Granted, this isn’t an XS- or XS Max-only feature since the upgrade also freshens up older iPhones, including models dating as far back as the iPhone 5S. I can practically hear you budding garage musicians cheer. The resulting audio sounded really good, just like you expect to hear on a live album. I tested stereo recording during a Paul Simon concert I attended over the weekend inside Newark’s Prudential Center. You can now capture stereo audio when shooting a video, thanks in part to four built-in microphones. I wiped the phone dry and was immediately good to go. To put it to the test, I intentionally spilled coffee on the XS Max. But Apple says the latest device can also withstand everyday spills of wine, tea, beer, soda and other liquids. Yes, prior iPhones have been water resistant, as is this one. While Apple is not the first company that lets you change the blur effect after the fact – some Galaxy’s have had the feature for a while – its presence on the new iPhones is welcome just the same. What I can say, though, is that I was extremely pleased with the quality of the pictures I took under all sorts of lighting conditions, including in dim settings.Īpple has improved the portrait mode feature by letting you adjust the depth of field and "artful" background blur, after you shoot, even on the front camera. Which is not to suggest that you still can’t take a bad picture. Honestly, it can be difficult to detect differences that, to the subjective eye, are subtle improvements.īut the cameras can compensate for a photographer’s shortcomings, like if you were shooting with the sun washing out the background of your subject. But through other under-the-hood enhancements that include larger pixels and what Apple refers to as Smart HDR, the company is promising even better pictures. The cameraīoth the XS and XS Max have dual 12-megapixel rear cameras, one wide-angle, one telephoto, just like the iPhone X. Short of trying to smash or scratch the device, I'll have to take their word for it. The new gold finish of my test unit – the other available colors are space gray and silver – is really attractive, but like many people I cover up the finish with a case anyway. Apple says the XS and XS Max displays are fortified with what Apple claims is the most durable glass yet on a smartphone. The upcoming XR will have a 6.1-inch screen. It is also slightly smaller than Samsung’s rival Galaxy Note9, which has a 6.4-inch screen. If you’ve read the specifications, you already know the iPhone XS Max has a beautiful edge-to-edge 6.5-inch OLED display, the largest ever on an iPhone – it makes the iPhone XS, despite its own large 5.8-inch screen, look relatively puny.Įven so, thanks to reduced bezels, the XS Max has a smaller footprint than the iPhone 8 Plus, whose screen size is 5.5 inches. With that perspective, here’s what I like about the new iPhones, and here are my gripes. The only recourse for those of you who want a new iPhone but haven’t come to grips with the disappearance of Touch ID and the home button is to purchase either an iPhone 7- or 8-series device that are still in Apple’s lineup. (The third new iPhone, the XR, isn’t coming until Oct. 26 Apple hasn’t supplied review units.) If you didn’t buy then but are ready to buy the $999 (or more) XS or XS Max at $1,099 (to start) now, you’ll face the same relatively minor learning curve the X crowd had to deal with a year ago. And Face ID, in my experience, typically works really well. Those of us who bought the X – and it became Apple’s most popular phone after its release – had to learn a few new gestures, which, thankfully, were fairly intuitive.īy now, most X buyers have made peace with all that and may have even gotten used to the notch at the top of the display that consists of the front camera and sensors that make Face ID even possible – and that remains on the newest models. More: Speed, performance updates key as Apple releases iOS 12Ī year ago, of course, Apple launched the X as the first model to exorcise the home button, go all-in on Face ID facial recognition (at the expense of the Touch ID fingerprint system) and, oh yeah, crack $1,000. More: iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max pricing: What are the best wireless carrier deals? More: The big news from Apple wasn't just new iPhones. And while the latest screens are beautiful, iPhone displays have long been brilliant.
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