iPhone XR Review From a Longtime iOS User

Hello Readers,

Today I will be talking about one of the newest and perhapsthe most interesting iPhone in the late 2018 iPhone Lineup. 

First off, some backstory 

I started at a new job… I was very excited and proud ofmyself and I told myself before I start my Job, I am going to treat myself to anew phone… Even though my phone at the time was still new to me (32GB iPhone6s) it was definitely a bit older given the fact it came out in 2015 it was bythe time it was replaced a 4-year-old phone… 

So originally, I was going to buy myself an iPhone XS 

But then I thought about it 

The differences between the XS and XR was $400

But what was really different 

+OLED Screen

Personally, I love the look of OLED Displays the colours arebright and vibrant and they just look awesome however the device I primary usefor media consumption was my iPad and I really didn’t have much of a reason forhaving the better screen… at least not at that cost

+Dual Lens Camera

Now a lot of people I know love taking photos on theirphones and value any camera feature they can get their hands on to but that’s notme to me video is far more important than the photos because coming from a 6sthe photos it took were still mind-blowing to me and I really liked the way thephotos looked. But when I first opened the camera on my iPhone XR It was stunning,I couldn’t believe the way it looked 

+Design 

I am not sure why I’ve never really been attracted to the glossierdesigns of certain item and like matt finishes a lot more and lucky me the aluminumaccomplishes that beautifully

Among other things 

But in the end, I would end up giving up some features thatreally mattered to me that the XR Offered

+Battery

I could not be happier with the XR Battery the batterymanagement software built into iOS is nothing short of spectacular my record atthe end of the day is 28% Remaining this was at 12:31 AM the next day before I setit on the charger 

+Cheaper Storage Upgrade

Now I can already hear my uncle (Big fan of android devices)getting ready to mention SD Cards but in my case SD Cards don’t really do what I’dlike them to for example I much rather the storage be internal… You don’t riskthe card dying or being corrupted and it is generally a lot faster anyways.

So, to me the XR Was a better value and that’s why I chooseit over the XS 

My configuration is 

Apple iPhone XR 128GB, Black, Unlocked

But how did that work out?

I have owned the phone for about a month now and overall, I amhappy 

I Bought the phone New Year’s Day 2019 

It was actually on my way to visit my grandfather (Papa) andI found the apple store was open and I was right next to the mall which happenedto have an apple store and I was like yea it’s probably not open I call justfor fun to find its open and I decided to go in and bought it that day… alongwith a case a long charger and a lightning to 3.5mm headphone adapter… whichshould have been included but I’ve let it go…

First Impressions

My first impressions taking it out of the box I was ratherimpressed with how the phone felt the last phone I’ve owned with a glass backwas my iPhone 4s technically the 5s, but I don’t count that as the back wasn’t madeof glass. Its mostly metal. Just holding it was nice and it felt very premium.I then booted it up connected it to the internet and started to play with it. Thefirst thing I noticed was the screen. Even though it wasn’t OLED and it wasn’t thehighest res device ever It still felt incredible and It looked like it to thegestures were easy to learn so navigating the operating system was easy to doand didn’t take me much time to get used to. But I’m fairly well experiencedwith learning to navigate new systems I mean I was one of the few earlyadopters of windows 8 the interface wasn’t what made me angry it was a list ofother things but I’m getting off topic I could write a whole list of what I didn’tlike about windows 8 but that’s for later on. The design was near perfectionand the operating system was just as good as any other iPhone… Except for iOS 9on the iPhone 4S that… that wasn’t very good but that was a 2015 operating systemon a 2011 phone so that’s acceptable. 

The camera 

I will start this by pointing out the fact that I do nottake many photos I really only take a photo if it’s something I want to share orremember (And there isn’t a lot of it)  andcoming from someone who thinks that the 7 Plus had a camera that couldn’t be toppedbut then I held my iPhone up to the very same 7+ that blew my mind in 2017 andeven the owner of the 7 was impressed by the single lens camera of the XR as anaddition having a camera that can come up to 4K@60FPS it makes me wonder howmuch longer there will be a need for the average consumer to own a dedicated camera

Battery 

The Battery… Coming from tons of different phones iPhonesandroids 

This is an amazing battery… It rivals my iPad

My record is 28% after a heavy day of useable speaking ofpower 

I love the wireless charging capability I have been tryingto find a way to add wireless charging without disassembling the phone… don’t getthe wrong idea I am not afraid of the inside of the iPhone I disassembled myiPhone 6 and rebuilt it to repair corrosion on the board but I didn’t want togo to that extent because there’d be no way to say how reliable that would be. So,the experiment consisted of poor lightning to Qi adapters and it didn’t really likethe case I had which wasn’t a big case (Speck Presidio Grip) I decided toabandon the project and ensure my next phone would have it. It is by far thecoolest and most convenient way to charge my phone and it worked with myfavourite case I have for it (UAG Monarch Carbon Fibre).

Price

The price for me totaled to be about a little over 1400because I wanted to buy it outright, I wanted a storage upgrade and I wantedapple care… It would have been stupid not to get apple care on a phone thisexpensive in the end its cheaper than if I were to have gone for the XS byabout 400$ and I end up getting a phone with a few things missing but a fewthings added but the things that were missing were still an improvement fromthe 6s so the question wasn’t am I getting an upgrade its how much of an upgradeam I getting but it was enough of an upgrade to the point it feels like I’mgetting a new phone. With the exception of 3D touch but I never used that muchanyways.

Conclusion 

In the end I am happy with the iPhone XR it is a verypremium device that nails all the basics like a good battery going through thephone is very fast the screen is very nice to look at regardless of it nothaving as high of a resolution as its S siblings and I am happy with it justnot happy with the fact that I had to spend 10 CAD on a lightning to 3.5mmheadphone adapter even if I’m not likely to use it often.