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iPhone X Add 100$ to X and get XS
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LOL seriously? XS is nearly identical to the X while the X was a major redesign when compared to the 6 and 6S, Check your facts before you post and spread such nonsense.
The differences are well documented on the internet. If they are worth 100$ to you, nobody can tell you but yourself. They would be to me.
Nobody is comparing the x to the 6. The Xs is a speed bump upgrade to the x just like the 6s was for the 6.
Do you think you are correct because your post is nasty and condescending (and incorrect)?
- camera and the enhancements
- ip68
- a12 with neural engine
- 512gb
- advanced portrait mode
- smart hdr and dynamic video
- stereo recording
- front camera extended dynamic range and hdr
- gigabit lte
- dual sim
While you may not think the above are "worthy" upgrades, someone else might think differently.
6 to 6s
- a9
- 12 mp camera
- 4k
- slo mo
- 5mp front camera/retina flash
- wifi mimo
- touch id II
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I think the 6s was a game changer. Night and day difference from the 6.
If you don’t do the upgrade for a mere $100 then you aren’t very aware of how much better the Xs is. I’ve had both and it’s no contest. My current X isn’t as fast and photos are not as good. Doesn’t mean that the X is bad. Rather that the Xs is that much better.
OP, if you really can get a XS for only 100$ more than the X, then go for it. I have seen X models significantly cheaper than the XS though, so I would also encourage you to keep an eye out for more X deals. Also take into consideration if this is on contract or if its retail price. If it's retail, 100$ off for the X seems like a poor value proposition vs the XS. If its on contract, then as long as you aren't maying more monthly for the XS, and not getting rebates or gift card with the X, the XS is still better value.
For me, with the same plan on a big carrier here, the X for 0$ vs the XS for 530$ on the same tab price plan structure...well then the XS is not worth it. Or you get the XS for 0$ but end up paying more monthly which ends up costing 600$ more at the end of the contract. So in this example, the XS is not worth it over the X.
But if the cheapest you can find, with certainty, is the X only being 100$ less, then yes - go for the XS. It is worth the 100$ more.
I see what you're getting at there, but it's not the same comparison: I'll try to provide a reasonable counter point, and respectfully.
I think the overall reason that the X to XS is not quite the same as 6 to 6s, is because 6s was overall a more impressive upgrade. It brought more larger, significant features that carried on for generations, as opposed to the XS which is like a refinement of the X. We can see that even in Apple's presentation this past fall, they used an identical slide to show off the XS/Max as they used the year prior. To my knowledge, this was the first time they have spent that length of time at an iPhone conference reciting the exact same spec enhancements as they did the prior year. While this was likely to further highlight and distinguish the premium features of the XS over the XR, it was also apparent that it did not bring that much new to the table. 99% of people getting the XS aren't coming from the X, so it doesn't ultimately matter. But for the sake of comparing X to XS and 6 to 6s, it's important to point out because this was not done at the 6s reveal in 2015.
Lets start off with the biggest difference:
what the A12 is to the A11, vs the A9 to the A8
The A12 CPU is a minor an update over the A11 CPU. The A9 CPU was a major update over the A8 CPU. The performance increased here primarily with the die shrinkage. This was also applicable to the 6s over the 6 though, where Apple enhanced the entire design, or designed a "next gen" design - whereas the A12 is a (very good) refinement of the A11 design.
Side by side use with the A11 and A12 on iOS 12 is negligible. They are equally as wide, same ALUs, same pipelines.
It does however allow some games to have 60FPS, though as some developers like Epic games have noted that the A11 is technically capable of this as well, but limited by the thermals. Still when we look only at Apple's claims, geekbench difference aside, a 15% improvement over the prior gen is much less than Apple's proclaimed 70% faster improvement with the A9. The bottom line though is, efficiency gains aside, the A9 brought actual "next gen" pipeline and architecture enhancements, Much of that improved design language is still in the high performance cores of the A12 to this day. The significance of this is the entire reason people will use the term "night and day" difference - because the A9 as a whole enabled so many performance changing improvements, on a larger scale and with more impact than the A12 does over the A11. The A12 CPU at its heart is an very well refined A11 CPU. There are minor improvements made yes, but the impact is no where near what the A9 improved; the A9 was not a minor improvement, it was a major one.
the A12 GPU brings some solid improvements. Though just as noted above, the A9 brought more significant improvements with 90% more purported performance to the A12's 50% improvement. The A12 GPU jump here would be akin to the A7 -> A8 GPU proclaims. We also had this coupled with newer, faster, higher bandwidth ram in the 6s from the 6 which made a much stronger performance impact on top of having 2 more cores from the prior gen. The A12 GPU is more efficient, again thanks to the die shrink, but it introduced 1 more core (for a total of 4 cores, from the 3 cores in the A11). Still, the improvements are there, and 50% year over year is impressive.
The A12 brought a massive update to the neural engine. However outside of faster and smarter adapting face ID recognition, I have yet to see how in any AR functionality this is improved. I have been using the XR and X daily, and see no practical difference in neural engine performance. Still, a large amount of the silicon was dedicated to it, and it represent a large jump on the A12 so this is a fair thing to say is improved. The 6 and 6s did not have a neural engine so we can't compare this one directly, but we could say that the 6s brought the M9 together and allowed Hey Siri and better health tracking movement features. I would say this supports your point because the neural engine enhancements are very impressive.
Also a more few things:
7000 series aluminum (I believe it could withstand 1.5-2x the pressure of the 6000 series in the same case) and a stronger glass, the XS has the exact same quality steel but it does use a stronger, more durable glass. This supports your point ultimately, but the 6s brought a bit more to the table here than the XS did.
wifi with mimo had the same impact on speed improvement as did the doubling of LTE speed/band support (2x LTE speed), as the X to XS did with the gigabit speed support and 4x4 mimo...I don't know anyone who uses a 4x4 mimo router though, and I never reached gigabit LTE speed on Telus in Canada. Other users may have. Other countries and cities may have this, and that is awesome if so. Regardless, the point is that both generations aimed to double the wifi and cellular speeds - this area supports your point, and is a similar upgrade.
Both iPhone X and XS support bluetooth 5.0
The 6 supported 4.0, with some 4.2 functionality for connecting to 4.2 devices, but it was not true 4.2 as did not support speed enhancements or how much data could be transferred. A minor quibble. Still supports your point imo.
the 12 mp camera was the biggest jump in camera quality at that time, along with the front facing camera and 4k video. There was no similar camera jump X to XS. As good as smart HDR is, the difference is minimal. It's certainly more noticeable if you edit your photos regularly on the 5k iMac, but most people who use their iPhones and point and shoot devices will not see an upgrade of the same calibre as the 6 to the 6s was.
If you're going to say advanced portrait mode, then the 6s brought Live photos. Overall improving the front and rear cameras significantly as well as live phots, 4k video for the first time, improved slow motion are all kind of a toss up. But I would lean towards the 6s cameras overall being a bigger step up form the previous generation than the XS cameras are from the X.
This area supports your point from the camera improvements, but does not support your point from generational difference compared to the prior gen as similar
https://www.podfeet.com/blog/2018/10/x-vs-xs-cameras-compared/
It also introduced always on Hey Siri, which was a nice feature to have at the time. The 6 did not support this. The X and XS are the same in this regard, with no improvements here.
The 2nd gen touch ID sensor impacted daily use more than the same face ID sensor with an improved secure enclave and neural engine support. There's no difference in speed unlocking with my XR and X (actually my X is slightly faster thanks to some excellent jb tweaks) whereas the difference between touch ID gen 1 vs 2 is absolutely apparent. This item does not support your point vs prior gen.
RAM: A few points here
The type of ram used in the 6s was an all new, higher bandwidth LPDDR4 ram vs the LPDDR3 ram in the iPhone 6 which was also the same type and speed as the ram in the iPhone 5s (actually it was identical and simply a repurposed part from the 5s). The LPDDR4 ram in the 6s was clocked at 3200MHz, whereas the RAM in the 6 was LPDDR3 at 1600MHz. This itself doesn't make a huge difference, despite the numbers looking nicer, but coupled with how Apple enhanced the design of the A9 CPU and GPU it led to some significant performance improvements in this generation, that could take advantage of the bandwidth offered by the LPDDR4 ram. You just don't get that from the X to the XS, in fact the ram is the same type and same speed.
The bigger impact though, was Doubling the RAM.
And at the time, it also made a larger impact. Safari would reload even on iOS 8 which was optimized for the 6/6+ with more than a few tabs open. It was terrible for those of us who used phones to fill out the odd work form or multitask with Excel/Spreadsheets. The XS with its 4GB of ram didn't yield any improvements when I tested this out at launch. I could open a comfortable amount of safari tabs before refresh on both devices. I don't suspend games in the background and work on spreadsheets or anything like that, but I also didn't find the 3GB of ram limiting vs 4GB on the XS/Max during my time owning them. My workflow did not change, and was comfortable on both devices.
With the 2GB of ram in the iPhone 6s, we immediately saw improvement in app refresh. There are a multitude of videos that compare this - or we can simply hold up both devices today and do it ourselves, side by side, and the difference is still immediately apparent. This somewhat supports your point as the extra 1GB of ram is more ram and should help with longevity for those who will keep the XS that long, but we should also acknowledge the difference in 2018 and 2019 of 4GB vs 3GB on iOS 12, vs the difference of 2GB vs 1GB on iOS 9-12, is stark.
Overall the ram improvements are not 1:1, and this is an area where the 6s improved over the 6 more than the XS did over the X.
Could we say the unadvertised gasket seals in the 6s was the same as IP68 over IP67? No, we cannot haha. This is a point in your support.
Oh yes, and 3D touch, which was a big feature at the time. This depends on the user today, whether they use it or not, but it is a fantastic feature and brought some great UI to those who took advantage. The XS supports 3D touch, yes. But so did the X. The 6 did not have this at all. Try using the 6 today after being super used to the 3D touch keyboard cursor function! Or even 3D touch app switcher. Of if you're a peek and pop junkie like myself, it feels like a regression indeed. This is a point that does not support the generation to generation feature set being the same.
I don't think we've really had an iPhone generation like the X to the XS, because the XS has lots and lots of tiny features and improvements that are certainly and arguably worth the extra 100$ in this case, but not worth say 500$ more.
The 6 to 6s brought significant improvements in everything, whereas the X to XS brought minor improvements in everything (arguably though, except for the cellular reception! which depends on the user, but the general consensus online seems to fit with my experience from when I owned the XS and XS Max, that the signal strength was a small step back)
For me, with the same plan on a big carrier here, the X for 0$ vs the XS for 530$ on the same tab price plan structure...well then the XS is not worth it. Or you get the XS for 0$ but end up paying more monthly which ends up costing 600$ more at the end of the contract. So in this example, the XS is not worth it over the X.
But if the cheapest you can find, with certainty, is the X only being 100$ less, then yes - go for the XS. It is worth the 100$ more.
I see what you're getting at there, but it's not the same comparison: I'll try to provide a reasonable counter point, and respectfully.
I think the overall reason that the X to XS is not quite the same as 6 to 6s, is because 6s was overall a more impressive upgrade. It brought more larger, significant features that carried on for generations, as opposed to the XS which is like a refinement of the X. We can see that even in Apple's presentation this past fall, they used an identical slide to show off the XS/Max as they used the year prior. To my knowledge, this was the first time they have spent that length of time at an iPhone conference reciting the exact same spec enhancements as they did the prior year. While this was likely to further highlight and distinguish the premium features of the XS over the XR, it was also apparent that it did not bring that much new to the table. 99% of people getting the XS aren't coming from the X, so it doesn't ultimately matter. But for the sake of comparing X to XS and 6 to 6s, it's important to point out because this was not done at the 6s reveal in 2015.
Lets start off with the biggest difference:
what the A12 is to the A11, vs the A9 to the A8
The A12 CPU is a minor an update over the A11 CPU. The A9 CPU was a major update over the A8 CPU. The performance increased here primarily with the die shrinkage. This was also applicable to the 6s over the 6 though, where Apple enhanced the entire design, or designed a "next gen" design - whereas the A12 is a (very good) refinement of the A11 design.
Side by side use with the A11 and A12 on iOS 12 is negligible. They are equally as wide, same ALUs, same pipelines.
It does however allow some games to have 60FPS, though as some developers like Epic games have noted that the A11 is technically capable of this as well, but limited by the thermals. Still when we look only at Apple's claims, geekbench difference aside, a 15% improvement over the prior gen is much less than Apple's proclaimed 70% faster improvement with the A9. The bottom line though is, efficiency gains aside, the A9 brought actual "next gen" pipeline and architecture enhancements, Much of that improved design language is still in the high performance cores of the A12 to this day. The significance of this is the entire reason people will use the term "night and day" difference - because the A9 as a whole enabled so many performance changing improvements, on a larger scale and with more impact than the A12 does over the A11. The A12 CPU at its heart is an very well refined A11 CPU. There are minor improvements made yes, but the impact is no where near what the A9 improved; the A9 was not a minor improvement, it was a major one.
the A12 GPU brings some solid improvements. Though just as noted above, the A9 brought more significant improvements with 90% more purported performance to the A12's 50% improvement. The A12 GPU jump here would be akin to the A7 -> A8 GPU proclaims. We also had this coupled with newer, faster, higher bandwidth ram in the 6s from the 6 which made a much stronger performance impact on top of having 2 more cores from the prior gen. The A12 GPU is more efficient, again thanks to the die shrink, but it introduced 1 more core (for a total of 4 cores, from the 3 cores in the A11). Still, the improvements are there, and 50% year over year is impressive.
The A12 brought a massive update to the neural engine. However outside of faster and smarter adapting face ID recognition, I have yet to see how in any AR functionality this is improved. I have been using the XR and X daily, and see no practical difference in neural engine performance. Still, a large amount of the silicon was dedicated to it, and it represent a large jump on the A12 so this is a fair thing to say is improved. The 6 and 6s did not have a neural engine so we can't compare this one directly, but we could say that the 6s brought the M9 together and allowed Hey Siri and better health tracking movement features. I would say this supports your point because the neural engine enhancements are very impressive.
Also a more few things:
7000 series aluminum (I believe it could withstand 1.5-2x the pressure of the 6000 series in the same case) and a stronger glass, the XS has the exact same quality steel but it does use a stronger, more durable glass. This supports your point ultimately, but the 6s brought a bit more to the table here than the XS did.
wifi with mimo had the same impact on speed improvement as did the doubling of LTE speed/band support (2x LTE speed), as the X to XS did with the gigabit speed support and 4x4 mimo...I don't know anyone who uses a 4x4 mimo router though, and I never reached gigabit LTE speed on Telus in Canada. Other users may have. Other countries and cities may have this, and that is awesome if so. Regardless, the point is that both generations aimed to double the wifi and cellular speeds - this area supports your point, and is a similar upgrade.
Both iPhone X and XS support bluetooth 5.0
The 6 supported 4.0, with some 4.2 functionality for connecting to 4.2 devices, but it was not true 4.2 as did not support speed enhancements or how much data could be transferred. A minor quibble. Still supports your point imo.
the 12 mp camera was the biggest jump in camera quality at that time, along with the front facing camera and 4k video. There was no similar camera jump X to XS. As good as smart HDR is, the difference is minimal. It's certainly more noticeable if you edit your photos regularly on the 5k iMac, but most people who use their iPhones and point and shoot devices will not see an upgrade of the same calibre as the 6 to the 6s was.
If you're going to say advanced portrait mode, then the 6s brought Live photos. Overall improving the front and rear cameras significantly as well as live phots, 4k video for the first time, improved slow motion are all kind of a toss up. But I would lean towards the 6s cameras overall being a bigger step up form the previous generation than the XS cameras are from the X.
This area supports your point from the camera improvements, but does not support your point from generational difference compared to the prior gen as similar
https://www.podfeet.com/blog/2018/10/x-vs-xs-cameras-compared/
It also introduced always on Hey Siri, which was a nice feature to have at the time. The 6 did not support this. The X and XS are the same in this regard, with no improvements here.
The 2nd gen touch ID sensor impacted daily use more than the same face ID sensor with an improved secure enclave and neural engine support. There's no difference in speed unlocking with my XR and X (actually my X is slightly faster thanks to some excellent jb tweaks) whereas the difference between touch ID gen 1 vs 2 is absolutely apparent. This item does not support your point vs prior gen.
RAM: A few points here
The type of ram used in the 6s was an all new, higher bandwidth LPDDR4 ram vs the LPDDR3 ram in the iPhone 6 which was also the same type and speed as the ram in the iPhone 5s (actually it was identical and simply a repurposed part from the 5s). The LPDDR4 ram in the 6s was clocked at 3200MHz, whereas the RAM in the 6 was LPDDR3 at 1600MHz. This itself doesn't make a huge difference, despite the numbers looking nicer, but coupled with how Apple enhanced the design of the A9 CPU and GPU it led to some significant performance improvements in this generation, that could take advantage of the bandwidth offered by the LPDDR4 ram. You just don't get that from the X to the XS, in fact the ram is the same type and same speed.
The bigger impact though, was Doubling the RAM.
And at the time, it also made a larger impact. Safari would reload even on iOS 8 which was optimized for the 6/6+ with more than a few tabs open. It was terrible for those of us who used phones to fill out the odd work form or multitask with Excel/Spreadsheets. The XS with its 4GB of ram didn't yield any improvements when I tested this out at launch. I could open a comfortable amount of safari tabs before refresh on both devices. I don't suspend games in the background and work on spreadsheets or anything like that, but I also didn't find the 3GB of ram limiting vs 4GB on the XS/Max during my time owning them. My workflow did not change, and was comfortable on both devices.
With the 2GB of ram in the iPhone 6s, we immediately saw improvement in app refresh. There are a multitude of videos that compare this - or we can simply hold up both devices today and do it ourselves, side by side, and the difference is still immediately apparent. This somewhat supports your point as the extra 1GB of ram is more ram and should help with longevity for those who will keep the XS that long, but we should also acknowledge the difference in 2018 and 2019 of 4GB vs 3GB on iOS 12, vs the difference of 2GB vs 1GB on iOS 9-12, is stark.
Overall the ram improvements are not 1:1, and this is an area where the 6s improved over the 6 more than the XS did over the X.
Could we say the unadvertised gasket seals in the 6s was the same as IP68 over IP67? No, we cannot haha. This is a point in your support.
Oh yes, and 3D touch, which was a big feature at the time. This depends on the user today, whether they use it or not, but it is a fantastic feature and brought some great UI to those who took advantage. The XS supports 3D touch, yes. But so did the X. The 6 did not have this at all. Try using the 6 today after being super used to the 3D touch keyboard cursor function! Or even 3D touch app switcher. Of if you're a peek and pop junkie like myself, it feels like a regression indeed. This is a point that does not support the generation to generation feature set being the same.
I don't think we've really had an iPhone generation like the X to the XS, because the XS has lots and lots of tiny features and improvements that are certainly and arguably worth the extra 100$ in this case, but not worth say 500$ more.
The 6 to 6s brought significant improvements in everything, whereas the X to XS brought minor improvements in everything (arguably though, except for the cellular reception! which depends on the user, but the general consensus online seems to fit with my experience from when I owned the XS and XS Max, that the signal strength was a small step back)
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If you have a decent working X, I wouldn’t chance it.
Very well written post and you laid out your case well and respectfully.
However, for camera buffs, I would counter Smart HDR and dynamic video are two hard to beat features, which are based on the a12 neural engine. The speed of face id recognition also, from what is written, seems to be faster.
There is no doubt the 6s upgrade awesome. This is a good upgrade done differently.
Edit:also esim, which sone may want.
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Especially since all the new iPhones are plagued with stuttering UI. On my third replacement Xs and wish I stuck with my 6s. It’s a stuttering disaster even on the new iPads.