Only reason I’m considering the XR is because the GF needs a new phone. I’d be perfectly happy sticking with the 8+ that I have. The XR will be fantastic though and I’ll enjoy the improved camera, speed, battery life, and screen-to-body ratio
I'm giving the wife the XR. I'm keeping my 7+, mainly because of the 7+'s 401 ppi screen and the two-lens camera, and because the 7+ is fast enough.
Nope... not upgrading. None of the new phones are a must have. The hardware upgrades are minimal (yes, minimal) over the 8 Plus. The cameras make no difference to me because I have a dedicated one for that. My OLED TV makes for an amazing home theater... but it's not a must have on my phone right now.
Agreed. I have an OLED TV too - LG 65" C8, and it is glorious. For a phone, I don't really care that much. OLED is nice but not a must have.
230 of 256GB remaining on my 8 Plus. Screen size is perfect.
I just cleaned out my iPhone so I'm under 64 GB now, but I'm often at about the 85 GB usage range, so 128 GB is perfect for me. Unfortunately, there is no 128 GB option for the Max, or the 8 Plus for that matter. For those who don't need 256 GB, the 128 GB XR is actually cheaper than the 256 GB 8 Plus.
My wife is well below 64 GB right now, but again it's because I just cleaned out her phone. Again, 128 GB is the sweet spot, especially considering it's only CAD$70 or US$50 more than the 64 GB model.
The hardware upgrades aren’t minimal. The benchmark scores are not a massive difference, but going from a 5.5” lcd to a 6.5” OLED is about as big of an upgrade as you can get. Not to mention the extra ram, 7nm, 4x4 Mimo, band 71 on Tmobile, gigs lte. I miss my Max badly, but the headaches affected me too much. Love my 8+, but the Max wipes the floor with it IF you can handle the screen and not feel discomfort.
The extra vertical resolution is definitely nice, but I don't see the extra RAM going from 3 to 4 GB as that big of a deal, at least in the next year or two. This is not the situation like with the 6 Plus --> 6s Plus where RAM was doubled from 1 GB to 2 GB. 1 GB back then was already limiting, and 2 GB made quite a noticeable difference. Now we're talking 3 GB vs 4 GB, and 3 GB is very decent for iOS 12.
So even with the RAM difference, and the vastly faster SoC in the Max, side by side for what I use the phone the most for - internet access - there really isn't a huge difference in performance. Probably the main reason here is because rendering times on the 7 Plus have reached that performance threshold which most people (or at least I) think is good enough, and as I've suggested elsewhere, now we're bottlenecked by internet speeds and server speeds.
As for the OLED, see above. I just don't see it as being critical on a phone, mainly because its main advantage of beautiful blacks is lost in a bright room. Most of the time my phone usage is with the lights on or in daytime. In dim light OLED definitely has a bigger advantage, but I suspect for a lot of people it's just not that important. And as mentioned, I say that as an OLED fan, one of the comparatively few people out there that actually spent the extra money to get a large OLED TV.
The main advantage of the Max's screen over the XR's screen is the higher pixel density. Text on the Max is comparably crisp to the Plus, and both can be perceptively crisper than the XR if at a close enough viewing distance, esp. if the user knows what to look for.
For me, the main advantages of the of the Max over the XR are:
1) Higher pixel density.
2) Two-lens camera with more flexible portrait mode.
For me, that's not worth 57% more in cost. The better modem is arguably important for some users though I agree. As for 3D Touch, I hate it, so I'm glad it's gone. I just hope Apple removes 3D Touch across the board in 2019, so we can finally have a completely consistent UI design approach across all iPhone models going forward.
Bottom line: The Max is a beautiful phone. Aside from the PWM flicker that affects some people, it's no doubt superior to the 7 Plus, 8 Plus, and XR. However, IMO, while it's better, it's not 57% better than the XR. The XR is the much, much better value for most people, and that's what my wife is going to get.
