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At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Our Verdict

If you don’t mind a phone that won’t fit in your jeans pocketthe XS Max could be a great upgrade. With the option of a second line via eSIM plus Smart HDR photos and better stereo speakersit’s more than just a bigger iPhone X. It isn’t cheapthoughand you could save by opting for the iPhone XR instead. Just check out the iPhone 11 Pro Max first.

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From $1,099

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The introduction of the iPhone X in 2017 meant you could have an entirely new iPhone in your hands with innovative new features such as Face ID and a big screen in a compact body. In September 2018 Apple iterated that design to create the XSbut aside from the gold finishthere isn’t really anything new to see on the outside.

What is newthoughis the XS Maxa larger option that gives us the biggest screen yet in an iPhone at a whopping 6.5in.

The design is the samebut importantly the fact that there’s feature parity across both models mean you no longer have to compromise if you want the smaller phone as you did when you chose the iPhone 8sayover the 8 Plus.

iPhone history

This iPhone has been replaced with a newer model. Find links below to our reviews of all iPhone modelsincluding the latest generation. iPhone 16 is expected to launch in September 2024 (see when is the best time to buy a new iPhone)while iPhone SE (4th generation) and iPhone 17 are likely to appear in 2025. Find out about Apple’s September event details and how to watch the Apple September event live stream; or for other Apple productslearn more about all the new Apple products coming this year and when is the next Apple event. You might also like our iPhone buying guide best iPhone deals and comparison of every iPhone that is available to buy today.

iPhone XS Max: Price & availability

Note: The iPhone XS Max is no longer on sale from Apple thanks to the introduction of the iPhone 11 range. Howeveryou’ll still find it at other retailers such as Carphone Warehouse and Amazon.

The iPhone XS Max starts at £1,099/US$1,099. Don’t expect contracts to be cheapeitherwith contracts starting at around £50 per month with an upfront cost of £299. See Best iPhone XS deals.

64GB iPhone XS Max: £1,099/$1,099
128GB iPhone XS Max: £1,249/$1,249
512GB iPhone XS Max: £1,449/$1,449

One thing to keep in mind: Apple is very likely to update its range of iPhones in September 2019 at which point it may well reduce the price of the iPhone XS Max or remove it from sale like it did with the iPhone X in 2018… Assuming it keeps the model on sale and doesn’t replace it with a new iPhone XS Max you may find that the XS Max gets a price cut. So if you are happy to wait until September 2019 it might be worth doing so.

iPhone XS Max: Design and build

It would be easy to say at this point that there isn’t a whole lot to talk about since the XS Max has the same features and design as the XS andbroadly speakingthe X before it. But there are plenty of people who will be upgrading from an iPhone 67 or 8 (including the Plus and ‘s’ models) and for whom the XS will be a first foray into an iOS world with no home button or fingerprint scanner.

Let’s start with the gold colour. Gold isn’t new for Applebut this is a new finish. Remember that the iPhone XS has a stainless steelnot aluminiumframe so the look and feel is different to those older iPhones.

The gold is quite dark and quite a contrast from the light-coloured glass panel on the rear. This doesn’t really have a noticeable gold colour at all but you’ll see glimmers as you turn the phone in your hand and the light reflects off it.

There’s also a gold band around the cameraswhich remains noticeable when you put the XS Max in a case. And you’ll almost certainly want to do soeven if it does have the most durable glass yet: the cost to replace a broken screen is painful.

With Apple’s leather case in place the XS Max is quite a beast. It’s heavy (208g) and it’s big. If you’re used to an iPhone 7 Plusyou probably won’t notice the extra weight too muchbut if you’re coming from a 4.7in iPhone it can be quite a shock.

Where the iPhone XS comfortably fits in your jeans pocketthe Max is distinctly less comfortable: only you can decide whether the trade-off for the bigger screen is worth the additional weight and bulk.

Both XS phones get a bump in waterproofing from IP67 to IP68which simply means you can take them in up to 2m of water for up to 30 minutes.

iPhone XS Max: Specs and features

When it comes to Apple‘S’ models have a lot more going on when it comes to the hardware rather than design. As we’ve alluded to alreadythe lure with the Max is its almost tablet sized display.

Screen

The sheer amount of screen real-estate will make your jaw drop when you first see itthough. It’s impressive enough on the iPhone X and XSbut on the Max it has an even bigger wow factor.

Resolution is increased to maintain the same 458ppi pixel density as those two smaller phonesand tech is also the same.

This means 625 nits maximum brightness1 million-to-one contrast ratio and support for HDR10 and Dolby Vision.

We have to mention the iPhone XR here: The iPhone XR has a 6.1in displaywhich is only slightly smaller than 6.5in display on the iPhone XS Max. The more significant difference is that the iPhone XR has an LCD screenwhich lacks the deeper blacksmore accurate coloursand better contrast ratio of the iPhone XS Max’s OLED screen.

If you’re upgrading from an older iPhone with an LCD screenthe differences are noticeable. It’s a bit easier to see in bright sunlight (though it’s not the brightest phone around)it has fantastic colour accuracyblack levels and viewing angles.

With True Tone enabledcolours remain accurate as lighting conditions change from daylight to office lights to your warm-white LED bulbs at home.

The extra size and resolution doesn’t get you any extra interface detailthough. Apps and iOS menus are just bigger. Of coursethe bigger screen is better for watching videos and it’s a decent compromise if you usually carry around a small-screen phone and an iPad mini.

It’s still frustrating that there is no option to take advantage of the ability to light up individual pixels on the screen to display an always-on clockdate or notifications as you get with most Android phones with OLED screens.

Processormemory and storage

The A12 Bionic processor is the first to be made using a 7nm process. That probably doesn’t mean muchbut the technology is undeniably impressive. Using a smaller process means better power efficiencyand it’s the main reason why Apple is able to quote an extra 90 minutes of battery life over the iPhone X.

We’ll get to the battery later: it’s time to talk performance.

The A12 doesn’t offer a huge leap over the A11with roughly 15 percent improvement on average. We saw this in our benchmarksbut such synthetic tests are fairly meaningless in the real world and serve mainly as a way to compare other phones.

And in the real world you probably won’t notice much of a difference if you’re coming fromsayan A11-equipped iPhone 8 or 8 Plus. It also means that the iPhone XS Max isn’t necessarily as future-proof as you might hope for: it doesn’t have huge amounts of headroom for future versions of iOS compared to what we’ve seen in the past.

Don’t hear what we’re not sayingthough. This is a phenomenally powerful phone that is impressively slick in real-world use. Apps open seriously fast and we haven’t yet seen a single stutter when navigating around iOS.

The improvement in gaming performance is noticeable in certain benchmarks but not in others. For example in the GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 Metal test the XS Max managed 55fps. That’s just 2fps quicker than the iPhone X.

But run the less demanding 3DMark Ice Storm test and the XS Max is roughly 20 percent quicker. Given that the GPU has an extra core in the A12the results we’re seeing don’t tally with what should be at least 25 percent on average and nothing approaching Apple’s ‘up to 50 percent’ claim.

It’s important to remember these increases are comparisons to an already veryvery fast phone so we might not have the large year-on-year increases that we’ve become used to but it’s still even better performance.

Lastlythe Neural Engine has been boosted from two to eight cores in totalallowing it to process 5 trillion operations per second. Benefits include the ability to process photos fasterwhich in turn means you can have features such as Smart HDR.

It also makes other things fastersuch as detecting the floor or a table in AR apps and more responsive Memoji.

Connectivity and audio

BluetoothWi-Fi and most other components are the latest versions (but unchanged from the previous-generation iPhones) and there’s still NFC for Apple Pay only.

What’s new is a 4×4 MIMO antenna array for Gigabit LTE. Android phones have had similar capabilities for a whilebut currently – at least in the UK – no mobile operator can yet support these speeds.

It’s good for future-proofing but you won’t see a benefit right now. Some people are reporting poor 4G signal from their XS and XS Max but in our tests of both phones (admittedly in London where mobile signal is strong) we haven’t had any issues.

The new array means there’s a new antenna line on the bottom edge so it isn’t symmetrical like the iPhone X. A very minor pointgranted.

On the other side of the Lightning port are the holes for the speaker. Along with the improved earpiece speakerstereo sound is now far better than on the iPhone X.

If you do play games in landscape modewatch TV or YouTubeyou’ll notice that there’s great stereo separation and a very good balance between left and right channelsas well as no noticeable difference in frequency range.

Typically with this kind of setuponly the main speaker at the bottom is capable of any low frequencieswhich makes it sound imbalancedbut on the XS Maxthat’s not an issue.

Of coursethe speakers aren’t that loud and you’re going to prefer headphones on many occasions. The bundled Lightning earbuds are greatbut it is a bit of a kick in the teeth (given the steep price) that there’s no longer a Lightning-to-minijack adapter in the box for using standard headphones.

Dual SIM

One of the big new features is dual SIM. This isn’t done in the traditional way: you can still fit just one nano SIM card in the tray. The other is an eSIM which is a SIM card soldered to the motherboard. There are pros and cons to thisas we explain in a separate article.

The way it works is like many dual-SIM Android phones. It’s a dual-SIMdual standby system. It means both SIMs are active simultaneously: you can receive a call on either number at any timeand choose which number to use when you make a call or text.

You can choose in Settings which is your primary numberand which SIM to use for data. Here’s how to use dual SIMs with an iPhone.

Cameras

On paperyou won’t spot any real upgrades to the cameras compared to the iPhone Xbut the XS Max – and the XS – take noticeably better photos and videos. This is largely down to the fact there’s more processing power availablebut also because the sensor pixels on the main 12Mp camera are a little larger.

Combinedthis improves low-light performance a bitbut makes a real difference to HDR photos and video. You can now expect photos of kids (and pets) to be sharper even if they won’t stay still and with the ‘extended’ dynamic range in videohighlights are much less likely to be blown out.

Ultimatelythe XS Max is a fantastic device for photography and videorecording great stereo sound as well.

Even when the new smart HDR mode is called foryou won’t notice any shutter lag or processing delay: it’s just as instantaneous as taking a photo in less-challenging conditions. And thanks to the simple interface in the Camera appeveryone can reliably shoot impressive photos and video.

This is a 100 percent crop from the photo above. Not as sharp as some phones.

It’s nice that slo-mo defaults to 240fps at 1080pand video to 4K at 30fpsbut you can increase frame rate to 60fps if you can live with the 400MB of storage this mode consumes per minute.

As everstabilisation is amazingeven at the top resolution. Many phones either don’t offer stabilisation at 4K or it’s noticeably less effective than at 1080p. But you really can use the XS Max to shoot smooth 4K.

There’s one new photography feature: Depth Control. This is new to Applebut has been around in the Android world for a while. When you take a Photo in Portrait mode it’s possible to adjust the aperture in the Photos app when you tap Edit.

A new slider appears which can be moved between f/1.4 and f/16 and allowing you to choose any aperture in between and therefore depth of field. Effectively it changes the amount of blur in the backgroundjust as it would look if you were to have taken the image on an SLR camera at that aperture.

It’s a simulation achieved with a combination of software and depth information from the twin rear cameras.

In general it works pretty well on the rear camerawith great bokeh that looks more authentic (and blurrier at f/1.4) than it has done on older iPhones. Subject and background separation is very goodtoo.

The adjustability causes issues when transferring the photos to a PCthoughas the blurred background disappearsand that’s when transferring the original HEIC files.

The front camera has the same 7Mp sensor as we’ve seen previouslyand photos are similarly decent. Some people say the selfie camera smooths skin tones in a similar way to ‘beauty’ modes on other phones. Howeverwe couldn’t spot any evidence of this in the selfies we took.

Depth Control is also available for selfiesdespite the single front camera. But it doesn’t do half as good a job as the rear cameras – check out the amount of blurred hair:

Battery life

Thanks to teardowns we know that the XS Max has a 3174mAh batterywhich is the biggest capacity ever in an iPhone. In the Geekbench 4 rundown test – effectively a worst-case scenario which really pushes the phone – it lasted 5 hours 23 minutes.

That isn’t fantastic: other phones such as the Galaxy Note 9 last around 7.5 hoursbut it also isn’t a particularly real-world test.

In actual usewe found the XS Max had about half of its juice left at the end of a day of light use. But push it hard and you will need to charge it every night.

Again it’s disappointing at this price that you still get the bog-standard 5W mains charger in the box: you could spend more and get a USB-C PD charger and buy Apple’s Lightning-to-USB-C cable for proper fast charging.

You can also make use of wireless chargingbut againyou’ll need to buy a wireless charger to do so.

iPhone XS Max: Software and apps

There are quite a few new features in iOS 12 (but you can upgrade to iOS 13)but these aren’t specific to the XS Max of course. Siri shortcutsgrouped notifications and Do Not Disturb at bedtime are all handy quality-of-life features you’ll appreciatethough you’ll have to invest a little time to get to grips with Shortcuts first.

Screen Time can prove useful to wean you off Facebookgames or whatever takes up too much of your time.

A feature that was initially exclusive to the 2018 iPhonesbut is coming to more phones in iOS 13is Memojiswhich allows you to create an avatar that looks like you and use it in Messages (just like Animoji) and also by using the Messages camera to add your Memoji – and stickers – to photos before you send them.

The real fun comes in FaceTimethoughwhere you can overlay your Memoji on the video and it animates in realtime as you speak. It sounds gimmickybut it’s great fun.

An important point you might overlook is that the XS Max isn’t a one-handed phone. Yesyou can use the reachability feature to bring the top half of the screen downbut the fact remains the Max is not as easy to use as the XS or X with one hand.

Verdict

In some ways the XS Max could be your perfect phone. It brings the option of a larger screen to those for whom 5.8in just isn’t enough and is the first iPhone to cater for those who need two SIMs.

It also brings upgrades to photos (Smart HDR)videos (extended dynamic range) and audio (better stereo).

Howeverit remains tricky to justify the high priceespecially if 64GB isn’t enough storage for you. Battery life could be better and while performance is greatit isn’t a huge jump up from the iPhone 8 or X.

There is the new iPhone 11 Pro Max to consider now and the iPhone XR is still on sale at a lower price.

This review originally appeared on our sister site Tech Advisor.

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Author: Jim MartinExecutive EditorTech Advisor

Jim has been testing and reviewing products for over 20 yearsand is Executive Editor at our sister site Tech Advisor. His main beats include VPN services and antivirus. He also covers smart home techmesh Wi-Fi and electric bikes.

iPhone XS Max (2018) Review: Supersize Me

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Our Verdict

Price When Reviewed

Best Prices Today: Apple iPhone XS Max

iPhone history

iPhone XS Max: Price & availability

iPhone XS Max: Design and build

iPhone XS Max: Specs and features

Screen

Processormemory and storage

Connectivity and audio

Dual SIM

Cameras

Battery life

iPhone XS Max: Software and apps

Verdict

Best Prices Today: Apple iPhone XS Max

Author: Jim MartinExecutive EditorTech Advisor

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