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.
I had to think about the 128gb of storage. I tend to go for the max, but I’ve never even used 32gb. So I went for 64gb.
Yeah, I am completely bewildered by all the people saying that 64 gigs is not enough. 64 gigs is far more storage than I know what to do with.
Many of us take lots of photos and/or video. For many, it’s easy to fill up a 32gb or 64gb phone.
I filled up my 64gb iPhone 6 far too quickly while on vacation in the UK and Europe two years ago.
If you don’t use iCloud Photo Library + Optimize Storage (or don’t want to), it’s quickly an issue.
I ended up getting the 64GB iPhone X last year and rely on iCloud. Works great, and I couldn’t bring myself to spend even more on a phone.
Where’s Jim’s review? 🙂
I’ve got just under 27,000 photos, about 800 videos and almost 250 apps. it fits in just over 32GB.
iCloud Photo Library is great.
It is – if you use it and it works for you. I don’t and it doesn’t for me. 🙂
It helped my decision that my iPhoto library was already a bit fucked up. I have several photos shown with the right orientation but as if they’ve been stretched from the wrong orientation twice to get there.
Opening the photo and rotating it there and back again fixes it, but just finding them all is a huge pain.
I’m a fairly advanced user and with icloud storage enabled for my music, photos and messages, i’m using only 40gb of my 6gb X. it’s fine.
it’s a buck a month, man. even my parents use it…why wouldn’t a techie?
Did you see that iCloud was down all day yesterday? 🙂
Nope! And I was using my iCloud Photo Library then, too! 🙂