Having had the iPhone XR for a couple of weeks now it’s time to share my thoughts on this* phone.
Firstly, some background, my previous two phones were the iPhone SE and iPhone 5s... so it’s safe to say I was both fond of, and very much used to, the 4” iPhone form factor. I even used an iPhone 5 for work too a couple of years ago... Then, as summer [2018] turned to autumn, my 18 month old SE’s battery took a nose dive in performance. Whether this was helped along by the battery related software updates in point releases of iOS 11 or the battery hungry features in iOS 12 it’s safe to say that approaching Apple’s Fall Event I was eager to see what Apple had to offer for 2018-19.
Now the event itself included the heavily rumoured iPhone XS and its larger sibling the XS Max, both of which are very, very, expensive handsets and follow down the path the iPhone X walked last year with a £999+ price tag. Now I wasn’t bowled over by the iPhone X last year and was happy to stick with my still fairly new SE, feeling that it had all the features I wanted. To be honest I was very skeptical that FaceID would work even half as well as TouchID, which I was enjoying, especially when used with Pay.
Then Apple showed off the XR, an iPhone X form factor but with an LCD screen, only one camera and an aluminium body. The benefit of these compromises: lower cost. In the UK the XR starts at £749. This is only £50 more than the iPhone 8’s cost last year, and it has nice large storage options too, oh and six striking colours to choose from.
The XR also boosts the longest battery life of any iPhone, ever. Now they really did have my attention as I once again had to plug my SE into charge. It was requiring 250% of the battery capacity to make it through a typical day, and I was avoiding using it more and more. It felt like it would drop by 5% just to check the time!! So I decided to get a new phone and the XR’s large battery capacity and great reviews informed my choice.
The phone felt huuuge on unboxing. I was able to compare it to a 7, an 8 Plus (which is massive) and my outgoing SE and I wondered if it was going to be comical to make phone calls on without a headset, and would it even fit in my pocket? Well it does fit but you don’t forget it’s there like an SE!
The size certainly has its benefits, the extra information on the screen when reading is brilliant. When typing you can see much more of your content whereas on the the SE the keyboard really took up a lot of the screen space. Photos look great on the edge to edge screen too, especially as the XR screen is brighter than the SE’s was.
Battery life on the XR has certainly exceeded my expectations. Over the past ten days I used my phone as much as I would like and it’s never run out of charge. In fact I forgot to charge it one night and it lasted the while of the next day!
The iPhone X line of phones is a major change in form factor for Apple’s flagship phones with an all-screen design with a notch, rather than the rectangular screen sandwiched between a chin and a forehead. This includes the loss of the home button and TouchID (the integrated fingerprint sensor). I thought I would really miss this, however, new features in ‘tap to wake’ and FaceID work really well. Unlocking the iPhone XR is super fast, and with FaceID being really reliable in my experience so far, it almost feels like you don’t have a password at all! All the while you can rest assured your iPhone is secure when locked.
When you want to leave an app you now need to get to grips with the new gesture controls. These are also employed in iOS 12 on the iPad too so they quickly become natural to use. I particularly like sliding across the very bottom of the screen to switch to the previous used app.
In terms of protection I have selected the Otterbox Vue Series Case and I’m certainly glad I have a case after this little incident on a treadmill!!!
So the @OtterBox_UK phone case really saved my new phone from a treadmill related fall 🏃🏻♂️📲 😱
— David Mather (@DMather4) November 25, 2018
The case is very protective but I think I was super lucky too!
The camera is really spectacular too, a big upgrade on the SE for sure. I’m almost certain that my Images section of my website will feature shots from the iPhone XR at some point. All in all I am very pleased with the iPhone XR and can certainly recommend it if you are looking for a new iPhone.
*this review is being typed on the iPhone XR itself and is ideal practice for me using the slightly wider on-screen keyboard!