What's new?
iPhone X looks without the price
The iPhone XR might the have iPhone X look, but mercifully, it doesn't have the price. While $1,229 isn't exactly cheap, the iPhone XR the most affordable of Apple's three 2018 handsets, starting at $400 less than the iPhone XS.
Colours!
The iPhone XR the most colourful iPhone we've seen since the 5C. In addition to your stock standard black and white, the iPhone XR will be available in red, yellow, blue, and coral.
New and improved rear-facing camera
The rear-facing camera on the iPhone XR is still 12MP, but it has a couple of cool new tricks that should result in even better photos. Smart HDR is a new feature that will create a single photo from a four frame buffer with several interframes while using a long exposure for shadow detail. Essentially, your new iPhone will intelligently stitch together multiple photos to get a sharper, more detailed image.
Portrait mode has also received a bit of an upgrade: you'll be able to adjust the depth of field of a photo after you've taken it, with a range of f/1.4 to f/16, giving you more control over just how blurry or sharp you want the background behind your subject to be. Notably, the iPhone XR will be the first single-lens iPhone to get access to portrait mode.
Hardware
As expected, you'll find a faster processor under the hood. Dubbed the A12 Bionic, the iPhone XR's six-core processor is Apple's first 7 nanometre chip, and its said to run 15% faster than last year's A11. The corresponding Neural Processing Unit has had a big upgrade, and can now complete 5 trillion operations per second, up from 600 billion. This helps with real-time machine learning, which in turn facilitates experiences like Animoji where your phone has to analyse your face and map objects on the fly.
What's the same?
An almost full screen display
Much like the iPhone X, the iPhone XR has an almost edge-to-edge display with a small cut out for the notch, although the bezels surrounding appear to slightly wider. It runs at a resolution of 1792 x 828 with a pixel density of 326.
Facial recognition
Since there's no home button or fingerprint reader, you'll be unlocking the iPhone XR with your face. The good news is Apple says Face ID is faster than it was on last year's iPhone X, thanks to a faster security co-processor and improved algorithms.
iPhone XR vs iPhone XS: What's the difference?
While the iPhone XR will cost you around $400 less than a comparable iPhone XS, it shares most of the same features. You get the same A12 processor, the same 12MP rear-facing camera (although without the second lens), and a very similar design. Despite the lack of a second lens, the iPhone XR still gets portrait mode through some software tricks.
There are however a few differences. It's 6.1-inch display is LED rather than OLED (and runs at a lower resolution), you don't get 3D Touch, the build is aluminum rather than stainless steel, water-resistance is IP67 rather than IP68, and you can't film video in 4K.
Here's how the new models compare:
2018 iPhone specifications
| iPhone XR | iPhone XS | iPhone XS Max | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Display | 6.1-inch LCD | 5.8-inch OLED | 6.5-inch OLED |
| Resolution | Retina | Super Retina | Super Retina |
| 3D Touch | No | Yes | Yes |
| Material | Aluminium | Stainless Steel | Stainless Steel |
| Rear-Facing Camera | 12MP | 12MP + 12MP | 12MP + 12MP |
| Processor | A12 | A12 | A12 |
| Storage | 64GB - 256GB | 64GB - 512GB | 64GB - 512GB |
| Water-Resistance | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Price | From $1,229 | From $1,629 | From $1,799 |
When will the iPhone XR be available?
You can get the iPhone XR direct through Apple, JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, et al, and Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone.
Alex Choros
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