A long, satisfying review. Lots to process, but a few things that stand out:

Only the iPhone XR offers a 128 GB storage tier, and it’s just $50 more. If you want more than 64 GB with an iPhone XS, you’ve got to pay $150 more than the base price and jump all the way to 256 GB. So in terms of what I would actually recommend for most people — getting the storage tier one level above entry level — the 128 GB iPhone XR costs $350 less than the 256 GB XS and $450 less than the XS Max.

People who are looking for some way that iPhone XR purchasers are getting screwed have it backwards. If anyone is getting screwed on pricing, it’s XS and XS Max purchasers, who don’t have the option of buying a 128 GB device for just $50 more than the baseline 64 GB models.

With anything beyond the free iCloud storage tier enabled, 128GB of storage should be more than enough. And, I’d argue, even 64GB should be enough as well, at least for most people. But for only $50, the leap to 128GB seems a no-brainer.

Another bit that stood out to me followed a series of images John took of his son. Take a look at the images, then read on:

In short, Portrait Mode is usable on the XR in some low light situations where it’s unusable on the XS.

Very interesting. I suspect this is something that could be addressed in a future software release. I can’t imagine the XS and XS Max can’t be tuned to solve this problem, but the proof is in the pudding.

Great read.