iPhone Xr Review – A Good Phone with Sub par Display

Apple is an innovating company when it comes to mobile computing devices, as they are excelling with their MacBooks, Mobile Phones, iPads, and even the Mac Mini’s. This time there were a total of three different iPhones launched in the event with iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max, and iPhone Xr.

Out of the three iPhones launched the iPhone Xr is a unique one and was broadcasted as a cheaper iPhone just in order to bring the base price of this year’s models to a base level. The new iPhone was priced a bit higher, but why to say that?

Today we are going to review the iPhone Xr and will showcase different pros and cons of the device so that we can decide if the all-new iPhone Xr, the cheaper iPhone, was priced on the higher side or is priced with the right amount. Let us have a look in the review ahead.

Design & Build

Apple has mixed the look of the iPhone 7 an iPhone 8 with the all-new iPhone X and this led to the iPhone Xr. The iPhone Xr happens to have the front with a bit more of bezel which starts from the sides to the bottom, on the top we have the notch which occupies the same hardware that was found on the iPhone Xs and the Xs Max for face recognition and other hardware such as the earpiece and the front-facing camera. Talking about the placement of buttons, we have the power button on the right side, while the volume rocker and the slider switch on the left side.

At the back side, we have the single camera which his on the left side of the phone on the top with the microphone hole and the flash on beneath the camera unit. Taking the front glass in view it covers the 6.1 – inched screens, while the back side also happens to have the same glass which is the Gorilla Glass 6 and hence going to protect the device from all kind of drops, scratches and more.

Sides of the iPhone Xr is made from aluminum and hence they are softer from the stainless steel frame of the iPhone Xs and Xs Max and even the last year’s iPhone X. This results into the phone coming with a slightly defoliated build quality from the iPhone X – series. Although the in-hand feel of the iPhone Xr is also great and for sure looks and feel premium, this does mean that Apple has not taken any stones on the looks and feel of the all-new cheaper iPhone.

Display

The screen is the most important thing in today’s phone and all of this is all due to the media hungry audience. iPhone Xr was a huge mistake by Apple as they have loaded the all new phone with an 828 x 1792 pixels which is not even an FHD resolution, still, the phone counts an pixel density of 326 PPI.

But all this results into the phone not able to stream HD content from YouTube or any other streaming services, and even the quality will be lower even if we watch the HD content. Even the screen panel on the iPhone Xr is an IPS LCD one while the other phones are using the AMOLED panel which is far better in quality.

In the real world, the Display of the iPhone doesn’t look too bad and is acceptable in terms of quality as far as the normal usage goes. Even the colors and contrasts on the phone are far better than the quality that we will be getting in a normal IPS LCD panel.

Apple did use a good quality panel to make it a better phone, still, at the end of the day when you are streaming on Netflix you will not be able to watch the HD content, and even if later it will be enabled you will not be able to watch in the full resolution. At the end of the day when you are even watching the videos recorded from the phone itself, you will not be able to play in the full resolution in which the phone is recording the content.

Performance

Apple has used the latest of their line up the all-new Apple A12 Bionic chipset which is built on the 7nm technology. This is the first Hexa Core chipset from Apple and happens to be the most powerful one until now. Along with the chip we have the Apple’s new 4 core graphics processor which will handle most of the graphics duty of the mobile phone.

Supporting the phone is 3GB of RAM which is the same as the last gen iPhone X. There are three different storage options available on the iPhone Xr as 64, 128 & 256 GB storage.

Coming to the real world performance of the iPhone Xr they are known for the best in class performance as we have a great performance in loading the applications and multitasking, and even the iPhone Xr is no different as it also employees all the different things that iPhone are known for and is easily able to do all the different tasks.

Using the iPhone is no problem and even with gaming as even the last year’s unit had 3Gigs of Ram and iPhone is kind of great in handling the apps and games even with limited amount of space.

Camera

Apple loaded the iPhone Xr with the 12MP Rear Camera which happens to have a f/1.8 aperture which is a 26mm wide angle lens and comes with Optical Image Stabilisation so that you can shoot some great smooth images without any issue and even capture images in the night time.

On the front, we have a 7MP camera which is loaded with the f/2.2 aperture. Both the rear camera and the front camera is the same as we found on the new iPhone Xs and the Xs Max which are great units. Just the secondary zoom lens on the iPhone Xr is missing.

In real-world performance, one cannot find that the iPhone Xr comes with one less camera, as the software is so well optimized that the images are same as one we find on the iPhone Xs and the Xs Max. Both the camera unit are capable of capturing great images and they have the best in class performance in the daytime and even in the daytime.

Colors produced by the lens and the software are one of the best and comes with a great amount of depth in terms of contrast and saturation. Do note that if you are someone who likes photography then you do have a manual mode with which you can extract the most of the juice of the camera.

Battery

The all new iPhone Xr comes with a 2942 mAh battery which is enough for the device to keep it running the day long, if you are worried about the battery leaving you in the midday and you have to charge the phone again and again then you must be free from such issues as the phone comes with a 7nm processor that enables the device to run on much less power than other devices. iPhone Xr can easily count above 16 hours of constant use without any issue, and if you are mild user than it can even work for over a day.

Verdict

iPhone Xr is one of the best phones in the industry to offer such an amazing combo, but the device does fall off on some of the key positions, such as we don’t have even an FHD display onto the phone in 2018 which is a major downfall of the device, another thing is the build quality is slightly compromised due to the phone being built on Aluminium chassis.

Another downside of the phone is having a less camera sensor on the phone which will be making capturing images impossible if you need to zoom in a bit. Rest the device is found and have the top of the line performance. What do you think about the all-new iPhone Xr? Do let us know your thoughts about the phone in the comment section below. Also, have a look at the Reviews of the iPhone Xs and Xs Max which were published recently.