AnandTech reviews Apple’s iPhone XR: A different display leads to brilliant battery life

“The iPhone XR is an interesting product for Apple: It is clear that it aims to be a lower-cost alternative to the higher-end XS flagships,” Andrei Frumusanu writes for AnandTech. “Yet at the same time it’s not directly an alternative to either the XS or the XS Max, and rather represents a model that squarely fits in-between its two higher-priced siblings.”
“The one thing that surprised me the most when using the iPhone XR is that even though it’s a smaller phone than the XS Max, it doesn’t always actually feel all that smaller. Here the increased thickness of the phone does change the in-hand feel quite a lot, and it will feel bigger than you’d expect for a phone with its 75.7mm width,” Frumusanu writes. “The main (and most visible) difference between the XR and its XS is inarguably the screen. Among the reasons Apple is able to offer the XR at a cheaper price point is eschewing an OLED panel in favor of a more traditional LCD. In terms of the fundamentals of the LCD in the iPhone XR, Apple continues to employ some of the best panels in the industry, and the iPhone XR is no exception to this. Brightness, contrast ratio (for an LCD), viewing angles, and colour calibration are all top-notch and will not disappoint.”
Apple’s A12 Bionic-powered iPhone XR comes in six new finishes: white, black, blue, yellow, coral and (PRODUCT)RED.
 
“Apple’s choice to go with an LCD display has a very important side-effect for the iPhone XR: because it avoids the double-edged sword that is a higher-end OLED, it also avoids the technology’s higher base power consumption,” Frumusanu writes. “This increased base power consumption was the reason why the XS Max lasted a notably shorter period of time than the iPhone 8 Plus. The iPhone XR avoids this problem, and in conjunction with the fantastic A12 SoC, the phone is able to achieve Apple’s best ever battery results in our tests. Lasting 25% longer than the iPhone XS Max, this represents a major improvement in battery life and is going to make all the difference for users who value it above everything else. For those users, the cheaper iPhone XR may very well be the better choice.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Battery life is certainly among iPhone XR’s many strong suits.
SEE ALSO:
Apple iPhone sales ‘explode’ following price cuts in China – February 1, 2019
Apple’s iPhone XR is for people upgrading from old phones, not for iPhone X owners – January 28, 2019
Apple CEO Cook: 6.1-inch iPhone XR is the ‘most popular’ iPhone and has been since its debut – January 9, 2019