#TechFriday : iPhone XS Max is great, but the price tag isn't

iPhone XS Max

iPhone XS Max

Published Nov 9, 2018

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I’ve had my iPhone 7 for a little while now and have been wondering what my next phone will be.

I’m not sure if I’m still willing to upgrade to another Apple phone - mostly because of the price tags.

So, trying out the iPhone XS Max has been interesting. I used my cellphone (mostly) for three things: podcasts, work and social media. I had the phone for about a week, to judge it.

First, the phone is way bigger than my iPhone 7, so it took a while for me to get used to the heaviness.

On the plus side, the screen isn’t much bigger than the iPhone 8Plus, so it’s not much of a leap for people who have that phone already.

What I love about the bigger screen is being able to work and write better on it. That was a big deal for me.

A friend told me that if you have an XS Max, it’s the same as having a laptop. I was going to test this on a week-long work trip but the phone had to be returned before I left.

For this new generation phone, Apple got rid of the home button - which on my phone has the fingerprint unlock feature. They have instead introduced face recognition to unlock the phone. This is pretty cool until you are busy working and have to lift up the heavy phone to your face to unlock, rather than just putting your finger on the home button.

What was impressive about the face recognition technology was that I set it up while not wearing my spectacles but I still managed to open it while wearing them. Same with a few pairs of sunglasses I tried.

The phone takes impressive pictures - both the front and back cameras, especially on portrait mode. You can even pretend you are a photographer by adjusting the cameras f-stop for better pictures.

When it comes to sound quality, I was totally blown away. The sound from this phone is amazing. I could put the phone on speaker in one room and walk around and do chores while listening to the podcasts.

There have been some changes on the home screen. You need a different button sequence to take a screen grab and to see the remaining battery life, you have to drag down the control centre, which is on the top right.

And now to the price. The cheapest is the 64GB iPhone XS Max and the most expensive is the 512GB at about R31999. This, as my friend Lebogang said, is the price of two holidays. I love the sound, I love the picture quality but I won't be buying this one. 

The other week, I went to cover a story at the IPCC headquarters in Zuurbekom. My colleague Simphiwe and I were attacked by church members who wanted to go through our phones. The whole time they had the phone I kept thinking: “This phone is expensive. If the glass breaks I will die.”

It’s overall a lovely phone but for that price tag, I’d rather go on holiday with my basic iPhone 7 and not die of an anxiety attack every time it falls.

The Star

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