The iPhone XS has a starting price of Rs 99,900 in India while the iPhone XS Max is on sale at Rs 109,900
The iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max are now available in India. You can walk into a nearby Apple-authorised store, or a decent smartphone shop and buy one of these phones. That is if you don’t mind spending Rs 1 lakh on a new phone. The iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max are super expensive phones. They aren’t for everyone. If you are going them you must be very rich, or will have a very rich friend who is gifting them to you. Plain and simple. Fortunately, the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max are also the phones worthy of their high price tag.
No phone should cost Rs 1 lakh, but there is one that does then that has to be the iPhone XS. Or at least as good as the iPhone XS. Let me explain.
If you want a regular high-end phone for your use, there are several that will cost less and will serve your purpose. Even phones like the Xiaomi Mi A2 and the Nokia 6.1 Plus, which cost around Rs 16,000, are good enough for most people. Then there are phones like the Poco F1, which should satisfy even the most demanding users. Step up, and you get the OnePlus 6, which is a fabulous phone for Rs 35,000. For around Rs 40,000, you can get the Pixel 2, which will give you a phone with the best camera in the market. Move up and then there are the Samsung Galaxy S9 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 or even the iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, which come in around Rs 60,000 to Rs 80,000. All of these are fantastic phones.
But none of them, barring last year’s iPhone X that offers some similar functionality, can match the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS in areas that matter a lot, even consumers don’t realise it.
The iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max are so expensive — starting price of XS is Rs 99,900 and for XS Max it is Rs 109,900 — because in and out these are the quality phones. Not a single component in these phones is cheap. From design to the internal hardware, everything is top class. And when these top class components have been put together, they have created a phone that is in a class of its own.
The iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max are the fastest phones you can right now. These are the phones with fastest processor — A12 Bionic — right now. The iPhone XS and the iPhone XS are the phones with the best screens in the market right now. They are the phones that have one of the best cameras systems and stereo speakers in them. The iPhone XS and the iPhone XS are allrounders in ways very few phones can be. They are water and dust resistant for practical purposes. They run the iOS 12, which still not as good as stock Android 9 Pie but is better than the custom Android software that other phone companies use. With their steel and glass design, they ooze class. The finish and looks of the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max are almost jewel like… I can go on and on.
But don’t buy the iPhone XS or the iPhone XS because of the reason listed above. That is not why you should spend Rs 1 lakh on one of these phones. The reasons are different. And they are primarily three. The iPhone XS and the iPhone XS have three things that no other phone can offer to you right now.
One, the iPhone has the best device-level encryption available. It’s so good that even the US government complains about it.
Two, unlike Google’s Android, which leaves the data doors open because Google has to take care of its advertising business, the iPhone indeed focuses on ensuring that private of users remain private. This is also because Apple makes money by selling a very expensive phone, which has fantastic profit margins. It doesn’t try to make money through advertising.
And third reason is that iOS 12, although slightly less functional than Android, does care a lot about data security and privacy. It tends to limit data access that apps can request and get. For example, apps that request contact information of users, or persistent GPS log, have to clearly explain to Apple why they need this access. Finally, Apple tends to keep the iOS App Store clean by manually vetting each app that goes into it.
In other words, you can say that the iOS has the privacy and data security as one of its core building block, unlike on Android where the software can be slightly leaky. For many people, this alone will justify the high price of the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max.
ALSO READ: iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max review: Crazy good phones at crazy high prices
