A large chunk of Apple’s audience is already lighting their bank accounts on fire in anticipation of all the neat new gear they can start preordering this week. That’s just the way it is, and partly why Apple can afford to do things like build sprawling, $200 buildings in the heart of Silicon Valley.
A large chunk of Apple’s audience is already lighting their bank accounts on fire in anticipation of all the neat new gear they can start preordering this week. That’s just the way it is, and partly why Apple can afford to do things like build sprawling, $200 buildings in the heart of Silicon Valley.
No matter the price, or specifications, a lot of people are going to order one of the new iPhones: the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or iPhone XS Max—a naming convention Apple totally didn’t borrow from that other company .
You, however, are a reasonable Lifehacker reader who isn’t afraid to pay big bucks for sweet, geeky gear, but only if it provides a value and experience that’s greater than that which you already have. In other words, you don’t buy based on hype, and you don’t need an upgrade just because it’s new; you need an upgrade if it’s actually worth buying.
Should you buy a new iPhone? Let’s explore:
Key specs
Congratulations: Your expensive smartphone lasted less time than the iPhone 8, as your relic is no longer purchasable from Apple… but the iPhone 8 (and even the iPhone 7) are still there. This makes sense, of course, since there’s absolutely no reason to buy an iPhone X with Apple dropping three new iPhones (two XSs and an XR) that basically take all the good things about the iPhone X and reconfigure them in different ways.
If you upgrade—and I don’t think it makes sense to upgrade—you’re not getting all that much, hardware-wise. That’s not to say the A12 Bionic chip in the iPhone XS isn’t faster: Apple claims performance boosts of 15 percent for its two “performance” cores; a speed boost of 50 percent from its apple-design GPU; and a big, juicy brain an eight-core neural engine that can reach 5 trillion operations per second (more than eight times your device’s “meager” 600 billion operations per second).
Let’s go beyond the specs sheet for a second. In everyday use, your iPhone X is probably fast enough for everything you need it to do. You probably aren’t using augmented reality very much. I’m sure your smartphone’s camera and photo processing feels pretty responsive. You might be a gamer, but even an iPhone at its best isn’t going to look as good as one of the many (cheaper) gaming devices out there, like a Nintendo Switch, a PlayStation Vita, a Nintendo 2DS or 3DS, et cetera.
No matter how much Apple wants you to sweat with Kayla or fire up Pokemon Go (or any of its many clones), a device with more processing firepower than your current iPhone X won’t give you a better app experience save for the most extreme cases. Or, to put it another way, I’m still on an iPhone 8 Plus ( I know, I know), and I have yet to use an app that makes me think, “Gosh, I probably need a faster iPhone. This is terrible.”
If you’re a big photography nut—and Apple loves you, if so—the iPhone XS and XS Max aren’t coming out of the gate with a crazy-higher megapixel count for the wide-angle camera or telephoto cameras. There’s a new, larger sensor and improved TrueTone flash, but that’s probably not as monumental as the devices’ “Smart HDR” mode and, the big improvement, the ability to edit a photo’s depth of field after you’ve taken it.
Would I drop $1,000 on that after already paying (at least) $1,000 for an iPhone X last year? No. Are the iPhone XS’ other improvements worth an expensive $1,000 upgrade? No. But you can probably sell your iPhone X for at least $500 or so right now from one of the many trade-in places (or eBay), so that helps soften the blow a bit. Generally speaking, though, I’d wait for next year’s iPhone upgrade—the non-”s” cycle—to really get your money’s worth.
This one gets a little trickier. I do love my Home button, I do, and I wish I could take Portrait Mode selfies. And while Apple has let other devices ( cough the “budget” iPhone XR cough) have a software solution for Portrait Mode using a single camera, the iPhone 8 or 8 Plus is apparently too stupid to make it work. That, or Apple wants to give users every reason possible to upgrade. I suspect the latter.
Trying to find the perfect iOS apps can be tough, and we’re willing to bet that your iPhone or iPad…
As before, my performance argument still stands—I have yet to have a poor enough of an app experience to make me yearn for a new iPhone. However, my iPhone 8 Plus is now a full year old. The battery is reasonably fine, but the value of my iPhone will soon reach a point when I’ll get next to nothing for a trade in. I’d prefer to strike while the iron is lukewarm and at least get something reasonable for my device while I still can.
I love the iPhone XS’ dimensions: The regular iPhone XS gives you more screen space than the iPhone 8 Plus (5.8 inches to 5.5 inches) in a smaller form factor. That’s appealing. And if you want to stick with iPhone 8 Plus’ gargantuan size, you get 6.5 inches of screen on the iPhone XS Max. That’s great, and it definitely has me eager to upgrade. Also, you get a much better-looking OLED screen, a higher pixel density, and all the photographic improvements previously mentioned—as well as optical image stabilization for your telephoto lens and a slightly faster lens (ƒ/2.4 versus ƒ/2.8). And don’t forget about animoji. Gotta have that talking poop.
I will probably upgrade to a newer iPhone, because it seems like a reasonable upgrade, but I could make just as compelling an argument for keeping my device. If you’re on an iPhone 8, I’d recommend going for at least an iPhone XR—the camera features are interesting enough to warrant giving it a go, even though the iPhone itself is going to be larger than what you’re used to using (and you might not like that). It gives you reasonable access to performance, security, and speed improvements without forcing you to drop four figures on a new iPhone.
The iPhone XS is an even better step up (obviously), but if you weren’t swayed by last year’s iPhone X, you probably aren’t going to be as convinced to pay that much for its improvements over the iPhone XR: an OLED “True Tone” display; a second, telephoto lens; a slightly smaller form factor; 3D Touch (get it while you can!); and more portrait lighting effects, to name a few.
If you’re on an iPhone 8 Plus, like me, you’ll probably want to go iPhone XS at minimum. The iPhone XR feels like a slight step back from the iPhone 8 Plus, given the loss of the telephoto lens and a few Portrait Mode effects. The iPhone XS, in contrast, gives you a slightly larger (OLED) screen in a much smaller form factor, which feels like more of a noteworthy upgrade for its (admittedly higher) price.
That’s in addition to all the other improvements all three iPhones share: the speedier A12 chip, dual-SIM capabilities ( if your carriers support it), animoji, Depth Control (changing a photo’s depth of field after the fact), a bit more battery for your device (+1.5 hours for the iPhone XR versus the iPhone 8 Plus, and anywhere from an extra half an hour to an extra hour and a half for the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max versus the iPhone X).
It’s that time again: time for your annual frantic search to find all of the original packaging for …
For whatever reason, you haven’t upgraded your iPhone in a while. And that’s OK! You don’t have to buy a new iPhone every year.
