iPhone XR: By no means a distant second

When the iPhone XR was but a rumour, people wondered whether it would be like the iPhone 5C from long ago. Although in pretty colours, that phone didn’t look as Apple-like as all the others and was more like the poor man’s iPhone. The same can’t be said of the new iPhone XR.

Even though it comes in six colours, it isn’t anything like the iPhone 5C. Instead the XR looks and feels every bit as luxurious as the more expensive XS and XS Max. All glass and metal, the XR variants make their colours come alive. My own favourite, Product Red, is a deep and beautiful shade that looks sophisticated and elegant; a yellow variant looks funky and cheerful; a coral and a blue variant look contemporary and a refreshing change from everything else. And finally, the black and the white look stark and clean and also quite lovely.

Our review unit turned out to be a white and though I wished it was one of the colourful ones, I soon began to like the milk-clean look of the device. Each colour variant has a matching trim around the edges — for example, silver with white. No one considering the XR should think that it looks less premium than the more expensive models, even though those use stainless steel and not aluminium.

Brilliant but not crisp

The big compromise (if you even care) on the iPhone XR is that the 6.1-inch screen is an IPS LCD and not the more expensive OLED like the XS. It’s actually not even 1080p resolution like so many standard phones, so many are unhappy with that considering its price. For most things a regular user will do with the phone, the screen is actually fine. Those coming to the XR from earlier iPhones won’t even know the difference. But anyone who’s used to a high-res, crisp screen with separate pixels not being visible, the screen may be less than satisfactory. This is again likely to be a rather small group of users — determined pixel-gazers — but it won’t bother everyone. Despite a lower resolution, the screen does still happen to be bright, vivid and fine for most tasks. The bezels on this phone are also very slightly thicker than the other two and it doesn’t quite give that seamless feel, but it wasn’t so long ago when we were using phones with borders that were at least thrice as thick.

Instead of being IP68-rated, the iPhone XR is IP67, and all that means is that you can submerge it in one meter of water and not two. There will be very few people in the world who will care about that little difference. Why you would want to take your phone swimming or develop a penchant for taking underwater selfies is beyond me, but on an everyday basis, this extent of water resistance is more than enough.

The choice of screen for the XR has also meant that the phone doesn’t have the 3D Touch feature, which gives a haptic push-back vibration and opens up shortcuts to certain actions. Unless you’ve become accustomed to it, you’re not going to miss it.

Fluidity and finesse

What the XR has very much in its favour is smooth and fluid performance because it shares the same chipset with the more expensive iPhones. The A12 Bionic brings power and speed to the three iPhones that use it. And the upgraded operating system, iOS12, only adds to that. Everything happens fast and at the mere flick or soft swipe of a finger on the iPhone XR, no matter what benchmark tests show. The iPhone XR also doesn’t support LTE speeds as fast as the XS and Max, but that’s not relevant in places where even basic cellular connectivity is so often poor.

The iPhone XR has nice and loud stereo speakers with a good amount of depth to the sound. There are standard earphones included, which connect via the lightning port, but no lightning-to-3.5 mm dongle if you need to use some other headphones or connect to a music system. That’s just not nice as Apple could afford to show a little generosity with the prices it charges.

You’ll be able to put in a single SIM but it is a dual-SIM phone with the second being an eSIM, awaiting availability soon. The XR has pretty good battery life and supports wireless charging.

Single camera mostly does it

If you’re selecting an iPhone this season, also consider that the XR has a single camera and not dual cameras like the X, XS, XS Max. This matters to those who really deep-dive into photography.

But if you’re an everyday kind of phone camera user, you can rest assured you’ll get about as good pictures because that single camera has the same lens found on the XS phones.

You’ll be missing the telephoto lens, which will allow you to zoom in optically. You can still pinch the screen and zoom, but that’s a software zoom. Otherwise you have the same camera as the XS phones including the Portrait mode, which works about as well, but you won’t be able to shoot objects with a strong adjustable background blur. You will however be able to do this with selfies because there are two front cameras. Here you have the full bokeh effect and Apple’s Studio lighting effects. You’ll also get the new ‘Smart HDR’ to get better images. Video remains very good and smooth.

Though the US media may be referring to the iPhone XR as the poor man’s iPhone, in India that doesn’t quite hold true. The prices are still to be balked at and once you’re past the ₹70,000 mark, in the same zone as more expensive phones for those who have the money in the first place. One thing’s for sure, no one with an iPhone X needs upgrading. In fact, of the two, the iPhone X is quite a compelling buy right now given discounts.

Price: ₹76,900 (64 GB), ₹81,900 (128 GB), ₹91,900 (256 GB)

Pros: Great build, attractive colours, fluid fast performance, very good camera

Cons: Still too expensive, screen could have better resolution, included charger underpowered, no lightning-to-3.5 mm adapter

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