Apple iPhone XR review: better than good enough

Here's a question: how much do you care about the display on a phone? Take a moment and really consider it. If you were to put a dollar on it, how much would it be worth it?

Apple has an answer, and it's $ 250.

What's the price difference between the new iPhone XR and Apple's top-of-the-line iPhone XS – the price difference between the XR's 6.1-inch "Liquid Retina" LCD screen and the 5.8-inch OLED screen on the XS. Apart from the display, the iPhones XR and XS are far more similar than they are A12 Bionic processors, the same hand cameras with Smart HDR, the same iOS 12, the same gesture controls, the same wireless charging capabilities, even the same forthcoming dual-SIM support.

There are some other subtle differences as well, of course: the XR has a single rear camera, while the XS has a second telephoto lens. The XR is available in just one somewhat large size, while the XS comes in smaller and larger variants. And the XR is made of aluminum instead of stainless steel, which allows it to come in a wide variety of colors, ranging from white to black to blue, coral, yellow, and red.

Those differences are interesting, and worth pulling apart, but really, the easy way to think about the iPhone XR is that it offers virtually the same experience as the iPhone XS for $ 250 less, but you'll be looking at a slightly worse display.

So. How much do you care about the display on your phone?

Look. The display on the iPhone XR is … fine. It's fine! XS, Galaxy S9, and Pixel 3, but it's the same 326 pixels per inch as Apple's previous non-Plus LCD iPhones. Anyone coming to this phone from any iPhone save the iPhone will not notice a huge discrepancy in resolution. I suspect most people will find it totally acceptable.

That's not to say it matches the quality of the previous iPhone LCDs. The iPhone XR LCD definitely shifts a little pink and drops the brightness when you look at it off-axis, which often leads to a bit of a shimmery effect when you move the phone around. I noticed that shimmer right away, but I had to point it out to other people for them to see it; it's one of those things you might not notice at first but you can not un-see. Apple told me the XR display should match iPhone's LCDs in terms of performance, but side-by-side with an iPhone 8 Plus, the off-axis shifts are definitely more pronounced.

You will also definitely notice the whole world, which flows into the notch. As with Apple's other X-series phones, the front-facing camera and the front-facing camera. But the bezel … well, you're going to notice that bezel every time you see an iPhone X or XS anywhere near your phone. It's very large, and it definitely makes the iPhone XR seem less premium than the iPhone XS.

To be clear, the bezel is there for a reason: it houses the LCD backlight. Apple has a lot of custom engineering to pack a dense array of LED backlights into that bezel, and it has not been possible to use it. The tradeoff? Well, the bezel, and a lightning port that's vertically off-center on the bottom.

Apple's also done some extremely detailed work to make the rounded corners of the LCD perfectly match the corners of the phone itself – work I would like to do. (Most other phones with rounded corners have a radii, and the Pixel 3 XL has different corner radii at the top and bottom, which to me looks far worse than any chunky bezel.)

OLED panel: Each pixel is its own light source, so you can turn them around the curve to smooth it out. You can not do that with an LCD panel because there's just one single backlight for the entire display, which will shine through the black pixels along the edge. So Apple built little apertures for the pixels around the corners of the XR display to mask some of the light coming through, on top of antialiasing the curve in software. It's an example of Apple's attention to detail.

All of that backlight engineering means that Apple had to remove 3D Touch, which worked by feeling on the backlight on previous LCD iPhones. Instead, there's something Apple calls Haptic Touch, which is really just a fancy name for "long press with haptic feedback." Apple's Taptic Engine is the best in the industry, and the effect is quite convincing, especially on the lock screen shortcuts for the camera and flashlight. I use 3D Touch to scroll around text fields by pressing down on the XS keyboard, and it does not work on the XR, it's just as easy to press the cursor on the space.

Haptic Touch does not have equivalents to everything 3D Touch can do, however – I missed previewing links in Safari and Twitter quite a bit. Apple told me it's going to make it to more places in iOS over time, but it's going slow to make sure the implementation is right. 3D Touch is one of those Apple technologies that never really went beyond the initial rollout, so I think it's a move to the board.

All that said, I've always been a fan of how accurate and balanced Apple's LCDs are compared to the OLEDs on most Android phones, and the XR is definitely another Apple LCD. If you're coming from an iPhone 6, 7, or 8, it will look very familiar. But it's simply not as good as Apple's OLEDs. It does not have the deep black levels or infinite contrast of the iPhone XS, it does not support HDR or Dolby Vision video playback, and in general, you can always see the border between the bezel and the edge of the display, even with a dark background. Even with Apple's True Tone color calibration turned on, it's always a little warmer than my XS. And there's that off-axis color shift and shimmer.

But again: it's basically just fine. You have to really care about these things, and even then you might have to go looking. If it really bothers you, you can spend $ 250 more on an iPhone XS.

The other major consideration with the XR is size: it's a strange new size of iPhone.

The XR sits right between the old iPhone 6-sized phones and the bigger More models. I have big hands, so it's a good size, but if you've had one of the smaller phones, the XR is definitely going to feel much bigger. If you're a small phone person, you're looking forward to an iPhone XS or an iPhone XS, which is a bummer. If you've been using a phone, you'll notice that you've got some messages, which is nice.

The XR also comes in a bunch of colors – it's all about the extreme looks, but they're all very pretty. I like the blue and the coral the best, and the Product Red model is striking.

The XR also has the same redesigned wireless charging coil as the XS, which offers faster charging compared to older iPhones. It also has IP67 water resistance, which is a little worse than the IP68 rating of the iPhone XS, but fine for the occasional splash. And it has a new speaker system, which uses the earpiece speaker and a matched speaker. It's a little less than the iPhone XS Max, but it's still quite a bit of volume for a phone.

The XR screen has the same improved glass on the iPhone XS, which the company claims is "the most durable ever," but the glass back is the older formulation used on the iPhone X. So … it's slightly less durable than the front, by definition. You might want a case, but be aware that Apple does not have any of its own cases yet. There will be third-party XR boxes in Apple stores at launch, but it's a little strange for the company to miss out on such an easy moneymaker.

In fact, the entire XR is a little thin. There's never been a battery case for the X, which I'm told to be related to Apple's protecting antenna performance, so we'll see if any appear for the XR. There are vanishingly few lightning accessories in general, and somewhat infamously, there are no third-party competitors to Apple's failure-prone lightning headphone dongle, which is no longer included in the box. (I think we're in for another round of headphone here, as if we are far more iPhone 6S units in the world than people expect, and the XR seems like the logical upgrade from that phone.)

If the XR is as popular as it is going to be, the market market will grow very quickly, but if you're going to buy it at launch, just be aware that it's not everything is there yet.

Apart from the lack of a second telephoto lens on the back of the XR, the cameras are the same as the main cameras on the iPhone XS. There's a 7-megapixel f / 2.2 selfie camera on the front, and a 12-megapixel f / 1.8 camera on the back, using Apple's new Smart HDR system that rivals Google's HDR + on the Pixel 3. Apple insists that the XR's cameras and are exactly the same as the XS, so there should be no difference in how they perform.

This is actually our third time looking at these cameras and Smart HDR, after the iPhone XS review and the Pixel 3 review, and it's clear that Apple is chasing a very different look than Google and Samsung. Like the XS, iPhone XR images look more and more obvious and more aggressive than ever before. It's a conscious aesthetic decision, according to Apple – the company knows Smart HDR photos look different from traditional photos that have lots of contrast, but the bet is that it will be used more often than not. And in some cases, I prefer it to the Pixel 3.

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

In practice, Smart HDR flattens highlights and lifts shadows to make everything look evenly bed, and that process can reduce detail and make photos look a little bit artificial. Look at this photo I've been taking a camera with the iPhone XS Max while we were shooting it was just taken under some skylights in a bar, but HDR Smart has made it look like a studio with professional lights. That's wild.

Here's the selfie Verge video producer Mariya Abdulkaf is taking over that photo: compared to the Pixel 3, Smart HDR on the iPhone XR has made it so much easier that it's a flash of light. (Apple told me that the forthcoming iOS 12.1 update, currently in public beta, will address the issue of sharper base frame for Smart HDR, but I was not able to test it yet. )

Smart HDR can also by stymied by challenging lighting conditions. Shooting subjects in the shadows against bright backgrounds tend to result in strange exposures, loss of detail, and lots of noise. And shooting in low light can be used to make a photo of what a scene actually looks like.

I think most people would prefer the iPhone photo above, but it does not actually look like reality: the iPhone found Mariya's face, it's right with the right skin tone, and then flattened all the highlights and lifted all the shadows to make the scene look bright and even. Again, it kind of looks like we brought studio lights to the bar and properly reads the photo.

The Pixel 3, on the other hand, is a better job of capturing the strange red light and shadows in the room, even if the photo is a lot darker and arguably worse. Do you want a nicer picture or a more accurate representation of reality? Only you can look into your heart and decide.

I rarely take photos zoom, so I did not miss the telephoto lens of the iPhone XS at all – especially since the iPhone XR can still take pictures with its single lens. In fact, I prefer the XR's portrait mode to the XS, because the XR's brighter f / 1.8 lens and larger image sensor is much better in low light than the XS uses for portrait shots. The quality of XS portrait mode shots tends to drop fairly quickly in low light, but the XR is actually pretty respectable. And the XR also takes a wide angle shot at the iPhone XS or the Pixel 3, which I find tremendously useful.

The XR's fashion portrait also has Apple's nice fall-off blur, which looks far more like real bokeh than the fate of bad cut-out blur you from the Pixel 3. I do not ever really use portrait mode on any of these cameras , and I do not think any of it looks terrific or perfectly convincing, but the XR's portrait mode is by far the most flexible and useful of the bunch.

The iPhone XR shares the same industry-leading video features as the XS: it can shoot in 4K60, and it records stereo audio. When you record in 24 or 30fps, it captures interframes for greater dynamic range. If you're going to have a smartphone, an iPhone is the way to go.

Overall, I think most people who are in the market for an iPhone XR will be happy with its camera – it's a significant update from previous iPhone cameras, and, like the XS, it makes the iPhone X look downright bad. But the Pixel 3 still produces winners more consistently, and I prefer the more contrasty, natural look of its photos. And I'd rather have the Pixel 3's wide-angle selfie lens than the telephoto lens on the XS. Apple's aggressively flattened photos take over Instagram and push everyone else to change their looks.

The XR iPhone is available in the same way as the XS I used it day-to-day, and even hit the benchmark numbers in some quick tests. It was less than the XS at 3GB instead of 4, but it was pushing far fewer pixels, so it did not seem to matter. The biggest performance jump you'll read about is web rendering times; the A12 is lightning-fast and has a Safari update. Overall, Apple's chips are so far ahead of the industry that it's clear the A12 Bionic has tones of headroom to spare; this phone should feel fast for a few years.

The XR also has a larger battery than the X and XS, and it runs for about 13 hours in my everyday use of browsing, email, Slack, and various apps, with about 6 hours of screen time, which is about the same. the XS Max and a little more than the 8 More from last year.

The only major performance difference between the XR and XS is LTE: the XS supports Gigabit LTE speeds, and the XR does not. Gigabit LTE can provide faster network speeds if your carrier supports it, but it does not, phones with gigabit are traditionally better at a connection to weak signal areas. I'm not ready to test this head-to-head, but if it's all about performance, it might be more important for the XS.

I also could not test dual-SIM support, since it was not available yet, but Apple did show me an XR that was running on both Verizon and AT & T's networks. We'll have to test this out much more

If one thing is clear about the iPhone XR, it's that Apple is going to sell tones of these. They're huge upgrades from the iPhone 6 era of Apple phones, with the latest processors and cameras, a big screen in an updated design, and a competitive opening price of $ 750 for the 64GB model. That's $ 50 less than the smaller Pixel 3. It's priced to move.

When I first picked up the XR iPhone, it felt like the big questions would be about what the XR was missing compared to the XS. But now that I've used this thing for a while, that seems like the wrong way to think about it. The real question for iPhone is the high-res OLED display on the XS is worth $ 250 more than the XR. Because otherwise, the XR offers you everything you want in a 2018 phone.

If you do care about screens, you can spend $ 50 more on a Google Pixel 3 and get a better camera and better, smaller display. You can often find the Samsung Galaxy S9 with a high-res OLED screen for less than $ 700, if you're willing to compromise. And, of course, you can upgrade to the iPhone XS for an extra $ 250, and get more from other parts of the industry's best displays.

Personally, I would pay the extra money for an OLED screen in a heartbeat, because I am extremely picky about displays. But I think most people can find ways to spend $ 250 more than 20 years ago. And in that case, the iPhone XR is a no-brainer upgrade.

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