The iPhone XS & XS Max Review: Unveiling the Silicon Secrets

Name: The iPhone XS & XS Max Review: Unveiling the Silicon Secrets
Item: The iPhone XS & XS Max Review: Unveiling the Silicon Secrets
Author: Andrei Frumusanu

by Andrei Frumusanu on October 5, 2018 8:00 AM EST

253 Comments | Add A Comment

253 Comments

Camera - Low Light Evaluation

In low-light scenarios, we should see the new iPhone XS showcase significant improvements thanks to the 50% better light capture ability of the new sensor. Apple’s still only employing a f/1.8 aperture lens on the XS - so while it will improve over past phones, at least on paper it’s still at a disadvantage to say Samsung’s latest phones, which have an extra-wide f/1.5 aperture available to them.

[ iPhone XS ] - [ iPhone X ] - [ iPhone 7 ] - [ iPhone 6S ]
[ Galaxy Note9 ] - [ Galaxy S9+ ] - [ Galaxy S8 ]
[ LG G7 ] - [ LG G6 ] - [ LG V30 ] - [ OnePlus 6 ]
[ Mi MIX2S ] - [ Pixel 2XL ] - [ P20 Pro ]

In this first shot, we immediately see the new iPhone’s advantage over last year’s flagship. There is a lot more definition in the grass, less noise throughout the image, and less blown out lights in the scene.

Unfortunately, Apple is as expected still at a great disadvantage to Samsung here, as the latter is just able to give more light onto the whole scene, and the most evident, more colour to the grass. In terms of raw low light capture, the Huawei P20 Pro is still far ahead here, thanks to its massive sensor that is able to collect significantly more light.

At first glance, the iPhone XS didn’t shoot a much brighter picture than the iPhone X in this construction scene. Opening up the full resolution images however shows that the new XS showcases much better details and lower noise. It’s not enough to compete with the S9+, and certainly not with the insane ISO25600 shot of the P20 Pro.

It’s interesting to see the improvements over the years from the iPhone 6S on – which barely manages to capture anything in this scene.

The next shot is probably the only one that I found to be really problematic for Apple. Both on the iPhone X and the new XS, the resulting images weren’t consistent in consecutive shots. In four shots in a row, the iPhone XS kept changing the colour temperature. The same thing happened on the iPhone X, so I think this was part of Apple’s exposure / colour balance algorithm.

Colour balance aside, the exposure is similar between the X and the XS, and all the improvements of the new sensor go directly into improved detail and noise reduction throughout the scene, which is significantly better again compared to last year’s iPhone.

Here Apple is very close to Samsung, showcasing a bit better shadows, but still losing out in details in some parts of the scene. The P20 Pro is yet again the low-light kind here, as it just have that much more dynamic range work with.

Again, the iPhone’s new sensor comes into play in these concrete trucks. The XS makes very good dealing of the blown highlights present in the iPhone X shot. Samsung is able to produce more vibrancy in the blue of the trucks. Huawei’s multi-exposure computational photography night mode is the best of all phones here as it’s just able to bring out that much more from the shadows.

Apple's use of SmartHDR in this picture is extremely evident, as it really brings down the highlights of the lamp and brings out more shadows throughout the scene. The XS provides better detail, but it’s not as big of a difference as we’ve seen in other shots.

Apple’s usage of HDR here puts it ahead of the Samsung devices, trading blows with the P20 Pro, winning in some regards, while losing in others.

Finally, I wanted to test the iPhone XS to its limits and see what it can do in essentially impossible scenarios of low light.

Exposure-wise, the iPhone XS is no better than the X here. It provides better sharpness and less noise, however the image is still too dark to be of any use. I wish Apple would introduce a more innovative low light shooting mode, such as LG’s pixel binning mode. Huawei’s ISO51200 capture of this scene is just so beyond any other current phone, that it really raised the bar in what we’d normally expect to see in a smartphone.

Low-light conclusion

The new iPhone XS sensor is a great improvement to Apple’s lineup. Its advantages over the iPhone X are clearly evident in every single low-light shot, showcasing greater detail and sharpness while reducing noise. SmartHDR doesn’t seem to be something that’s solely for daylight shots, as Apple and the iPhone XS seem to make use of it in some low-light scenarios, giving the camera a further advantage over last year’s phones.

While Apple has showcased some really good progress, it’s can still lag behind low-light image quality of Samsung and Huawei’s P20 Pro. The former’s bigger aperture is just a sheer hardware advantage, while the latter enormous sensor makes use of innovative image processing to really raise the bar in terms of extreme low light photography. Here the iPhone XS is good; but it just can’t keep up.

Camera - Daylight - More HDR & Portrait Camera Video Recording & Speaker Evaluation

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alysdexia - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
ODEDs
Henk Poley - Saturday, October 6, 2018 - link
The OLEDs have a +41% higher pixel density as the LCD iPhones. So that's one reason why it could use more power.
Constructor - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link
OLEDs are simply much, much less efficient than the crystalline LEDs used as LCD backlights. They only have an advantage when the image is mostly black, which just isn't the case almost anywhere on the web or elsewhere.

And the OLED displays in the X/XS are PenTile, so red and blue only have half the nominal resolution. The indicated resolution actually applies to green only. But the GPU will probably need to work harder for the PenTile compensation algorithm.

It still looks smudged to me especially at character edges (they're lined with tiny brownish/blueish pustules due to PenTile), and scrolling looks horribly janky, as if it was an old-time interlaced display, which is apparently due to the necessary PWM re-scanning.

Neither of these püroblems exist with the excellent LCDs Apple has been using since the iPhone 6, which still have proper full-resolution RGB pixels and due to the LCD inertia scroll buttery smooth.

So if any of the devices, it'll be the XR for me or none.
caribbeanblue - Thursday, September 24, 2020 - link
I thought the the buttery smooth looking scrolling on LCD was due to the more ghosting happening on the screen, no? When you’re scrolling text and images look clearer on OLEDS thanks to the lower amount of ghosting, but on LCDs pixels take more time to switch colors and that creates that smooth scrolling effect on the screen.
Mic_whos_right - Tuesday, October 9, 2018 - link
That makes sense. still. isn't the OLED designs suppose to use zero batt at times during black? Maybe for movie borders?
Constructor - Tuesday, October 9, 2018 - link
Yeah, I would also expect that the display controller should be able to go into low-power mode if it has all black pixels and it doesn't even need to scan in that state.

Maybe there was some mistake in the measurement or the display wasn't actually completely black but just relatively dark with still some pixels on at lower brightness.

It could also be that the controller needs some startup time so it might not be able to shut down unless it can really know for sure there won't suddenly be some bright pixels again.
alysdexia - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link
aren't, supposed
wrkingclass_hero - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link
I don't mind the minor typos, but I would have liked to have seen rec.2020 color gamut testing and sustained gameplay battery life.
melgross - Saturday, October 6, 2018 - link
Nobody has a rec2020 monitor, so there’s no point in testing for it.
jameskatt - Saturday, October 6, 2018 - link
Fantastic Review! But you missed the biggest item: The 8-Core Neural Processing Cores. These are used by Apple for Magic and huge acceleration of several tasks including realtime photo processing, Face ID, etc. These can be used in apps. The A12 has 18 cores - 2 Large CPU, 4 Small CPU, 4 GPU, and 8 NPU Cores.

The iPhone XS & XS Max Review: Unveiling the Silicon Secrets

Camera - Low Light Evaluation

Low-light conclusion

Post Your Comment

253 Comments

View All Comments

alysdexia - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link

Henk Poley - Saturday, October 6, 2018 - link

Constructor - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link

caribbeanblue - Thursday, September 24, 2020 - link

Mic_whos_right - Tuesday, October 9, 2018 - link

Constructor - Tuesday, October 9, 2018 - link

alysdexia - Friday, May 10, 2019 - link

wrkingclass_hero - Friday, October 5, 2018 - link

melgross - Saturday, October 6, 2018 - link

jameskatt - Saturday, October 6, 2018 - link

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