iSpective

Apple's latest 'budget' phone caused a lot of buzz. You can find many reviews on it, but here's my short take on this device from a long time iOS and current iPhone XS user.

Guess which is where?

Disclaimer: I spent with this device only 30 minutes in the Apple Store, checking it thoroughly. I also spent few days afterwards reading and watching any review of it I could find. Reason: I was researching what would be the best phone for my wife, for her needs and usage and I wanted to make the right choice.

My wife had a nice but already quite old iPhone 7 and I wanted to upgrade it for her. The main reasons why she uses and chooses the iPhone - is that for her the camera is the most important part of the phone. Battery life is second, third is everything else, including geeky specs she doesn't care about at all like I do.

Essentially the XR is very similar to the flagship XS:

• Same 1x camera sensor, although with a bit bigger lens, allowing more light to come in
• Same world class A12 chip
• Same nearly bezel-less screen, front camera, Face ID, all other internals are completely the same

What is different:

• Aluminum body unlike stainless steel in the XS. This gives it a less premium look, especially if you compare it to a shiny white XS with a chrome bezel. Both phones have glass front and back (for wireless charging)
• Screen is LCD vs OLED on the XS. The screen bezel is a bit wider, the screen resolution is also a bit lower
• Only 1x camera instead of 1x and 2x on the XS
• Colors: XS comes in black, white, gold, where the XR is blue, yellow, orange, white, black, red, grey
• Max memory capacity: 256GB for the XR and 512GB for XS
• Battery on the XR lasts longer due to that less detailed screen
• Obviously price: XR starts at $750 when base XS model costs $1000

Now, whether the difference is worth in my mind:

• Build material: most people use a case anyway, so I guess it doesn't really matter which material you have - matte aluminum or glossy stainless steel - it won't be visible anyway
• Screen resolution: the XR has 326 PPI, XS has 400+. Bringing them really close to my face - I couldn't tell the difference. The reason for this is the technology of the screens. LCDs tend to have equal pixels with almost no empty space in-between whereas OLED pixels are arrange differently and they require more pixels per inch (ppi) to have the same picture sharpness for the same physical dimensions. So here I can't recommend going for the higher PPI of the XS unless you really see it. I don't. Even with a sharp vision
• Screen technology: LCDs have a long history of improvements: they are fast (the iPad's LCD supports 120hz refresh rate), they are bright (and nicely visible in direct sun), colorful (years of calibration), don't tend to flicker (due to their nature) and are cheaper to make (that's one of the reason of the lower price of the XR). OLEDs theoretically should have richer blacks (because each pixel is individually highlighted and black colors are just switched off pixels with pure black levels), higher contrast and nicer picture, and being thinner allow wrap the end closer to the edge giving that smaller bezel than on LCDs. But OLEDs may suffer with flickering for a distinctive eye (I don't notice it), burn-in of the pixels (taken care by software most of the time, I never saw one). OLEDs also cost more to produce, hence the higher price of the XS. Personally I thought OLEDs are far superior. And after my iPhone 7 it looked that way. On my iPhone 7 the blacks looked grey-ish, for someone else - blue-ish. On my iPhone X and XS black is black, no questions asked. But when I looked at the iPhone XR, its blacks (despite the backlight illuminating the whole screen and not individual pixels) where almost unnoticable! Apple did a very good job with the XR's LCD: not only its blacks are almost black, but its whites are even whiter than on the XS's OLED! In person you would clearly see the difference between whites in favor of the XR (XS looks yellow-ish in comparison) but not so clearly the difference in blacks. I tested both phones at max brightness with TrueTone off and I was just blown away how XR's screen looked good. So in this regard I can recommend both phones. If you can't sleep without having OLED on your phone - go for the XS, otherwise the XR is a very good option
• Screen bezels: yes, they are more noticeable on the XR, but only if you hold it next to an XS. If not, you won't tell, no one would tell the difference in bezel size. So again, if you can't live with the thought of having bigger bezels - XS is your choice, otherwise the XR is almost the same
• Cameras: even though the XS has 2x (which is not always true 2x), I was torn apart here. The XR has noticeably better low-light portrait mode but I just try to avoid taking pictures at night anyway due to smartphones' camera limitations. So 2x for me is more desirable, because in the day time it allows me to capture things which otherwise would be too tiny to bother to shoot. But your mileage may vary here
• Battery: the longer the better, right? I wish I could trade some thinness of the XS for the bigger battery, so XR here in my opinion is superior.
• Max memory: for me this is a tie - I don't need as much memory as it's physically available at the moment
• Colors: XR colors are much more fun than the boring b/w and gold in the XS. But again, because of glass backs, you probably will keep both in a case, so this doesn't really matter. Unless you're really careful, never dropped the phone - the red XR looks so good, you wanna eat it 🙂
• Price: this is important for everyone. Obviously the XR is a winner here: you can get either the 128GB or the 256GB version still cheaper than the entry level 64GB XS

In general I went with the XS because:

1. It was available sooner than the XR
2. The geeky specs are better (even though practically I don't see most of them 🙂)
3. I actually use the 2x quite a lot where 1x just wouldn't be enough
4. If there would be an XR with everything as is but with 2x, I would probably buy it instead, because XS prices are way out of hand for something like a smartphone where for $200-300 you can buy something usable with stock Android.

But again, I wanted to choose the best not for me but for my wife. I was thinking long and it was painful 🙂. I was considering the XR most of the time:

1. Bigger battery
2. Worse specs my wife will never notice anyway
3. Red color, it's that awesome, yes

But I went with the XS instead, only because of one thing: the 2x camera. The camera (as well the 256GB version to store them) is of the most importance for my wife, so I couldn't ignore that. She doesn't take as much low-light pictures as much she misses on photos of objects too far away. But if not that, I would have taken the XR in a heartbeat. Even for myself! At some point I was even thinking to 'downgrade' to the XR from the already owned XS. It's really that good. On another hand, if you're an ultra geek living on the edge - the XS/XS Max is for you. Which objectively because of a significantly higher price has a much worse price/value ratio.

P.S. If you're considering the XR, go with the 128GB version. I recently noticed I'm pushing towards my 64GB cap quite often, because of media taking so much space lately. On the XR the extra 64GB over the base version cost only $50 more which are really reasonable and which you will definitely miss down the road.