 4S introduced Siri; the 5S gave us Touch ID; the 6Sbirthed Live Photos and 3D Touch (though its usefulness is debatable); and if you think about it, the iPhone 8, which easily could have been called the 7S, helped make wireless charging more popular.
Each S model pushed the iPhone forward in meaningful ways. The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are no different.
iPhone XS and XS Max
$999 (starting for XS) and $1,099 (starting for XS Max)
The Good
- Gorgeous design with premium materials
- Best-in-class cameras
- Fantastic screens (especially on the XS Max)
- Face ID is more responsive
- Performance still blows the best Android phones away
The Bad
- Beyond pricey
- Battery life is not a huge leap over the X
- Headphone jack dongle not included
- No fast charger or USB-C-to-Lightning cable included
The Bottom Line
Don't be fooled by the "S" label — the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are the best and most powerful iPhones Apple's ever made.
Mashable Score
4.5
Cool Factor
4
Learning Curve
5
Performance
5
Bang for the Buck
4
Both phones are Apple’s best combination of hardware and software. And they’re virtually identical, save for screen size and battery life.
I have no doubts the iPhone XS Max’s massive 6.5-inch OLED display will be the one everybody wants, but both it and the smaller iPhone XS have feature upgrades, like an all-new camera system that takes better photos than even the best Android phones. Those shouldn’t be overlooked because they’re mere internal improvements.
The new iPhones are just as expensive as the now-discontinued iPhone X, starting at $999 for a 64GB iPhone XS and $1,099 for a 64GB iPhone XS Max. Even more pricey is the new 512GB tier for both, which costs an insane $1,349 and $1,449, respectively.
But if you want the best iPhones — the ones with the most complete iPhone experience with zero tradeoffs (yes, iPhone XR, that was a reference to you) — the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are the the ones to get, and they’re worth the investment.
X-TRAORDINARY DESIGN
The iPhone X ushered in a new era for the iPhone: glass and stainless steel design, an edge-to-edge OLED screen, Face ID, wireless charging, and the controversial notch.
In a year’s time, the notch has gone from extremely disliked, to tolerable, to dare I say iconic. Nothing validates an initially questionable design choice more than the competition copying the crap out of it. Why change a design that’s already become immediately recognizable? So Apple didn’t.
As S models, the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max mirror the overall design of the iPhone X: They have the same surgical-grade stainless steel band, the same glass back, the same OLED display, the same satisfyingly click buttons, the same wireless charging (it’s a little speedier this time, but only barely so), and the same notch with TrueDepth camera system (Face ID is a smidge faster and more responsive, but it still doesn’t work in landscape mode).
The iPhone XS has a 5.8-inch screen, and the iPhone XS Max has a 6.5-inch display.
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The iPhone XS is physically the same as the iPhone X, with one exception: It’s 0.1 ounces heavier. But it’s not like you’ll feel it.
The iPhone XS Max is a different beast altogether. It has about the same footprint as the iPhone 8 Plus (0.04 inches shorter, 0.2 inches narrower, 0.07 inches thicker, and 0.21 ounces heavier), but obviously fitted with a larger 6.5-inch OLED screen that stretches to the edges.
The thing that surprised me the most about the iPhone XS Max wasn’t just its massive screen, but how light it feels. Even though it’s heavier than the iPhone 8 Plus, it somehow feels lighter. I’ll probably have to wait until an iFixit teardown to see how the innards are arranged and if it has any bearing on this strange lightness, but whatever the cause is, I really like it.
It attracts fingerprints like crazy.
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The iPhone XS and XS Max support gigabit LTE.
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Lightness aside, the iPhone XS Max is still a very big phone. If you’re used to carrying any Plus-sized iPhone, the iPhone XS will be an easy adjustment. But if, like me, you’ve only ever used “small” iPhones like the 4.7-inch iPhone 8 or 5.8-inch iPhone X, you’re gonna either need to stop wearing skinny pants, get pants with bigger pockets (I hear cargo pants are trendy again), carry a purse or shoulder bag, or just deal with it.
I thought I’d hate having the iPhone XS Max jutting out of my front pocket (no back-pocketing for me since I don’t want to make it easy for pickpockets to nab a $1,100+ phone), but after a few days I didn’t mind it. If the size really was such a turnoff, nobody would’ve bought the Plus-sized iPhones and Apple would only be making smaller phones today.
The iPhone XS Max is heavier than the iPhone 8 Plus but somehow still feels really light.
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Closer comparisons between my iPhone X and the two iPhone XS devices reveal two small changes.
One: There are two new antenna lines — one that cuts into the top right of the stainless steel band and the other into the lower left. And two: The speaker holes on the bottom are no longer symmetrical.
Design snobs, including myself, will cringe at these aesthetic tweaks, but these "pragmatic optimizations" as Jony Ive would describe them, were apparently necessary to boost the cellular data connectivity for gigabit LTE speed.
"Apple’s bumped up the IP-rated water-resistance even further."
Another change that might pass right over most people is dual-SIM support.
While dual-SIM phones aren’t that popular in the U.S., there are many international users who want to manage two numbers or two data plans (or a mix of both from separate carriers) on a single phone.
On my U.S model, the SIM card tray has room for only one nano SIM card. If you’d like to activate a secondary SIM you’ll need to use an eSIM, which is basically a digital version of a SIM card. Apple says using the eSIM is as simple as scanning a QR code and accepting a few prompts. I didn’t get to try the eSIM feature since it won’t be available until a software update coming later.
In China, where dual SIMs are especially popular and people frequently switch between carriers and plans, the iPhone XS Max comes with two nano SIM card slots.
The iPhone XS and XS Max's new gold color is pure luxury.
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Lastly, Apple’s bumped up the IP-rated water resistance even further. The iPhone 7, 8, and X all came with IP67 water and dust resistance, which means the phones can be submerged in up to 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes. The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are IP68 rated, which doubles the water depth to 6 feet for up to 30 minutes of submersion.
Although these tweaks are small, practical, and mostly invisible, I’d have loved to see a smaller notch and less bulging rear camera. There’s always next year’s iPhones, I guess.
The iPhone XS and XS Max are IP68-rated, meaning they can be submerged in up to 6 feet of water for up to 30 minutes.
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The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max come in space gray, silver, and a new gold finish. Apple's been making gold devices since the iPhone 5S, and the coloring process on each device has been just a little different.
On the new iPhones, the polished stainless steel band is shiny and the champagne gold underneath the glass back has a metallic-like sheen when viewed at different angles compared to the more matte aluminum band and creamy vanilla-ish gold on the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.
I've never been a fan of gold or rose-gold gadgets — I'm more of a black or silver kinda guy — but even I have to admit the new gold iPhones will turn heads. They're luxurious (but still classy) in a way my space gray iPhone X never will be — more like like something you'd expect to find at Tiffany's than Best Buy.
Of course, most people will never appreciate a phone's beauty after slipping it into a case. But for the few like me who adamantly eschew cases, you're gonna feel a bit like a boss whenever you see it shimmer.
AUDIO AND VISUAL POWERHOUSE
The advantages of OLED display technology — deep blacks, wider and more vibrant dynamic range, increased brightness, and greater power efficiency — weren’t lost on the iPhone X’s edge-to-edge screen.
Both the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have the same OLED technology with Super Retina displays and HDR support.
The 5.8-inch iPhone XS has the exact same 2,436 x 1,125 resolution as on the iPhone X and the 6.5-inch iPhone XS Max has a slightly higher 2,688 x 1,242 resolution. Both screens clock in at the same 458 pixels per inch, which is just basically a lot of jargon to describe "a really sharp screen."
The OLED screens on the XS and XS Max are the best ever on an iPhone.
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Putting aside your feelings on the notch (it doesn’t bother me at all), the screen is just sublime. Viewing angles are great (although there’s still a hint of color shifting from warmer tones to blue tones when viewed from the edges) and colors really pop on the screen.
I already knew the screen was amazing since I’m an iPhone X owner, but everything — and I do mean everything — looks better on the iPhone XS Max’s bigger display. It sucks you in and then keeps your eyes locked on it until you’ve realized you’ve just spent far too many hours scrolling through Instagram Explore than normal.
Enough about the screen, though. I’ve reviewed all kinds of phones ranging from budget to super premium over the last decade and it’s been unfortunate to see display innovations constantly overshadowing sound quality.
The stereo speakers can produce a wider soundstage.
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Audio and picture quality go hand-in-hand and entertainment is much more immersive when both are given equal love. So it’s great to see the iPhones also pack in what Apple calls “wider stereo playback.”
Apple advertises an improved soundstage through the stereo speakers. If you really listen closely you can hear a little more separation between the left and right channels and more depth to the sound quality, but not dramatically so. Still, better sound is better sound and if you know how to sit still and appreciate music, you’ll welcome the upgrade.
Like the last two generations of iPhones, you won’t find a headphone jack on the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. If you’re still upset over its removal, you’d best come to terms with it because it’s never coming back.
That the phones don’t come with a headphone jack-to-Lightning dongle only drives home the fact that AirPods and wireless headphones are the future and you should either get with the times now or suffer a slow and inevitable defeat later.
IOS 12 TUNED PERFECTLY FOR THE A12 BIONIC
Ever since the original iPad debuted in 2010, Apple’s been using its own custom-designed silicon in its iOS devices and the results (in both synthetic benchmarks and real life) tell only one story: iOS devices are in a league of their own when it comes to performance.
Powering the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max is a new A12 Bionic chip. The 64-bit system-on-a-chip (SoC) has six-cores, with two “performance cores” capable of up to 15 percent faster CPU power and the other four “high efficiency cores” using up to 50 percent less power than on the A11 Bionic. The A12 Bionic also has a four-core GPU that’s up to 50 percent faster for graphics-intensive apps.
A 15 percent performance boost seems like a minor upgrade, but that’s only compared to the iPhone 8/8 Plus/X. When compared to a device like Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9, which uses Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 845 chip, it’s clear the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are beasts.
"The A12 Bionic also has a four-core GPU that’s up to 50 percent faster for graphics-intensive apps like games."
Using my iPhone X running the latest version of the iOS 12 developer beta as a baseline, I ran the popular CPU benchmarking app, Geekbench 4, on the iPhone X, XS, XS Max, and Galaxy Note 9 to see how they compared.
My iPhone X scored 4,242 on the single-core test and 10,302 on the multi-core test. The iPhone XS scored 4,821 on single-core and 11,392 on multi-core — an increase of 13.65 percent and 10.58 percent compared to the iPhone X. Similarly, the iPhone XS Max scored a 4,774 on single-core and 11,380 on multi-core, which was a bit lower than the iPhone XS for some reason, but still in line with Apple’s performance claims.
In comparison, the Note 9 only scored a measly 2,449 on single-core and 8,905 on multi-core. That works out to the iPhone XS being 96.86 percent faster on single-core and 27.93 percent faster on multi-core. It's really embarrassing for Android.
These numbers are great for geeks, but how does it actually translate to in real-world applications? I’m glad you asked.
iOS 12 looks just like iOS 11, but runs faster and smoother.
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With CPU and GPU improvements, everything from the general snappiness of iOS 12 to gaming to augmented reality is faster for sure.
To put these speed gains in perspective, I loaded up a 1 minute and 32 second video clip shot in 4K (3,840 x 2,160) resolution at 30 fps with my iPhone X. I AirDropped the file over to my iPhone XS Max, created a new project with just that one video clip in iMovie, and then timed how long it’d take for both to export the file to 1080p.
The iPhone XS Max took 31 seconds and the iPhone X took 35 seconds. The iPhone XS Max crunched the video 12.9 percent faster, and though a few seconds doesn’t seem like a huge leap, the next part surprised me.
After closing iMovie on both the iPhone X and iPhone XS Max and then opening both project files again, just as I selected “1080p” to restart the export process, the iPhone XS Max displayed a pop-up with: “The movie was exported to your Photo Library” and duplicated the exported file. In comparison on my iPhone X, the export process had started all over again.
I tried this multiple times with different video files and every time the A12 Bionic was able to intelligently understand that it had already performed this exact task and simply duplicated the previously exported file instead of re-rendering everything again. It shaved a whole 31 seconds off each additional export — if that doesn’t convince you the A12 Bionic is performance champ, nothing will.
I also saw some notable improvements while playing 3D games. Fortnite and Asphalt 9 run well on my iPhone X and even better on the iPhone XS and iPhone iPhone XS Max. I saw less choppiness during moments where lots of polygons are rendered on screen, like when you’re spinning your car to knock out a squad of cop cars.
Games especially look more stunning on the iPhone XS Max’s larger display and they sound just a bit louder and clearer thanks to the wider stereo speakers.
Good ol' familiar grid of icons on the homescreen.
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I’m not going to spend too many words on iOS 12. We’ve covered its features extensively since the first developer beta was released following WWDC and you can read my colleague Karissa Bell's deeper dive in her full review here.
The TL;DR: It’s excellent. iOS 12 really flies on the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, which shouldn’t surprise anyone since Apple is known for tuning its software to perform optimally with the hardware.
There’s a lot to dig into on iOS 12, including the new group notifications, Screen Time, Memoji, redesigned Apple apps, Siri Shortcuts, and improved privacy and security.
One of the most fun new features in iOS 12 is Memoji.
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Compared to my iPhone X, iOS 12 on the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max is smoother and navigating around the operating system is snappier. Suspended apps don’t need to reload content as often when the RAM fills up and apps launch quicker.
I do, however, want to call attention to some iOS 12 features exclusive to the iPhone XS Max. With its larger screen, Apple has added a couple of landscape views for some apps. For example, in Messages, you get a two-column view for your contacts and the conversation window. In the Weather app, you can see more forecasts. Apple Maps shows just a little bit more street information. Even websites like the New York Times and National Geographic show more content with columns.
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