“At the launch of the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, most reviewers including ourselves agreed that those who purchased an iPhone X should skip the iPhone XS model and wait another year,” Max Yuryev writes for AppleInsider. “After a month with the iPhone XS Max, the answer isn’t so clear cut. ”
“Like many people upgrading from the iPhone X, I went with the iPhone XS Max, mainly because of the larger display. Since the launch of Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus, I always went with Plus-sized iPhones, and moving to the smaller iPhone X was a noticeable change,” Yuryev writes. “It’s true that the 5.8-inch display is technically larger if you measure it diagonally, but the 5.5-inch display on the iPhone 8 Plus actually has more screen real estate. Jumping up to the 6.5-inch display has been really nice, especially for watching videos and using the phone in landscape orientation.”
“After a month of use, I am more impressed with the XS Max then when I first received it. Certainly, the larger screen is nice, but even if you get the smaller XS model, the camera upgrades and battery life improvements are something that you will notice day to day,” Yuryev writes. “With the resale value of the iPhone X being so good, if you can afford the difference, it is highly recommended to upgrade to the iPhone XS or XS Max.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It’s true: Somehow, the iPhone Xs Max seems to get more impressive the more you use it!
I went from a 3 year old SE to the Xs Max. Wow. It’s hard to describe the leap in performance and features. Very glad I went for the big dog.
Stuck with my 7 Plus for a second year ‘16-‘18. Got my Gold 512GB Xs Max Sept 21. Fits in my VENA vCommute 7 Plus case – sans Telephoto & light – til their Xs Max vCommute cases ship in November. Love the big screen and the speed. Can’t imagine how Apple’s gonna top this model. Pretty near perfect.
It looks like they didn’t use the extra screen real estate to show the battery % that they removed previously, ostensibly because of the notch. After a year with the X I don’t think this was the only reason, I think they wanted to distract people from the fact that the X has noticeably worse battery life than the Plus models. Apple can top the Max by finally eliminating the notch and maximizing the use of the space to let us see battery %, VPN connection, headphones connection, location services, etc. The notch itself is not a distraction, the missing information that we have to now swipe down for is.
I went from the 6S to the XS. It is already so much bigger than my 6S, I couldn’t imagine the Max. The XS still feels big in my pocket. But what a great phone. Photos are so much better and the battery life is double that of my 6S. Didn’t go big, but no regrets on the “dinky” XS.
I’ve had the XS Max since release day..My brief takeaways:
1) Speed bump is noticeable.
2) Video quality improvement is dramatic.
3) Loving the larger screen size..
4) Battery life is *worse.
*5) Wireless charging still hot..
*6) Still a few bugs in 12.0.1 that need to be addressed..