Yesterday Apple announced 3 new iPhones. The iPhone XS, the iPhone XS Max, and the iPhone XR. The iPhone XS costs a very expensive $1629AUD. The iPhone XS Max costs a whopping $1799AUD. And the iPhone XR costs $1229AUD. The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are exactly the same except for the screen size and the XS Max’s battery is a bit bigger to make up for the larger screen, and they are both great phones, but are they really worth $1600+. Let’s find out.
Display
Both the iPhone XS and XS Plus have Super Retina AMOLED displays, and they are the same as the one found in the iPhone X. It’s a beautiful display with rich and vibrant colours, and it’s very easy to see in direct sunlight. It doesn’t have an always-on display but hopefully, sometime soon Apple will introduce this feature into iOS. The XS’s display is 5.8 inches and has a resolution of 2436×1125 which is Full HD, which is not as good as Samsung’s Quad HD panels, and the XS Max’s display is 6.5 inches with the resolution of 2688×1242 to make up for the size of the display. Both iPhones have 458ppi and support HDR10 and Dolby Vision. The iPhone XR, on the other hand, has a new Apple-designed ‘Liquid Retina’ display which they claim is the best LCD in the industry. It has a 6.1-inch HD+ display with a resolution of 1792×828 at 326ppi. Having not seen the display so I cannot say how it compares to that of the iPhone X, but Apple tends to make great LCD displays, and I have no doubt that this phone will be any different.
Performance
All iPhones this year have the same Apple A12 Bionic chip which is a very powerful chipset which Apple says has up to 50% better graphics performance and 15% better performance in day to day tasks such as opening apps and scrolling through web pages. This means that the iPhone XR will be very powerful with almost 4000 multi-core score than the Samsung Galaxy S9 which costs the same as this phone, so finally Apple has made a phone that is worth the price that you pay for it.
Camera
This is one of the places where the iPhone XR is disadvantaged to the iPhone XS and XS Max, but not significantly. I believe that most people don’t require the telephoto lens of the iPhone XS and XS Max, especially now that the iPhone XR, like the Google Pixel 2, supports Portrait Mode with just one lens. That is the only difference between the phones, as they both have the same 12MP wide angle lens, which now comes with a new image processing called Smart HDR. Apple also now supports changing the blur effect after taking the photo in the software, a feature that Samsung has supported for years but it is still a nice added touch. I expect that the cameras on all of these phones will be exceptional, and will have Apple’s true to life image processing. All phones sport the same 7MP front-facing camera with Portrait Mode, and same as last year 4K at 60fps video recording on the rear-facing camera.
Battery Life
This is somewhere where the iPhone XR will be even better than the XS because of Apple’s claims that it lasts 1 hour and 30 minutes longer than the iPhone 8 Plus while the iPhone XS lasts ‘about the same’ as the iPhone X. Finally, Apple is making some progress with battery life after years of ‘about the same as …’.
Features and Software
This is the main area where Apple managed to cut the costs of the XR buy removing features like 3D Touch, to lower the cost of the device, and I’m sure not many people will miss 3D Touch. Unlike the XS it doesn’t have IP68 Water Resistance, but the lesser IP67. The frame of the phone is made out of 7000 series aluminium instead of the stainless steel that the iPhone XS is made out of. All phones have Face ID, True Tone, and Fast Charging up to 50% in 30 minutes. They also both have glass backs enabling wireless charging to the Qi standard.
Summary
To summarise, the iPhone XR costs just $1200AUD compared to the $1600 of the iPhone XS. They both share things like their processor, and features like Face ID, therefore, making the XR a great deal especially for anyone who can’t afford the more expensive XS or just doesn’t need all of the features that come with it.
Tech Input 