Since Apple released what is to be the new iPhone, some are excited whilst others couldn’t care less, is this due to the laughable price tag?
With pre-orders flooding in for the brand new iPhone XS and XS Max, many are disappointed but not shocked at the ridiculously high price point for a mobile phone. Since Apple released what is to be the new iPhone, some are excited whilst others couldn’t care less, is this due to the laughable price tag?
The iPhone XS has been described as an upgrade from the iPhone X which was released for the companies 10th birthday and has now started a new line of iPhone technology, the 'X series'. The second phone to be released with the XS, is the XS Max.
Pre-ordering has begun now with the first batches of new iPhones to be sent out on the 21st of September. Prices for the XS start at £999 for 64GB version and reach £1349 for the max storage capacity of 512GB. The XS Max comes in at a starting price of £1099 and maxes out at £1449.
Spending over £1000 on a mobile phone sounds like a nonsensical idea for a student who is stuck with loans, bills to pay, food to eat and all the other necessities of life without much income. Can it be justified to spend saas money on a new phone? Especially when a much more essential MacBook or another high spec laptop can be bought for a similar price. This raises the question, are many students moving over to android, accepting ugly emojis for a cheaper phone with, in some cases, a better camera or faster processor.
Although the iPhone XS has the same build as the previous iPhone X in size and placement of buttons, the new glass design is the toughest ever used in an iPhone, good for those who have never had an uncracked screen for more than a month. A night out and an unprotected screen is a disaster waiting to happen. The addition of a stronger glass has been a long time coming for Apple, with many making a living from fixing the broken screens of iPhones. This will be a great new feature to the iPhone for clumsy people, less for those who make their money from fixing screens.
Along with the new glass, water existence is up from ip67 to ip68, meaning the phone can now be left underwater to a depth of 2 meters for half an hour. Apple have also tested its resistance to orange juice, tea, wine, beer and salt water, (all student essentials – perhaps not the salt water) ensuring the iPhone is free from the danger of rogue liquids.
In terms of the screen and resolution, not much has changed excluding the appearance of an extra inch to the the XS Max, the biggest iPhone yet. The resolution has also been intensified on the Max model to keep up with the size of the screen. Both screens will feature the 3D Touch, tap to wake, a 120hz Touch layer and a 625 nits maximum brightness ability.
The two new phones will also apparently be much faster with the ability to process 5 trillion operations per second, up from 600 billion in the previous phone, such high numbers sound confusing with older iPhones often struggling to reload Snapchat. Along with these 4.4 trillion extra operations being able to be processed, Face ID will also recognise quicker. Great news for those who use the Animoji feature which is supposedly a great feature and a necessity in everyday life?
One of the more impressive features which can ever so slightly justify the astronomical pricing is the camera. Although the camera looks similar to the iPhone X camera, the main sensor in the wide angled lens is bigger and houses more pixels, making pictures much more high quality. Smart HDR will take 9 different photos when processing your image to ensure every aspect of the photo is the best it can be, rather than the 4 pictures it previously took. Bokeh/depth of feild on the camera has also improved drastically, giving your iPhone similar use to that of an SLR camera. Even once the photo has been taken, the bokeh can be changed on the ‘edit’ feature.
As well as a dual-sim feature allowing you to switch between numbers easily, the last feature which makes the new iPhone better than the last is its upgraded battery life. Apple have said that the XS and XS Max will have the biggest battery life ever on an iPhone. With the iPhone XS lasting 30 minuets longer than its predecessor iPhone X, and the XS Max lasting 90 minutes longer.
Although the iPhone XS and XS Max look undeniably polished, with their stronger glass - technically being an investment into all the screens you have previously had to fix, the new camera features which will make for a next level Instagram game, or for the chance to load an app instantly unlike restarting your iPhone 5 for the 5th time trying to open messenger. Yet, due to its steep price point mixed with university students' low income and high expenditure, most of us will have to stick to our second hand, probably imported, iPhone 6.