iPhone XR review: Cheaper and very cheerful indeed

The latest iPhone is another X series model, but it’s significantly cheaper than you might expect

Last month, Apple launched two handsets, the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. These were the sequels to last year’s groundbreaking iPhone X and were in the same, (very high), price range as the X.

X, you’ll remember, is pronounced ten in this context.

So, what if you can’t afford £999 or more for a smartphone? Well, first, you’re not alone. Secondly, the usual iPhone route is to buy the last-generation iPhone at a lower price.

You can do that – the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 are still available at lower prices than before, though the iPhone X has now gone.

But in its stead, Apple has done something different: it’s launched a new phone with all the hallmarks of the iPhone X and XS phones, such as a full-screen front and facial recognition instead of a fingerprint sensor.

The difference with the XR (say Ten Arr, please, and I won’t mention pronunciation again, I promise) is that it comes in at a much lower price than the XS or XS Max. At least £250 cheaper, in fact.

As a reviewer, I don’t normally bang on about price at this point, but, well, this is unusual.

To be clear, the iPhone XR is phenomenal value. It’s not the cheapest iPhone you can buy, that would be the iPhone 7 which starts at £449, but for what it offers, the XR is hard to beat.

To put it another way, for the price of the iPhone XS Max with its biggest-capacity memory (512GB) you can almost buy two iPhone XR handsets. The exact price comparisons are £1,449 for the iPhone XS Max and £749 for the iPhone XR.

Anyway, here’s what you get with the iPhone XR.

Design

This is a big one. With Apple, design is always paramount, as are build quality and intuitive use. But Apple has excelled itself in a whole new way this time.

The iPhone XR sits in between the XS and XS Max size-wise, with a 6.1in display instead of the 5.8in and 6.5in screens on the other two, respectively.

Because it's an edge-to-edge display, almost, the display is bigger than on the iPhone 8 Plus, but in a substantially smaller handset which will fit smaller hands better - it feels very good in the hand.

Colour is the standout in the design, with six, yes, six different versions of the iPhone XR available. There’s the inevitable black (Apple calls it Space Grey) and white, which is rather glamorous. But there’s also yellow, coral, blue and (PRODUCT)RED.

Coral is the best: acidic without being coarse, vibrant and lip-smackingly tasty. A close second is the cool-but-searingly-attractive yellow that falls somewhere between egg yolk and lemon. Blue is elegant and punchy while (PRODUCT)RED is a shiny, opulent look. In short, you can’t go wrong. But there’s a reason coral and yellow are doing well in pre-sales: they’re attractive and they make a statement, in a way that only Apple can. And this is no mean achievement: traditionally it’s only black, white and silver that really do the numbers. With this phone, Apple could buck that trend.

For this phone, design isn’t limited to the colour on the glass back of the phone. No, the metal edge matches the main colour and even, if you look incredibly closely, every other part of the handset: peep into the Lightning socket and you’ll find the metal in there is colour-matched, too. Literally no other brand goes to this amount of detail.

Here, though, is where we find the first economy of detail: where the iPhone XS uses a gleaming, stainless-steel frame, here, there’s an matte-finish aluminium chassis. I mean, almost every iPhone until now has had aluminium as its chassis so this is no biggie. But it’s a difference from the pricier iPhones.

Take a look at an iPhone XR in the flesh before you buy. I'd say it's definitively as attractive as the XS.

It doesn’t match the waterproofing of the XS, coming in at IP67 against IP 68 on the XS. That means it's able to survive in 1 metre of water for up to 30 minutes, instead of the 2-metre depth of IP68. No big deal, in other words.

The glass back hides the same wireless charging coil as on the iPhone XS, so you can charge your phone by plonking it on a compatible pad, though it's still faster to charge with a cabled plug.

Display

Some elements are different from the XS iPhones, the first being the screen. The iPhone X was the first iPhone to use an OLED instead of an LCD display. There are plenty of differences between the two technologies but one is that OLED can be flexible.

One of the issues with displays is they have a driver, a circuit which fits on one edge of the screen, usually the top or bottom on a smartphone. And this is the main reason why displays don't reach to the edges, leaving what are nicknamed the chin and forehead.

Apple changed all this with the iPhone X which pioneered displays which went to almost the very edge of the phone's front, save for a chunk out of the middle of the top edge where the gubbins that allow facial recognition sit.

Apple bent the OLED back on itself and tucked the display driver away behind. But that's not an option with LCD: it's glass so it doesn't bend.

Somehow, Apple has managed to create a phone with an LCD that has almost no bezel, which the company says it's done through precision-milled glass, masking pixels to stop light leaking around the curves and other processes to trick the eye into thinking the display has a perfect curve to it.

It's true that the bezels are wider than on the XS, but the result is still very eye-catching.

The pixel density is lower than on the XS or XS Max, both of which boast 458 pixels per inch (ppi). Here, it's just 326ppi. That's a lot fewer pixels, though it's the same as every iPhone apart from the Plus size phones, a figure that Apple has consistently used ever since the iPhone 4.

Does this difference matter? Not much. It's visibly not as sharp when you look at a XS and a XR side by side, but this is still a gorgeous screen that is detailed and colourful.

Other Apple specialities are included, like the True Tone display which measures the ambient light and adjusts the colour onscreen to provide a more accurate and faithful look.

However, this screen, unlike other recent iPhones, lacks 3D Touch, a pressure-sensitive feature which adds extra functionality when you press harder on the display. I really like 3D Touch, and I use it a lot to preview emails or messages. Its functions are still possible, using a long-press instead, but it's not quite as elegant.

Apple has mimicked its effects in some places, such as the camera and torch buttons on the lock screen. A subtle physical response confirms you've touched the buttons there.

Camera

Unlike the XS and XS Max, and indeed most recent large-screen iPhones, there's only one rear camera on the XR, not two. At a time when rivals are squeezing three or even more cameras onto the back of their handsets, this may seem surprising.

It's partly a cost-saver, of course, and since cameras are such an important part of smartphones now, you can see how Apple would want to save its best snapper for its priciest phone.

Still, the single sensor is identical to the wide-angle camera on the iPhone XS, which is an improvement on the iPhone X camera from last year. That's a 12MP sensor and it's very good. Some of the special effects of the dual-camera iPhones, such as bokeh, where your subject is in sharp focus and the background blurry, are still to be found here, even down to the focus slider. This cleverly lets you set the focal point after you've shot the photo.

On this phone, the effect is created through software and the processor in the phone. That processor is the same as on the iPhone XS and is one of the reasons bokeh won't be coming to earlier single-lens iPhones. Others include the increased number of Focus Pixels on this sensor.

The effect is very good, but because it's software-driven, it can't do animals. The machine learning algorithms are designed to look for human faces only, not other creatures or objects.

There's no second telephoto lens, so you may need to walk closer to your subject, but this is still a highly proficient camera.

Performance and battery life

Because of the iPhone XR has the same chip inside it, called A12 Bionic, as the pricier XS and XS Max, it's a real performer. Fast and capable, it doesn't leave you dawdling, ever. It's potent enough to handle the power-hungry augmented reality apps which are increasingly prevalent, and has plenty of headroom for the next-generation of AR apps.

Battery life is sensational, because this is the biggest battery Apple has ever put in one of its phones. Easily a full day and a chunk of tomorrow, which can't be said of all smartphones. As always, though, overnight charges are recommended for peace of mind.

Verdict

Seriously, if you’re not going to buy the iPhone XS, there’s no alternative on the market that comes close to the XR in terms of design and operating system. The same Face ID, the same all-screen look, though admittedly with a bigger bezel, the same wireless charging as the XS manages.

There are so many elements of the XS which are included in this much more affordable handset, it's very impressive, especially the inclusion of the A12 Bionic chip. And in one respect, battery size, it's even better.

It’s true, there are some features which it’s not great to miss, like 3D Touch or a second lens, but this is a glorious handset with a highly capable camera and just about the most powerful phone processor on the market. And, actually, it’s at a highly competitive price.