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XBOX SERIES X AND S: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE NEXT GEN OF XBOX
The next-generation of Xbox gaming is a little more complicated than what we’re used to. For starters, Microsoft has released not one but two new consoles this week: the Xbox Series X and the Xbox Series S. Many of the initial crop of first-party games is also designed to be playable on its last generation Xbox, the Xbox One, as well as Windows PCs. And that’s before we get into Microsoft’s game streaming service, xCloud, which could mean you won’t need any Xbox hardware at all to play many of the latest games.
Each new generation tends to deliver big changes for console gaming, and Microsoft’s successors to the Xbox One are no different. Games look better, thanks to more powerful graphics hardware and built-in support for more realistic lighting technology, and in some cases feel more responsive, thanks to support for frame rates of up to 120fps. They also load quicker because both consoles now include fast solid-state storage, a big improvement over the mechanical hard drive included in the Xbox One.
But Microsoft’s approach to this new generation is a big departure from how console launches have worked previously. Typically, we’ve seen Sony and Microsoft release just one new piece of hardware at launch, and each one tends to come with an exclusive library of games that you have to buy the new console in order to play. While Sony, too, has operated a game streaming service for years, it’s only typically used PlayStation Now to offer access to older titles, rather than brand-new releases like xCloud is promising.
Microsoft’s new consoles give you a lot more freedom with how you play its new games, but depending on where you choose to play them, you won’t get exactly the same experience. The Xbox Series X is a much more powerful machine than the Series S or the current Xbox One, for example, which has a big impact on performance.
IPHONE 12 SERIES
APPLE IPHONE 12 PRO MAX REVIEW: THE BEST SMARTPHONE CAMERA YOU CAN GET
The iPhone 12 Pro Max is a big phone. The biggest iPhone ever made, in fact.
The Pro Max’s 6.7-inch display is the largest screen ever on an iPhone. It has the biggest camera sensor of any iPhone, including the three other iPhone 12 models Apple announced this year. It has a 5G radio, and it’s got a bigger battery. It is without question the most iPhone you can get.
And while it’s expensive, it’s not that much more expensive than the smaller iPhone 12 Pro: it’s just $100 more at every storage level, starting at $1,099 with 128GB of storage and going up to $1,399 for 512GB of storage. For that money, you get a larger display, a bigger battery, and a very different camera system. I’ll just cut to the chase and say it’s absolutely worth it over the standard 12 Pro if you can deal with the size — but it’s a lot of size. And the camera is worth exploring in depth, because there’s a lot going on.
Like I said, it’s the most iPhone you can get.
IPHONE 12 PRO MAX CAMERA
Aside from the large size, the main thing that sets the iPhone 12 Pro Max apart from the rest of the iPhone 12 line is the camera system, which is substantially different and more capable than the cameras on the smaller 12 and 12 Pro.
The basics are the same as the 12 Pro: three cameras including a wide, an ultrawide, and a tele, with a LIDAR sensor that enables portrait photos on the wide camera in Night mode. Night mode is available at all three zoom levels now, which is an improvement over the iPhone 11.
The ultrawide camera is the same as on the 12 and 12 Pro, and it’s a noticeable improvement over the ultrawide on the 11 Pro. I think it’s useful and fun to have an ultrawide, but it still takes medium-quality photos compared to the main camera.
It’s the main wide camera and the telephoto that are very different on the 12 Pro Max. The wide has the same f/1.6 lens as the 12 and 12 Pro, but it also has a 47-percent larger physical sensor that can capture more light with less noise. The wide camera is also stabilized differently than the other iPhone 12 models, which have traditional lens-based optical image stabilization to reduce vibrations and thus blur.
The 12 Pro Max uses sensor-shift stabilization, which moves the sensor itself around to reduce vibrations. Apple tells me the move to sensor-shift stabilization on the 12 Pro Max was more about making this sensor size work to its standards than overall performance, but that the system on the 12 Pro Max is slightly more effective at reducing a wider range of vibrations than the OIS on the 12 Pro.
(As an aside for camera nerds, Apple keeps calling this “sensor-shift OIS,” which doesn’t quite make sense because the lens isn’t involved. It’s more like the in-body stabilization you’ll find on Sony and Panasonic mirrorless cameras. But I digress.)
The bigger sensor also has an impressive maximum ISO, which is a measure of light sensitivity. The iPhone 11 Pro had a top ISO of 3,072, the regular iPhone 12 Pro has a top ISO of 5,808, and the 12 Pro Max has a top ISO of 7,616. As the numbers go up, the amount of noise at any given ISO tends to go down, which means images from the iPhone 12 Pro Max are generally less noisy than the 12 Pro’s.
IPHONE 12 PRO MAX PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE
The iPhone 12 Pro Max is a big phone, and as such, it has a big battery. And so battery life is terrific. At home, on WiFi, I saw screen-on times of as long as 14 hours as I doomscrolled through our interminable election, with an average of well over eight hours in more reasonable (and healthy) use over the course of a week. Now, I’m not leaving my house as much as I did before the pandemic, and I didn’t test a lot on 5G or even LTE, but with numbers like that, I’d expect battery life overall to be tremendous in almost any circumstance. Big phone, big battery, big battery life. It makes the lack of a 120Hz display puzzling.
I’m just going to say it again: the iPhone 12 Pro Max is a very big phone. Big ambition, big camera sensor, big… size. I’ve been using it for a week, and I still haven’t gotten used to how big it is. I’m curious to see how accessory makers handle the size.
But the size allows for what I think is easily the best and most capable smartphone camera on the market right now, and a battery that seems to last forever. If you can deal with the size, I think it’s worth passing over the 12 Pro and getting the 12 Pro Max. Those are two dramatic and meaningful improvements for the money. This is a tremendous phone.
But I can’t shake the feeling that the iPhone 12 Pro Max very much feels like the perfect phone for the life I led before the pandemic. I used to spend a lot of time commuting, and on airplanes, and otherwise out and about getting work done on my phone. I used to go to a lot of events at night and take a lot of photos in bars. My notes indicate that I used to care a lot about mobile network speeds. This phone would have made significant improvements to all those things, but right now it just feels like another screen for social media on the couch.
I have a kid, and I always buy the latest phone to have the best camera. And there’s no question that this is the best camera. But if you’re feeling that usual tug to upgrade and you don’t need to, I do think you can wait this one out. Maybe 5G will be better next year. Maybe we’ll get that 120Hz display.