iPhone Xs/Max bags the top ratings from DisplayMate, DxOMark, Anandtech for Display, Camera and Silicon

[D13H4RD]

5 hours ago, Commodus said:

I'm not sure I mind what Apple's doing.  You'll still get plenty of detail in good lighting, and I'd say the tradeoff is ultimately worthwhile.  Less noise and proper exposure?  Yes please... it beats seeing more skin texture but also getting a blotchy, blown-out mess.

Don't think I'd agree. 

 

The last iPhones since the 6s didn't have issues with their front cameras. So I don't know why they needed this "beautification" effect. 

 

Hell, I don't like how overly smooth it looks, hence why I have it totally disabled on my Note8 

[Belgarathian]

8 hours ago, Bouzoo said:

It really has a good camera, one of the best, but no one should trust DxOMark. Literal pay to win. P20 Pro is the best? Please, both Pixel 2 XL and XS Max have better all around cameras. 

What I am blown away by most is the A12. Jesus Christ it's such a good chip. 

Still not worth the price though, even as a premium device. 

The low light performance of the P20 blew me away in Anandtech's camera review of the Xs 

 

Yeah... Apple is leagues ahead of any Android phone in terms of hardware acceleration, compute, and raw performance. 

 

7 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

uhh excuse me what?

Really?  I wasn't aware an iphone was close to the 2990WX.

Seriously wtf are they smoking...

 

Awwwwh, c'mon @Ryan_Vickers I typically enjoy your contributions, but did you even read (the admittedly long and detailed) review? It's based on single thread performance in one test. 

 

From Anandtech using SPEC2006:

Spoiler

Overall the new A12 Vortex cores and the architectural improvements on the SoC’s memory subsystem give Apple’s new piece of silicon a much higher performance advantage than Apple’s marketing materials promote. The contrast to the best Android SoCs have to offer is extremely stark – both in terms of performance as well as in power efficiency. Apple’s SoCs have better energy efficiency than all recent Android SoCs while having a nearly 2x performance advantage. I wouldn’t be surprised that if we were to normalise for energy used, Apple would have a 3x performance lead.

 

This also gives us a great piece of context for Samsung’s M3 core, which was released this year: the argument that higher power consumption brings higher performance only makes sense when the total energy is kept within check. Here the Exynos 9810 uses twice the energy over last year’s A11 – at a 55% performance deficit.

 

Meanwhile Arm’s Cortex A76 is scheduled to arrive inside the Kirin 980 as part of the Huawei Mate 20 in just a couple of weeks – and I’ll be making sure we’re giving the new flagship a proper examination and placing among current SoCs in our performance and efficiency graph.

 

What is quite astonishing, is just how close Apple’s A11 and A12 are to current desktop CPUs. I haven’t had the opportunity to run things in a more comparable manner, but taking our server editor, Johan De Gelas’ recent figures from earlier this summer, we see that the A12 outperforms a moderately-clocked Skylake CPU in single-threaded performance. Of course there’s compiler considerations and various frequency concerns to take into account, but still we’re now talking about very small margins until Apple’s mobile SoCs outperform the fastest desktop CPUs in terms of ST performance. It will be interesting to get more accurate figures on this topic later on in the coming months.

 

[Bouzoo]

14 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

The low light performance of the P20 blew me away in Anandtech's camera review of the Xs 

Yes, in low light it may be the best phone out there. 

[D13H4RD]

15 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

The low light performance of the P20 blew me away in Anandtech's camera review of the Xs 

The thing about the P20 Pro is that it's the type of camera where it's not going to do as well if you leave it in automatic mode, especially when you enable the "AI" (it's technically just enhanced scene detection with a frankly overplayed marketing spin). You have to do some tweaking yourself to wring the most out of its stellar hardware package. 

 

The Pixel 2 and iPhone shine at automatic modes because they do most of the heavy lifting in the background and usually deliver very aesthetically pleasing results with nothing more than a tap of the shutter. So it's a better camera for quick fires. 

 

Not to mention that the iPhone and Pixel have image stabilization (OIS and DIS) for video all the way to UHD. The P20 Pro has OIS but it's not enabled at all and DIS doesn't appear to work in UHD. 

[wuod]

Apple lost its magic in my opinion.

1,450$ for the XS Max.

750$ for the 800p XR.

 

Seriously though, 750$ for the budget model and only 800p

Now I see why the chinese phone market has greatly increased.

 

[Belgarathian]

20 minutes ago, wuod said:

Apple lost its magic in my opinion.

1,450$ for the XS Max.

750$ for the 800p XR.

 

Seriously though, 750$ for the budget model and only 800p

Now I see why the chinese phone market has greatly increased.

 

 

A topic for a different thread, but I feel like PPI is all that should be discussed when talking about phone screens. 

 

• 326 - Apple iPhone 8
• 326 - Apple iPhone Xr 
• 458 - Apple iPhone Xs
• 570 - Samsung S9
• 432 - Huawei P20
• 403 - Nokia 6.1
• 402 - OnePlus 6

So yeah, it's on the low side particularly for a $750 phone. But having owned numerous Android phones for work and my own personal range of iPhone's, I've never found the pixel density and sharpness of the screens lacking. Because this is a mobile device, the trade-off for higher resolutions screens is also battery life; something I think Apple has balanced well with their arguably anemic batteries. 
 

[DrMacintosh]

How the heck did this go into people talking about the iPhone XR? Further don't people realize that the more people hate on the XR the more units its going to sell? 

 

326PPI is good enough and if you disagree you are going to have to change 8 years of smartphone display history. 

[DrMacintosh]

17 minutes ago, wuod said:

Seriously though, 750$ for the budget model and only 800p

iPhone XR is not the budget model iPhone. iPhone XR is the budget iPhone X. 

 

If you want a budget iPhone Apple sells the iPhone 7 for $450. Think before you type. 

[D13H4RD]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

326PPI is good enough and if you disagree you are going to have to change 8 years of smartphone display history. 

Once you go super high resolution, it's honestly pretty hard to go back. Going to an iPhone 8 after experiencing QHD is a little awkward especially since I use my phones a little closer to my face. 

 

But for people who probably have not experienced super high res displays or just don't care for them, it'll probably look great. 

[Dabombinable]

14 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

I feel like PPI is all that should be discussed when talking about phone screens. 

 

• 326 - Apple iPhone 8
• 326 - Apple iPhone Xr 
• 458 - Apple iPhone Xs
• 570 - Samsung S9
• 432 - Huawei P20
• 403 - Nokia 6.1
• 402 - OnePlus 6

So yeah, it's on the low side particularly for a $750 phone. But having owned numerous Android phones for work and my own personal range of iPhone's, I've never found the pixel density and sharpness of the screens lacking. 
 

• 432 - 2014 Galaxy S5

4 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

iPhone XR is not the budget model iPhone. iPhone XR is the budget iPhone X. 

 

If you want a budget iPhone Apple sells the iPhone 7 for $450. Think before you type. 

Thing is, even the iPhone 8 is poor value compared to older phones such as the S5. And the iPhone XR has the same problem.
https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=8573&idPhone2=6033&idPhone3=9320

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Once you go super high resolution, it's honestly pretty hard to go back. Going to an iPhone 8 after experiencing QHD is a little awkward especially since I use my phones a little closer to my face. 

 

But for people who probably have not experienced super high res displays or just don't care for them, it'll probably look great. 

My 6s Plus has about 401ppi I think. I've seen Galaxy S9 displays and could not care less. High PPI is nice, but retina ppi and a more energy efficient LCD panel is enough and better battery life is a nice result of that. 

 

 

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

• 432 - 2014 Galaxy S5

Those old Galaxy displays were terrible. Their sub pixel structure left visible black spots in my experience. Only the Galaxy S6 displays started looking good imo. 

[DrMacintosh]

4 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Thing is, even the iPhone 8 is poor value compared to older phones such as the S5

Uhh? No? 

[D13H4RD]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

My 6s Plus has about 401ppi I think. I've seen Galaxy S9 displays and could not care less. High PPI is nice, but retina ppi and a more energy efficient LCD panel is enough and better battery life is a nice result of that. 

 

 

I think modern QHD panels are actually quite efficient with their power consumption, especially for the OLED panels. 

 

I think it's more a matter of Apple choosing what they deem to be just fine rather than following trends. 

[Dabombinable]

2 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Those old Galaxy displays were terrible. Their sub pixel structure left visible black spots in my experience. Only the Galaxy S6 displays started looking good imo. 

Its OLED. And it takes an extremely good IPS based LCD screen to match even bad OLED screens (which the S5 doesn't have).

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

Uhh? No? 

Compare the specs+ price in the link.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

think modern QHD panels are actually quite efficient with their power consumption, especially for the OLED panels. 

Apparently not. iPhone XR has a smaller battery than the iPhone XS Max but is going to get more battery life according to Apple. Keep in mind that these two phones are internally identical. Just one lacks a second camera and a OLED high PPI display. 

[DrMacintosh]

4 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Compare the specs+ price in the link.

I'm sorry but that isn't how iPhones work. 

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

I'm sorry but that isn't how iPhones work. 

That's how it works in every single review of any phone, including iPhones.

[DrMacintosh]

3 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

That's how it works in every single review of any phone, including iPhones.

The only specifications that "work" in a comparison between an iPhone and any other phone are ppi and hardware features like water resistance/SD card support

 

SoC performance, RAM management, Cameras, Software differences, and literally everything that matters to the user experience does not transfer over in a spec sheet. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Apparently not. iPhone XR has a smaller battery than the iPhone XS Max but is going to get more battery life according to Apple. Keep in mind that these two phones are internally identical. Just one lacks a second camera and a OLED high PPI display. 

And the XR is a down-spec'd modem/wifi arrangement. Same hardware afaik, but reduced to 2x2 and apparently the antenna arrangement is more effective (which might or might not relate to the choice to drop down to 2x2.)

 

This obviously will also help with battery life, particularly in stretch situations.

 

But I would definitely expect the display decision to be the primary battery life difference as you said. Not because LCD's are much more or less efficient (atm they are not), but because lower res means lower power requirements for the rest of the hardware.

[ZacoAttaco]

23 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

How the heck did this go into people talking about the iPhone XR? Further don't people realize that the more people hate on the XR the more units its going to sell? 

I don't know if that's how it works, didn't the iPhone 5C get a lot of hate? That didn't sell well.

19 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Thing is, even the iPhone 8 is poor value compared to older phones such as the S5. And the iPhone XR has the same problem.

Perhaps the iPhone 7 might be slightly better value proposition but you can't compare the Galaxy S5 to that phone at all. S5 doesn't even support proper fingerprint scanner. It's running Marshmallow software from 2015. It's usable sure, but both my iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8 are running iOS 12. It's hard to argue with that alone. To be fair, that might not be a big deal to others, for me, I pay for the support and extra functionality that comes with major OS updates.

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, ZacoAttaco said:

Perhaps the iPhone 7 might be slightly better value proposition but you can't compare the Galaxy S5 to that phone at all. S5 doesn't even support proper fingerprint scanner. It's running Marshmallow software from 2015. It's usable sure, but both my iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8 are running iOS 12. It's hard to argue with that alone, not to mention hardware differences.

Yeah, no reasonable person could argue that the S5 is a better value than anything later than the iPhone 6s. I would probably even take an iPhone 6 over the Galaxy S5 today. At least the iPhone 6 would still run the latest software. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

6 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

I don't know if that's how it works, didn't the iPhone 5C get a lot of hate? That didn't sell well.

Perhaps the iPhone 7 might be slightly better value proposition but you can't compare the Galaxy S5 to that phone at all. S5 doesn't even support proper fingerprint scanner. It's running Marshmallow software from 2015. It's usable sure, but both my iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8 are running iOS 12. It's hard to argue with that alone, not to mention hardware differences.

If you want to compare... for now, the s7 and iPhone 7 are contemporaries (ish... the s7 being 6 months older), and the s7 is a much better value atm (not because it is better, but simply because it is so much cheaper). Both (for now) run the up-to-date software. 

 

But the point is pretty stupid because I wouldn't particularly recommend either for someone today.

[D13H4RD]

3 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

But I would definitely expect the display decision to be the primary battery life difference as you said. Not because LCD's are much more or less efficient (atm they are not), but because lower res means lower power requirements for the rest of the hardware.

Don't forget the smaller display area. 

[Curufinwe_wins]

11 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Don't forget the smaller display area. 

ehh, not as clear of a tradeoff as you might expect. Higher pixel density correlates to higher power better than size does for phone LCD's (purely because tighter spacing on pixels means much more blocked light, while larger pixels means lower overall area dedicated to blocking that light, and thus less power required for the same overall brightness).

 

And the display area isn't that much different than the XS.