Apple on Wednesday debuted the iPhone XR handset, which offers a 6.1-inch LCD Liquid Retina display, powered by the A12 Bionic chip, True Depth camera system powering Face ID, and an advanced single lens camera system offering portrait capabilities.
While offering design similar to the more expensive iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, also unveiled on Wednesday, the edges are wrapped in aluminum instead of its more-expensive brethren’s stainless steel. An all glass back face allows wireless charging.
The iPhone XR is available in six new finishes: white, black, blue, yellow, coral and (PRODUCT)RED. This new design is splash and water resistant, with a rating of IP67, and protects against everyday spills including coffee, tea and soda.
Apple says the XR’s Liquid Retina display is the most color accurate in the industry, offering wide color support and True Tone for a more natural viewing experience.
Precision-milled glass, advanced pixel masking and sub-pixel antialiasing allows the display to follow the curves of the device, while a new backlight design enables the display to stretch into the corners.
iPhone XR supports iPhone gestures like tap to wake, swipe up to the home screen, swipe down to access notifications and the Control Center, and the new haptic touch feature for pressing on the home screen to instantly launch the camera or flashlight.
The A12 Bionic chip powering the new iPhones features a six-core fusion architecture with two performance cores that are up to 15 percent faster, four efficiency cores that are up to 50 percent more efficient, a four-core GPU that is up to 50 percent faster, powerful Apple-designed Image Signal Processor (ISP), video encoder and more.
As far as battery life goes, the iPhone XR lasts up to an hour and a half longer than iPhone 8 Plus.
The iPhone XR features a 12-megapixel f/1.8 aperture wide-angle lens with an all-new sensor, delivering faster auto-focus, while larger and deeper pixels improve image fidelity and low-light performance on photos and videos. Improvements to the ISP, Neural Engine and improved software algorithms enable portrait photos with a beautiful bokeh effect. Smart HDR brings better highlight and shadow detail across photos.
The iPhone XR will be available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB models in white, black, blue, yellow, coral and (PRODUCT)RED starting at $749 (US) from apple.com and Apple Stores, and is also available through Apple Authorized Resellers and select carriers (prices may vary).
