APPLE iPhone XS Max

VERDICT

Top of the class in both performance and price, the iPhone XS Max is the best phone you shouldn’t buy.

- Jonathan Bray

THE MOST POWERFUL iPhone of Apple’s 2018 line-up, the iPhone XS Max is quite simply the best smartphone Apple has ever produced, yet it’s also one that few people, if any, should go out and buy.

We’ll explain the technical excellence of the XS Max – bigger brother to the standard iPhone XS – shortly, but frankly nothing outweighs the fact that it’s just too expensive. Specs start at £1,099 for the 64GB model, and that rises to £1,249 and £1,449 for the 256GB and 512GB versions respectively.

In all three cases, it’s an outrageous amount to be charging even for a premium flagship, and the fact that Apple’s brand recognition will be enough to have people stumping up anyway is not an excuse.

FACE FRONT

It’s not as if this is a radical redesign of the now-outdated iPhone X (Shopper 361), either. The volume buttons, power button and do-not-disturb switch have all been left unmoved from their positions on the iPhone X, and there’s still no 3.5mm headphone jack.

At the rear, the phone’s slightly protruding dual-camera module perches in the top-left corner, with the quad-LED True Tone flash flanked by the twin lenses of the 12-megapixel camera. On the front, the screen fills most of the front panel, with a broad notch eating into the top of the screen. It’s a shame Apple couldn’t find a way around this rather inelegant solution, especially when other manufacturers are already making tentative steps forwards in this regard.