The biggest of the three iPhones unveiled at Apple’s Keynote Event on September 12^th, the iPhone XS Max is the largest iPhone in Apple’s history. It features basically the same specifications as the iPhone XS but with differences in screen size and overall dimensions being the only thing that separates the two iPhones. The increase in screen size does, however, come at a price with the iPhone XS Max coming in at 100 dollars more than the XS for a grand total of $1099. The difference equates to Rs. 10-13,000 for the Pakistani market, as the projected price of the iPhone XS Max is around Rs. 140,000 when the device starts shipping by the end of September 2018.

The bigger the better, especially if it looks this good

Both the XS and the XS Max are ‘S’ upgrades of the iPhone X from last year so the design is familiar to most people. The iPhone XS Max is essentially a bigger version of the iPhone XS. This means that the build quality of the two phones are completely identical. The XS Max has the same two high quality sheets of glass on the front and back held together by a surgical-grade stainless steel frame.

It comes in three colors; gold (which is new for this year), space gray and silver, but the finish is a bit better this year thanks to a new technique Apple is using for their paintjobs. The XS Max has a waterproof rating of IP68, meaning it can withstand being under 2 meters of water for up to 30 minutes, not that anyone would do that to a device this beautiful. The superior waterproofing also means that minor splashes of water, tea, coffee or whatever beverage you are drinking won’t do any damage to your new iPhone.

Coming to form factor, the iPhone XS Max comes in at 157.5 x 77.4 x 7.7mm. That makes it nearly similar in size to the iPhone 8 Plus but the screen on the XS Max is a whole inch bigger than the one on the aforementioned 8 Plus, thanks to it going to the very edges of the front panel.

A screen you can look at all day and not get tired at all

Speaking of that amazing screen, the iPhone XS Max comes with an absolutely stunning Super Retina OLED panel with a resolution of 2688 x 1242 pixels that gives it a pixel density of 458 ppi, the same as the iPhone XS. The size of the display is 6.5 inches. In terms of colour accuracy, this is one of the most colour accurate screens on any smartphone at the moment and also having support for HDR10 and Dolby Vision, it allows you to have the best graphical experience possible atop an iPhone.

The screen also has a refresh rate of 120 Hz so swiping and scrolling look much smoother and gaming feels a lot more natural. Another feature, the TrueTone technology, uses a six channel light sensor to gather information about your surrounding ambient light and adjusts the display settings accordingly to avoid unnecessary strain on the your eyes.

A photo studio in your pocket

The primary and front camera setups in the iPhone XS Max are the exact same as the ones you get in the iPhone XS, which was something that was kind of expected. On the hardware side of things, there is a 12 MP dual camera on the back of which one is a wide-angle lens (f/1.8) and the other is a telephoto (f/2.4) one. In between them is a quad LED TrueTone flash. Both lenses can optically zoom to 2x and with dual optical image stabilization also in available.

On the front, there is a 7MP TrueDepth camera which is used for FaceID and the famous Animojis. Coming to their software, the iPhone XS Max uses artificial intelligence and machine learning powered by the neural engine in the smartphone’s chipset to provide a whole host of advanced features. The list is quite long but the most notable ones include the portrait mode which lets you select the “depth of field” after you’ve taken the photograph and play around with the bokeh effect, not to mention 5 different lighting effects as well.

Another important feature is the SmartHDR which takes multiple photos with different exposure and light settings and then stitches them together to make one really good looking photo. The cameras are also capable of capturing video in 4K quality at up to 60 fps, with the option of slo-mo at up to 240 fps at 1080p quality. An excellent auto image stabilization system helps capture really good, natural looking videos.

True beauty lies on the inside

The iPhone XS Max uses Apple’s newest and most powerful chipset to date, the A12 Bionic. This is a huge step forward from last year’s chip as it has an increased number of cores in the CPU to handle even the most demanding tasks the user can throw at it while being up to 50% more energy efficient than its predecessor. The GPU has also seen an improvement to help produce a stunning graphical experience in games and other apps.

The dedicated neural engine, used for machine learning applications, has also seen a quite significant improvement (9 times faster than before) and Apple has opened up its Core ML platform to developers. All of this will help make alternate reality apps become mainstream in the near future.

This year (2018), Apple is giving users the option of choosing 512 GB of storage for the first time along with the previous options of 256 and 64 GB. The storage is non-expandable and 4 gigs of RAM, the most ever in an iPhone as of 2018, will further ensure a silky user experience atop the built-in iOS 12.

The XS Max features a slightly bigger battery than the XS so it can last a little longer. It also has the option of supporting dual SIM technology in a smart way; although it will only accept one SIM, it will use software to switch between phone carriers. That’s something never seen before. Just like the headphone jack, TouchID has also been shown the door as there’s no fingerprint scanner available.

Apple iPhone XS Max pros:

• The amazing screen, now in a bigger size
• Premium build quality
• 4 gigs of RAM and a hybrid processor enables a buttery-smooth UX
• Added goodies of iOS 12
• The cameras are just stun-ning!

Apple iPhone XS Max cons:

• Even more expensive and the 512 GB variant would set you back a whopping 160,000 plus rupees!
• No difference between this and the iPhone XS except for the larger screen size