Hey all,

This post is mainly for me...but if you appreciate Xs, then feel free to contribute any info on it. If you are NOT an iPhone Xs fan, then please move on to another more interesting thread.

First off, Anandtech extensive review of it:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392...ilicon-secrets

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13453...nn-performance

Quote:

The Apple A12 is a beast of a SoC. While the A11 already bested the competition in terms of performance and power efficiency, the A12 doubles down on it in this regard, thanks to Apple’s world-class design teams which were able to squeeze out even more out of their CPU microarchitectures. The Vortex CPU’s memory subsystem saw an enormous boost, which grants the A12 a significant performance boost in a lot of workloads. Apple’s marketing department was really underselling the improvements here by just quoting 15% - a lot of workloads will be seeing performance improvements I estimate to be around 40%, with even greater improvements in some corner-cases. Apple’s CPU have gotten so performant now, that we’re just margins off the best desktop CPUs; it will be interesting to see how the coming years evolve, and what this means for Apple’s non-mobile products.

On the GPU side, Apple’s measured performance gains are also within the promised figures, and even above that when it comes to sustained performance. The new GPU looks like an iteration on last year’s design, but an added fourth core as well as the important introduction of GPU memory compression are able to increase the performance to new levels. ...the iPhone XS and XS Max, thanks to the new A12 SoC, showcase industry leading performance and efficiency, and currently are the best mobile platforms for gaming, period.

Extensive review on camera and video (comparison of XS vs. Pixel 2 & 3, Note 9): https://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/fea...arison-1937668

Video capability:

https://www.richardlackey.com/iphone...ht-video-test/

iPhone XS Camera Review: Zanzibar — Austin Mann

iPhone XS: Why It’s A Whole New Camera – Halide

Very good review of XS camera and comparison with past iPhones on Youtube: (Go to 5:24 mark to see pics comparison with older iPhones)

I got an XR to replace my 8 and I'm having a tough time adjusting to the size difference. My wife is on the annual upgrade plan (she's got an 8 Plus) and her upgrade date is coming up shortly. I think I'll just pay hers off and trade it in on an XS, give her the XR and keep the XS since the size is more to my liking. She'll be happy since the usable screen size on the XR is very close to the 8 Plus so I won't have to listen to any complaining about the loss of screen space. Everybody wins.

I got the Xs (non-MAX)...perfect size especially given that I like to have protective case on my phone.

iPhone has never been known to have great cellular speeds...but here are two tests regarding it:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/364116/ip...falls-short-of

Not great but pretty good.

https://www.pcmag.com/article/364768...gnal-test-resu

Xs outperforms Xr.

Did you get the X last year as well?

Couldn't justify the upgrade from the X to Xs myself. My iPhone X still performs great.

Yeah...and it was great. Two things made me upgrade...the camera improvements in the Xs are exactly what i wanted in a smartphone camera (highlight control and shadow details by way of Smart HDR)...and Verizon giving me $700 for my X after one year. Oh, and because i do not have much in iCloud storage (50GB), i wanted more phone storage for my kids pics and videos...so, i went for the 512 GB.

These are my iPhone XS scores: (Geekbench Compute and CPU)

Attached Images

   

Wait, is apples own silicone, the A12X, now outperforming Intel's?

Yes. Without fan. Without wall plug.

https://www.pcmag.com/article/364775...n-of-any-phone

Like noted above, iPhone has never been a great performer for signal/data. But at least, nowadays, they are competitive.

A12X chip: https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstech...-chip/%3famp=1

Good read for lay folks.

“Apple won't talk about its future plans, of course. You could say that's all in the future, but when you have a 7nm tablet chip that rivals the CPU and graphics performance of most laptops and beats two out of five of the modern gaming consoles on the market with no fan at barely over a pound and less than a quarter-inch thick... it feels a bit like at least some particular future is now.”