The iPhone XS & XS Max Review: Unveiling the Silicon Secrets
by Andrei Frumusanu on October 5, 2018 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Apple
- Smartphones
- iPhone XS
- iPhone XS Max
Camera - Daylight - More HDR & Portrait
I wanted to have a second page of daylight photos because I wanted to spend a bit more time and have a tad more varied scenes for to test Apple’s SmartHDR – please enjoy.
[ 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 ]
This tunnel was a fun little test – the other end was sunlit while obviously quite dark from my side. I thought this would be a good little visual representation of the raw dynamic ranges that the phones would be able to capture.
Indeed, the iPhone XS is able to go a lot further into the end of the tunnel than the iPhone X, or for that matter, most other phones. This is an extreme show-case of Apple’s new HDR processing and how it’s able to play with bright highlights in scenes.
[ 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 ]
One scenario that Apple showcased during the keynote was a shot directly facing the sun. I’ve had users in previous reviews bombard me with comments as to that’s not how you should take a photo. To them I say: that’s an outdated notion of photography.
As computational photography becomes an ever increasingly common theme in devices, we’ll see more and more scenes like this one where shooting against the sun should be no issue at all.
The iPhone XS dramatically improves the shadow detail, and is able to notably reduce the sun’s halo in this shot, but I do think Apple might have overpromised a bit on the notion of computational photography. The best counter-example of this is to just switch over to what the Huawei P20 Pro was able to achieve in its 10MP AI mode, by far surpassing all other phones in the captured dynamic range of the scene. This facet of smartphone photography really opens up a new area of competition, and hopefully we’ll be seeing some exciting things in the future.
[ 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 ]
This shot follows the same themes we saw on the previous page, the iPhone XS handles the shadows a lot better and gives a lot more details over the iPhone X.
Samsung again opts for a much brighter picture, but I do think it comes at some cost of detail. Again I think the OnePlus 6’s HDR processing is an excellent middle-ground that would please most people, although Apple has a tad more natural look going for 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 less direct sunlit environments, the difference between the iPhone X and XS might not be directly visible the thumbnails, however opening up the full resolution image showcases the XS’s significant increase of detail and textures throughout the whole scene. The larger pixels of the XS sensor along with the deeper DTI (deep trench isolation) results in significantly increased spatial resolution – even though the sensor has the same amount of pixels and even has a wider field of view, resulting in less pixels per given object.
Again Samsung tends for a brighter exposure that I think is a bit too much – detail slightly trails the XS. OnePlus bridges the two vendors in terms of exposure and detail.
[ 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 ]
This scene was mostly in the tree shadows, sun sunlit spots coming through the gaps. By now we should understand where the XS’ strengths are: brighter and more defined shadow details.
I think Apple nailed this shot and it has the best balance of exposure as well as the best detail retention. The OP6 closely followed in terms of exposure, but lost in terms of details. Samsung here just overdid it with exposure and just flattens the scene too much.
[ 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 ]
Finally the last shot, is again a good showcase of HDR of the different phones. The iPhone XS continues to perform very well here, showing the improvements we’ve seen in previous scenes. Again Samsung is brighter, but slightly loses out on details.
Portrait Mode
[ iPhone XS ] - [ iPhone X ]
[ Galaxy Note9 ] - [ LG G7 ]
[ OnePlus 6 ] - [ Mi MIX2S ] - [ Pixel 2XL ]
[ P20 Pro ]
Portrait mode is something that’s been quite the rage nowadays, and the iPhone XS promises to take advantage of its new inferencing engine power to create much better separation maps between the foreground subject and the background, to which the computational bokeh effect is applied.
Shooting in portrait mode on most phones means that the actual shot will be taken with the telephoto module, while the wide main camera is also doing work by serving as the depth sensor. Single-module phones such as the Pixel 2 rely solely on the computational power to discern between the subject and the background.
The results on the iPhone XS showcase a significant improvement in the image quality of portrait mode. First of all, the exposure and colour balance of the shot is just significantly better, something that’s universally valid for telephoto shots on the new XS.
The actual bokeh effect on the XS looks to be applied a lot more graduated, and while it’s still possible to see the edge of the pattern in some cases, it’s significantly improved.
This gradual application is what makes the iPhone’s portrait mode stand out to other phones. Only Huawei and Samsung somewhat manage to go a decent job, while all other phones look quite rubbish to be honest, with visible zigzag patterns around the subject.
Daylight Conclusion
Overall in daylight, the iPhone XS is easily a top-tier performer. One thing that I didn’t bring up throughout is picture capture consistency, and here the iPhone XS just shines. Every time you take a picture, you can be assured you will get a good shot – and there’s little to no difference in consecutive shots.
Apple’s new SmartHDR is a definite win, and allows for much more detail in the shadows, all while retaining good highlights in the scenes. The new sensor module is definitely showing its strengths even in daylight, as every shot that wasn’t in direct sunlight was able to showcase much improvements in terms of details as well as textures. I attribute this to the new sensor’s much improved DTI – something which results in the iPhone XS gaining quite a bit more resolved spatial resolution, even though the megapixel count is the same.
The new slightly wider viewing angle on the main camera is something that I enjoyed, and I hope Apple continues on in this regard. My iPhone X seems to suffer from lens defects in the left part of the scenes – the iPhone XS showcases no such chromatic aberrations and is sharp until the edge of the frame.
The biggest improvement seems to be on the telephoto lens. While on the iPhone X and before, the telephoto lens could result in quite different colours and exposures. On the iPhone XS the new module seems to be perfectly in balance with the main camera, so that there’s just very little difference in the picture between the two.
While sometimes I do prefer OnePlus 6’s HDR, the XS is more consistent in terms of detail throughout the scenes. Samsung’s Note9 and S9 also sometimes can get a better shot, however they have too much of a tendency to overexpose. I think overall, the iPhone XS takes the lead in terms of smartphone photography in daylight just because of its consistent shooting experience.
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zepi - Saturday, October 6, 2018 - link
Otherwise a nice idea, but Datacenter CPU-market is too little to be interesting for Apple, as crazy as it is.Intel makes about $5b/quarter selling Xeons and other Datacenter stuff.
Apple makes some $50B. I don't think they can waste chip-development resources to design something for such a little "niche".
tipoo - Thursday, October 18, 2018 - link
Well, it would be largely reusing the R&D they already do for iOS chips, making the high performance cores is the hardest part, scaling them up to more cores would be a fraction the work.
varase - Tuesday, October 23, 2018 - link
The Enterprise server business is already a crowded field, and it's not really something Apple has any expertise with.In Apple terms, it's not like there's a huge profit potential there, even if they were successful.
Why put all that effort into learning, when most of their income comes from a portable consumer device they first released in 2007?
iwod - Saturday, October 6, 2018 - link
What are the other die area used for? The labels only has ~half of the die. I could add image signal processing, video encode and decode if that is not included in GPU. Some FPGA we know Apple had included in their SoC. But all that accounted that is likely less than 25% of that due space. What about the other 25%?Glaurung - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link
Hardware accelerators for anything and everything that can be hardware accelerated.Plus the "secure enclave" is also on there somewhere - a fenced off, cut down SOC within the SOC for handling logins/unlocking and other security stuff.
Antony Newman - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link
Andrei - This is an awesome review. Do you think Apple could roll out a low end laptop with 6 Vortex cores - or are there still SoC design areas that Apple still needs to address?AJ
Constructor - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link
I'm not Andrei, but my speculation on this would be:• It would make no sense to start with the weakest Macs because that would put the transition to Apple's own CPUs in a bad light from the start. As in the Intel transition 12 years ago they would need to start with the middle of their lineup (with iMacs and MacBook Pros) in order to demonstrate the strength of the new CPU platform and to motivate software developers to jump on board, including actually working on the new machines full time if possible.
• They would need to have an emulation infrastructure for Intel legacy code in place like they did with Rosetta back then (also for Windows/Linux VMs!). And even in emulation that legacy code cannot be much slower than natively on then-current Intel machines, so their own CPUs already need to be a good bit faster than the corresponding Intel ones at the time in order to compensate for most of the emulation cost.
• As in 2006, this would have a significant impact on macOS so at announcement they would need to push at least developer versions of the new macOS to developers. Back in 2006 they had Intel-based developer systems ready before the actual Intel Macs came out – this time they could actually provide a macOS developer version for the then top-of-the-line iPads until the first ARM-based Macs were available (which already support Blutooth keyboards now and could then just support Bluetooth mice and trackpads as well). But this also means that as back then, they would need to announce the transition at WWDC to explain it all and to get the developers into the boat.
• Of course Apple would need to build desktop/notebook capable versions of their CPUs with all the necessary infrastructure (PCIe, multiple USB, Thunderbolt) but on the other hand they'd have more power and active cooling to work with, so they could go to more big cores and to higher clock speeds.
Again: This is sheer speculation, but the signs are accumulating that something this that may indeed be in the cards with Intel stagnating and Apple still plowing ahead.
I just don't think that it would be practical to put the current level of Apple CPUs into a Mac just like that even though from sheer CPU performance it looks feasible. These transitions have always been a massive undertaking and can't just be shot from the hip, even though the nominal performance seems almost there right now.
Constructor - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link
Oops – this forum insists on putting italics into separate lines. Oh well.ex2bot - Sunday, October 7, 2018 - link
Not to mention they’d have to maintain two processor architectures for an extended period. By that, I mean, I doubt they’d transition high-end Macs for a long, long time to avoid angering pros... again.serendip - Monday, October 8, 2018 - link
A real left field move would be for Apple to release a MacOS tablet running ARM, like a Qualcomm Windows tablet. I wouldn't rule it out considering how Apple went from a single product for the iPhone and iPad to making multiple sizes.