Paul Morris on October 3, 2018, 8:48 pm

Consumer Reports: The Best iPhone XS Feature Is Its Improved Battery Life But Note 9 Is Still The Smartphone To Beat

Consumer Reports has published information pertaining to Apple’s iPhone XS / XS Max handsets, and it won’t make pleasant reading for Apple. The review suggests that Apple has made some noticeable improvements with this year’s iPhone range but not enough to topple Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9 hardware from the top of the smartphone hierarchy.

The report has suggested that Apple’s most notable improvements in iPhone XS / XS Max come in the form of improved battery life, which Consumer Reports claims “more than made good” on the Cupertino-based company’s marketing claims relating to improvements over last year’s iPhone X.

This is a stark contrast to previous iPhone XS investigations which have largely suggested that the battery claims don’t actually materialize in the real world. Consumer Reports refute this:

In our testing, the iPhone XS lasted 24.5 hours, and the Max made it to 26 hours. That’s a big step up from the iPhone X’s 19.5-hour performance and puts the new iPhones up there with this year’s marathon-running Samsung phones in our ratings.

Additionally, the outlet also found that while Apple’s devices have definitely improved in their tests as far as battery life goes, the hardware also takes longer to charge and get to maximum capacity when compared with other leading smartphones on the market. This, as always, is attributed to the fact that Apple insists on supplying a 5W USB-A charging adapter with every iPhone purchase. To some consumers, that won’t be a big deal, and to others, who do actually care about this, they will likely purchase a fast charging wireless alternative, so it isn’t the end of the world.

Apple made a big song-and-dance about the iPhone XS/XS Max camera performance when announcing the device but Consumer Reports appears to be entirely underwhelmed by its performance, noting that it shows marginal improvements over last year’s iPhone:

In particular, our testers admired the clarity and resolution of the still photos, which give the iPhone cameras a slight edge over those of Apple’s chief rival, Samsung.

In conclusion, Consumer Reports gave Apple’s iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max a score of 82, which means that it rates the device slightly higher than Samsung’s Galaxy S9 hardware. However, the South Korean company’s Note 9 takes the win by a single point with a score of 83.

(Source: Consumer Reports)