iPhone XR
|
iPhone XR
Brilliant. In every way.
| |||||
| White | Black | Blue | Yellow | Coral | RED |
| iPhone XR — Technical Specifications (Apple Support) | |||||
[ Show / Hide ]
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The iPhone XR (pronounced "ten-R") is a smartphone designed and marketed by Apple, announced on September 12, 2018, alongside the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, and released on October 26, 2018. It was Apple's answer to the iPhone X's biggest problem — the price — and its most successful application of the lesson learned from the iPhone 5c: make the affordable model feel like a choice, not a consolation.
The XR delivered the X generation's essence — the all-screen notched design, Face ID, gestures, and the exact same A12 Bionic chip as the XS — for $749, trimming where buyers could see the logic: an aluminum frame instead of steel, a 6.1-inch "Liquid Retina" LCD instead of OLED, a single camera instead of two, and no 3D Touch. In exchange it offered six colors (reviving the 5c's playfulness at flagship quality) and, thanks to the LCD's efficiency and a big cell, the best battery life of any iPhone to date.
The bet worked completely: the XR was the world's best-selling smartphone model of 2019, outsold both XS models combined, and stayed in the lineup until 2021.
1 Design✎
The XR sits between the XS and XS Max in size — a 6.1-inch display in an aerospace-aluminum band between glass — at 194 g. The six anodized finishes (White, Black, Blue, Yellow, Coral, and (PRODUCT)RED from day one) made color the model's identity, saturating Apple's launch marketing. Its bezels run slightly thicker than the OLED models' — the price of LCD's edge-lighting — a detail reviewers noted and buyers demonstrably did not care about. IP67 (versus the XS's IP68), Qi charging, and stereo speakers carried the generation's kit.
2 Display✎
The 6.1-inch "Liquid Retina" LCD — 1828 × 828 at 326 ppi — was widely pre-judged and post-vindicated: the same 326 ppi density every non-Plus LCD iPhone had shipped since 2010, with the X's rounded-corner engineering (each corner pixel-masked and subpixel-antialiased), True Tone, wide color, and the tap-to-wake feature of its OLED siblings. What it lacked: OLED blacks, HDR, 3D Touch (replaced by Haptic Touch — a long-press with haptic confirmation), and resolution above 1080p-class. Reviews called it the best LCD ever fitted to a phone and, at normal distance, hard to distinguish from the XS in most content.
3 Hardware✎
| Developer | Apple |
|---|---|
| Generation | 12th |
| Announced | September 12, 2018 |
| Released | October 26, 2018 |
| Discontinued | September 14, 2021 |
| Predecessor | iPhone 8 (price tier) |
| Related | iPhone XS · iPhone XS Max |
| Successor | iPhone 11 |
| Display | 6.1-inch Liquid Retina IPS LCD 1792 × 828 (326 ppi) True Tone · wide color · Haptic Touch |
| Chip | Apple A12 Bionic (2 + 4 cores, 7 nm · 8-core Neural Engine) |
| RAM | 3 GB |
| Storage | 64 GB · 128 GB · 256 GB |
| Rear camera | 12 MP wide, f/1.8, OIS Smart HDR · Portrait mode (1 lens) 4K 60 fps |
| Front camera | 7 MP TrueDepth · Face ID |
| Battery | 2,942 mAh · Qi wireless charging (best iPhone battery life to date) |
| Durability | IP67 · aluminum frame |
| Colors | White · Black · Blue · Yellow · Coral · (PRODUCT)RED |
| Launch price | $749 (64 GB) · $799 (128 GB) · $899 (256 GB) |
| OS | iOS 12.0 ~ 18 |
The XR's decisive spec was the one it didn't cut: the A12 Bionic — the industry's first 7-nanometer chip, with an eight-core Neural Engine — identical to the $1,449-topping XS Max's. Combined with the lower-resolution display, the XR actually outperformed its expensive siblings in sustained loads and, with its 2,942 mAh cell, outlasted every iPhone before it by ninety minutes or more. The 128 GB middle tier — absent from the XS pair — was the value lineup's quiet masterstroke.
4 Camera✎
The single 12-megapixel wide camera was the XS's main sensor without the telephoto: same Smart HDR, same OIS, same 4K 60. Portrait mode worked through machine learning alone — the Neural Engine segmenting people (only people, at launch) from background without parallax depth — with three of the five Portrait Lighting effects. Comparisons found its portraits slightly less layered than the XS's but its everyday photos identical, at three-quarters the price.
5 Software✎
Shipped with iOS 12 — the performance-focused release — and introduced Haptic Touch as 3D Touch's designated successor; when Apple dropped 3D Touch hardware entirely a year later, the XR's interaction model became the platform's. It received seven major updates, through iOS 18, its final major version — retiring with the A12's other phones as iOS 26 moved the floor to newer silicon.
6 Release and reception✎
Positioned a month behind the XS launch, the XR immediately reframed the generation's reviews: verdict after verdict concluded that "most people should buy the XR." The display compromise dominated pre-release discussion and evaporated on contact; the battery life, colors, and price did the selling. Criticisms — bezels, single camera, LCD — read as footnotes against the value.
Market data made it emphatic: the best-selling smartphone in the world for 2019 by multiple trackers, the top iPhone in Apple's own mix every quarter it led the value tier. It fell to $599 when the iPhone 11 succeeded it, then $499, and was discontinued on September 14, 2021.
7 Legacy✎
The XR ended the "cheap iPhone" curse: where the 5c had felt lesser and sold accordingly, the XR felt like the sensible flagship and became the world's best-selling phone. Its formula — same chip as the flagship, one camera fewer, LCD-class display, better battery, real colors — became the iPhone 11 (the same strategy, renamed), and its Haptic Touch interaction quietly replaced 3D Touch platform-wide. The value tier it defined runs through the current lineup's iPhone 17e.