Tests show iPhone XR screen just as durable as iPhone XS and XS Max
While the iPhone XR is at least $250 cheaper than any version of the iPhone XS, testing by an electronics insurance company shows that the display is just as resistant to breakage during a drop.
This is what happens to an iPhone XR dropped on a sidewalk.
The XR's LCD cracked on the first drop from 6 feet onto a sidewalk, becoming unusable, phone insurance firm SquareTrade said in a test video published on Monday. That result is identical to the OLED panel on the iPhone XS.
Both phones saw their back glass shatter under similar drops.
The video additionally shows a bend test for the XR, revealing that it takes about 260 pounds of pressure to flex the phone's metal chassis. That should prevent any "bendgate" problems as with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, though people should still avoid putting the phone in their back pocket in case they sit down.
SquareTrade's tests suggest that Apple's only real compromises with the XR are in features. Aside from the use of LCD, the XR has 3 gigabytes of RAM instead of 4, no 3D Touch, and a single-lens rear camera. The iPhone XS and iPhone XR share A12 processors, Face ID, edge-to-edge displays, and other technologies.
This is what happens to an iPhone XR dropped on a sidewalk.
The XR's LCD cracked on the first drop from 6 feet onto a sidewalk, becoming unusable, phone insurance firm SquareTrade said in a test video published on Monday. That result is identical to the OLED panel on the iPhone XS.
Both phones saw their back glass shatter under similar drops.
The video additionally shows a bend test for the XR, revealing that it takes about 260 pounds of pressure to flex the phone's metal chassis. That should prevent any "bendgate" problems as with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, though people should still avoid putting the phone in their back pocket in case they sit down.
SquareTrade's tests suggest that Apple's only real compromises with the XR are in features. Aside from the use of LCD, the XR has 3 gigabytes of RAM instead of 4, no 3D Touch, and a single-lens rear camera. The iPhone XS and iPhone XR share A12 processors, Face ID, edge-to-edge displays, and other technologies.
Comments
I was in Target yesterday and they had the Xr on display right next to the Xs. Side by side, I could see virtually no difference in the display quality and actually thought the Xr looked a little better, so I find it hard to argue that the screen on the Xr is a compromise.
Also, what memory does the display use? Is the benefit of the extra RAM in the Xs simply negated by the higher screen resolution? Subjectively, I noticed no difference between the phones when I played with them at Target, but that is far from a thorough evaluation.
I think the only real compromise in the Xr for most people will end up being the single lens camera and the lack of a telephoto lens.
What do you think people have been doing with the Plus-branded iPhones this whole time?
iPhone X and now Xs is way too expensive for a mobile phone.
XR is the one to buy!
No, the extra RAM in the XS and XS Max is not consumed handling the extra pixels. The XS Max has a 2688*1242 display with two color channels per pixel. Let's say 16 bits per channel, so each frame consumes 13,353,984 bytes of RAM. Triple-buffered, that's still only 40 MB. Meanwhile, the XR is 1792*828 pixels with three color channels per pixel. At 16 bits per channel, each frame consumes 8,902,656 bytes, so triple-buffered consumes 26.7 MB. The XS Max only takes 13.3 MB more. That number will increase or decrease depending on iOS' actual color channel depth, but shouldn't change that much.
In short, the XS and XS Max will be able to keep a few more things in RAM so switching between applications should require hitting the SSD less often. Not a huge deal, but might be noticeable to some people, especially in a few years.