The Apple iPhone XR Review: A Different Display Leads To Brilliant Battery Life
by Andrei Frumusanu on February 5, 2019 9:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Apple
- Smartphones
- iPhone XR
Camera - Quick Verification
The camera on the iPhone XR is a straightforward matter: It employs the same module as on the iPhone XS and XS Max, meaning we find a new 12MP sensor with 1.4µm pixel pitches and better DTI (Deep trench isolation), as well as an f/1.8 aperture lens along with OIS in the module. The only difference is that the iPhone XR eschews having a telephoto lens – meaning the phone won’t be able to have as high a quality of zoomed in photos as its more expensive XS siblings.
We can quickly verify the picture quality results against the iPhone XS:
[ iPhone XR ] - [ iPhone XS ]
[ iPhone XR ] - [ iPhone XS ]
In both images, the results are virtually identical. This was to be expected, but it’s always good to verify!
Overall, rather than repeating myself here I'm going to refer to the camera section of the iPhone XS review, as all of my analysis there is also valid for iPhone XR – minus the telephoto module, of course.
The iPhone XS Camera Review - Historic iPhone comparisons
Similarly, for readers interested in a broader, more contemporary camera comparison, I'm going to refer to the camera comparison in our Google Pixel 3 review. It contains the most up-to-date camera comparisons across 2018 flagship phones, including results of the iPhone XS against the newest Android competition.
The Google Pixel 3 Review - Most recent full competitive camera review
Overall – the iPhone XR camera shines in the same way the iPhone XS camera did: Apple’s absolute strength here is in terms of picture consistency and the assurance that essentially every shot will come out the same in the best possible way.
Key to making this happen was that this generation’s main camera sensor saw big improvements in terms of resolving details – thanks to the bigger sensor with bigger pixels, as well as the much improved DTI (Deep trench isolation) which is able to reduce noise and improve sharpness. Apple’s new HDR system is also a big upgrade for the new iPhones, as it manages to capture a much greater dynamic range in virtually all scenarios. Low-light performance of the new iPhones is also good – although Apple doesn’t use some of the new-fangled computational photography magic that is now standard on Huawei devices, and was most recently adopted by Google’s Pixel phones.
Another aspect of the camera that is understated for the new generation of phones is an absolute huge jump in video recording quality. Here the dynamic range in video recording has seen immense jumps – and together with Apple’s first-time introduction of stereo audio recording, actually makes the new iPhones, including the XR, what I find to be the best smartphones on the market for video recording.
The lack of a telephoto lens on the XR is something that needs to be subjectively evaluated based on your experience and needs. On one hand, I do find it quite useful and a feature I would probably miss – but on the other hand it’s also not something that I find to be a deal-breaker or represent a key deciding factor when having to choose between different smartphones. It’s a feature that augments the camera experience, but one can also live without it.
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Lolimaster - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
The resolution is just craptastic vs a 5.8" S9 where you can have TRUE 1080p RGB AMOLED when going 1080p in the options down from 1440 pentile mode.darkich - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link
Wow, just wow.I find this comment to ironic because the only gripe I have with the XR is not the display not how ridiculously big bezels it has..as if it has a bumper case.
That some people can't see this is beyond me..
ss96 - Tuesday, February 5, 2019 - link
Hi Ian, do you have a number for the display's contrast ratio? Interested to know how it compares to previous iPhone LCDs.Also, what happened to the charts comparing contrast, color accuracy to the competing smartphones? Really miss those.
Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, February 5, 2019 - link
https://images.anandtech.com/doci/13912/XR-greysca...1450 to 1550:1 to depending on brightness.
As for the the accuracy charts, I think it lead to a lot of readers to too quickly jump to conclusions and misunderstand what the figures actually meant, and for example in the past we had some cases of phone A having a dE of say 2 vs a dE of 1 - in both cases the actual differences in this case are extremely small and in isolated conditions probably imperceptible. However because they had just looked up the chart they determined that phone B was that much better because the bar graphs were that much shorter. I think this was quite counter-productive to the analysis of some devices and something I wasn't that big of a fan of.
ss96 - Tuesday, February 5, 2019 - link
Hi Andrei, thanks for your answer. I liked those because it was easy to know what other devices scored without having to go to their respective review, but I understand that it may be misleading.MarcusMo - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
I get what you mean regarding the dE comparison charts, however removing them all together seems like the nuclear option.Having review sites such as anandtech calling out poor accuracy again and again is part of the reason we’re seeing manufacturers finally care about this metric. Shaming them on a public comparison chart is a much more effective means towards that end then burying the numbers in each individual review.
A suggestion would be to include a cutoff line in the chart, declaring anything below this to be imperceptible to the human eye. That, and the Anandtech readerships ability to parse objective data (why we visit this site), should be enough to assuage any fears of misinterpretation.
mkozakewich - Wednesday, February 6, 2019 - link
You should turn those charts into some kind of logarithmic efficiency thing, where a dE of <=1 is 100% and a dE of 3 is 90%, or something like that.eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, February 5, 2019 - link
@Andrei: Thanks for this review. I largely agree with your analysis, but have an addition to your interpretation of Apple going below Full HD for the XR's display. Yes, build costs may well have been a little bit lower, but my suspicion is that, had the XR had even just an FHD display (otherwise identical in specs to the current one), the value proposition for the XS and XS Max would have been even more doubtful than it already is. Not that the XR is, by any means, a cheap phone - $ 749 for the 64GB entry-level model is a lot of money. But, I believe that Apple's decision to go with a below-FHD display for the XR was mainly to make it just that little less attractive so enough people still go for the premium models.fasterquieter - Tuesday, February 5, 2019 - link
I think the answer is much simpler. They determined years ago that 326ppi is sufficient as far as clarity goes. They have approaching a decade of software optimized for this 2X pixel count. Going slightly denser would have resulted in negligible image quality improvements and the need to downscale the image, like the Plus phones. That came with its own disadvantages. I think they made the right call.Zeross - Tuesday, February 5, 2019 - link
I think that you're perfectly right and In my opinion, something often overlooked is that the X and XS OLED displays are higher resolution mostly to compensate for the PenTile subpixels arrangement : the 458ppi figure is only true for green subpixels. Red and blue subpixels have a 324 sppi definition. So basically Apple have determined years ago that ~320ppi is good enough and the X (XS) screen resolution was chosen to ensure that all subpixels achieve this number. Of course I have no insight knowledge and I may be completely wrong but it would be a weird coincidence if by pure luck, the red and blue sppi of its latest phones is almost exactly the same that the one chosen in 2010 for the first retina iPhone.