Gadgetory

- Hey guys, this is Austin. The iPhone XR has been controversial to say the least. On one hand this is by far the cheapest of the new iPhones, but on the other you are losing a lot compared to the XS. So to find out if it's really worth it, I switched over to this as my daily driver. Sure, it might look like the iPhone 5c at first glance with the bright flashy colors, but whereas the iPhone 5c was essentially just the last generation iPhone in a plastic shell, the XR is properly a flagship. That means you've got the same excellent Apple A12 Bionic chip, which is hands down the fastest that you'll find in a phone today. Seriously the benchmarks embarrass everything else out there. Say what you will about Apple, but they are absolutely on top of their game as far as SOCs are concerned. As far as photos go, it really is only second to the Google Pixel 3 right now. As far as video is concerned, I would argue that the XS and the XR are the best that you can find on a smartphone. (violin plays) Because I really wanted to give this a try, I used the XR as my only camera at a recent event and it held up surprisingly well. Now, no there is no telephoto option, which is definitely the main thing that you do lose over the XS. I'll get into that a little bit later, but the basic story, the main thing that you're gonna find with the XR is that the camera here for what you're taking 90% of your photos with is exactly the same as on the XS. There's also the same gesture based navigation from the X and the XS and that really does help that A12 feel even faster. There's also the same fast wireless charging, the same Face ID, and the same excellent sounding front firing speakers. There is definitely no doubt that there is a lot of iPhone XS DNA inside the XR. Of course it's not all perfect. There are definitely some things missing compared to the XS. The first one is easy, the XR has IP67 water resistance like the last couple years of iPhones, however the XS does up that to the slightly more robust IP68 water resistance. Something else you might not necessarily notice, but it's still here is that this lacks the same gigabit LTE connection as the iPhone XS. Now as of right now there's actually very little speed difference that I've been able to test, but as LTE networks get faster over the next few years the XS should have a slight advantage there. You've also got a bit less RAM. Three gigabytes on the XR versus four gigs on the XS. Now unless you have them side-by-side or if you use both the XS and the XR the difference is pretty hard to spot, but as someone who has actually used a XS and a XR, I can notice that apps don't last as long in memory on the XR. Now to be fair memory management is pretty solid on iOS, so it's not exactly a big deal, but that is one performance advantage you will find going with the XS. We're also looking at aluminum instead of stainless steel. Now this is something I definitely do prefer on the XS. It not only feels a little bit heavier, but it just gives it a little more of a nicer feel in the hand. Probably the most noticeable cutback is with the camera. So like I said the front camera as well as the rear cameras are identical, but what you don't have here is the telephoto option. Now sure you've got digital zoom and while it does get the job done, even though the telephoto camera on the XS isn't exactly great it is a lot clearer when it comes to actually punching in on a subject. You've also got a pretty seriously cutback portrait mode. Since you don't have that telephoto camera to get that extra depth information, it has to entirely use software to cut out and it only really works when you actually have a face in the shot. It works, it's fine, but it's no where near as good as on the XS or even on the Pixel. Something a little bit more subtle is that the bezels are slightly thicker and that is thick with a pair of C's my friends. - [Matt] No don't do that, don't do that one. Oh God no. - T-H-I-C-C, thick! Now, for real, it's actually not a big difference, I think unless you have them side-by-side, it's really not enough to notice. What you will notice is the display. Not only is the screen a lower resolution, but it also uses the older IPS style from previous iPhones, whereas the iPhone X and XS use OLED. On paper it's not all that impressive, but actually take a look and use the screen and it's really not bad. So for an IPS panel, one of the main downsides is typically contrast, but this actually is a pretty contrasty panel. And Apple has done a lot of work with anti-aliasing the edges to make sure the roundabout, the roundabout? The, what do you call it, the curves? The-- - [Ken] The edges. - The edges, thank you! Edges, I know words. The edges are nicely rounded and on top of that, the black of the actual display up top does match nicely with the notch. They did good job with making the IPS panel look quite bit like an OLED panel. However, specs definitely don't tell the entire story, actually use the iPhone XR display and it's surprisingly good, even though it might be sub-1080p. So joining me today is our resident screen testing expert, Wes, he spent a lot of time with the XR. What do you think? - I think that the display is fantastic. - Even though it's sub-1080p? Isn't that deal breaker? - Even though it's sub-1080p. - [Austin] One of the main things that surprised me was that this is the brightest smartphone that we've ever actually tested. It was what, over 600 nits? - Yeah, it was roughly 650 nits. What we're seeing are ultimately some of the best colors that I've ever seen. - So, you ran it through the full suite of colors tests? - Yes, the entire suite. - [Austin] You also found that this is this is a more color accurate panel than the OLED on the XS, right? - Yeah, not only that, I actually went back to the iPhone 8. - Okay. - To look at an older Apple LCD panel, and this is actually better than the iPhone 8. - One downside is that you do lose 3D Touch which has been on all iPhones dating back to the iPhone 6S. Now this is a little bit more annoying than a lot of the other things here, mostly because I actually do use the shortcut of being able to hold and 3D Touch on the actual keyboard to move my cursor around. Now there are some workarounds for example, on the keyboard, you now hold down the space bar. But still, 3D Touch is a little bit of a weird one to remove. Now it is definitely not all bad news. Some stuff is actually better on the XR. First of all, it has a unique form factor. With a 6.1 inch display, it fits nicely in between the 5.8 inch iPhone XS and the 6.5 inch XS Max. For me, while I loved that huge XS Max screen, it's just too big to use with one hand. Whereas the XR is a little bit better and the XS is basically perfect, but I think this is very much a subjective thing, so it really does just come down to actually trying each one of them to see what's the right size. The XR, I think is a good sweet spot for a lot of people. I think this point will easily get buried, but I really do think that the iPhone XR has the best battery life of any iPhone I've ever tried. It's legit my favorite feature of the phone. Then there are the colors, now sure, if you really do want a yellow phone, dbrand.com is the place to be. But as far as I'm concerned, I really do dig this yellow with the gold color scheme. The real reason most people are going to buy the iPhone XR though, has nothing to do with any of these features, it's the price. At a full $250 less than the base XS and $350 less than the XS Max, this is just straight up a better deal. Surprisingly, Apple even priced the storage upgrades pretty reasonably. To go from 64 gigs which is the base model up to 128 gigs is only $50. To put things in perspective, a 128 gig iPhone XR is a full $100 cheaper than a 128 gig Pixel 3. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but this is an Apple product, which is actually kind of reasonably priced. Ultimately, what you're getting here is a phone that does fall short of the XS in a few areas, but overall especially when you consider the price, this really is the iPhone that most people should pick up in 2018. And well, most of 2019. Not gonna lie, I'm gonna keep rocking it for a while.