By definition, the iPhone XR(opens in a new tab) is lacking. Its screen resolution is less than 1080p, the bezels are thicker than on most other phones with edge-to-edge displays, and the display is an LCD instead of an OLED. It has just one camera on the back, not two. Its frame is aluminum instead of stainless steel. It’s not as thin as many iPhones, including last year's models.

Yet, none of these “missing” or downgraded features makes the iPhone XR feel any less of an iPhone than the pricier iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max(opens in a new tab).

The iPhone XR is the iPhone for everyone. It's every bit as powerful as the iPhone XS and XS Max. The cameras take stunning photos. It comes in six vibrant colors. And it starts at $749, which is less than a Google Pixel 3(opens in a new tab) and not much more than a Samsung Galaxy S9(opens in a new tab).

After setting up Mashable's review unit as my main phone, I worried whether I’d become annoyed by the iPhone XR’s extra girth in my pocket. I wondered if the thicker bezels would distract from the screen.

Mostly, though, I was curious about the camera. I wondered if I could make do without have the versatility of a secondary telephoto lens. I wanted to see if the blurred-focus portrait mode effects, which Apple(opens in a new tab) popularized on smartphones with its dual-camera systems, were as good with a single lens. And I was curious just how effective it was when compared to the other big phones of the moment.

To really put the iPhone XR camera through its paces and show how effective it can be, we decided to give it a serious challenge: We used it to shoot all the product shots and video footage in this review. Typically we use either a DSLR or mirrorless camera to do product shots, so it ended up being an effective test to see how the iPhone XR fared in a “pro” level challenge. And given how far smartphone cameras have come, we think that’s fair — some professionals are even using smartphones to shoot magazine covers(opens in a new tab), after all.

I’m not a psychic, but I can probably guess the burning question on your mind: What does the “R” in iPhone XR stand for?

While Apple Senior Vice President of Marketing Phil Schiller has only ever explained what the “S” has stood for in one iPhone(opens in a new tab) — spoiler, it’s speed — the “S” model has now become known as the “tock” to the “tick” of the numbered iPhones. S year iPhones usually mean a repeat of the same physical design with mostly internal and feature upgrades.

Apple switched things up in 2013 with the iPhone 5C, which was really a rebadged iPhone 5 in an “unapologetically plastic” shell that came in five colors.

The iPhone XR is similar, but different. With this release, Apple has brought back an array of attractive colors (blue, red, coral, yellow, black, and white) as well as a new letter — this time an R instead of an S or C. It’s officially pronounced "iPhone ten-are," but most people will certainly end up calling it the "iPhone ecks-are" since that’s how it reads.

So what does the R stand for? In a briefing on the XR, Apple told me it doesn’t stand for anything. Apple went with a letter it’s never used before so people would have a different expectation for the device compared to, perhaps, the “S” iPhones.

A more satisfying, but not entirely definitive answer, is that some sports cars use “R” and “S” in their model names. Sports cars are fast, and the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max are the fastest phones you can get, according to Apple. So tacking on the letter R to "iPhone X" is a good analogy for representing speed and sleekness.

I have always been a picky person. It’s this obsessiveness over details that sometimes makes it hard for my friends and family to tolerate me.

Whenever I get a new phone (and I get a lot them because I review so many in a year) and excitedly show it to my friends, they always ask me what’s so special about it? What’s new that makes it worth upgrading to? Why should they care?

I usually end up waxing poetic about things like slimmer bezels, and thinness, and materials, and cameras. And every time I know I’ve lost them almost immediately after geeking out.

The simple truth is: Most people don’t give a hoot about these things. While I’m crying over the size of a notch, they don’t care. While I’m nitpicking about phones having a “chin” or “forehead” bezel, they only care if the screen is bigger. While I’m like, “oh this phone is a whole millimeter thicker than another phone,” they’re like, “I’m gonna put an Otterbox on it to protect it.”

As a tech reviewer, I’m exposed to all kinds of devices, and the differences between one phone and another jump out at me. In reality, these nuances pass right over most people.

Split apart, the iPhone XR’s features appear insufficient compared to the iPhone XS’s. Weighed together, though, it’s crystal clear the phone is not lacking at all as a premium device packed with some of the best mobile technologies available.

I’ve been using the yellow iPhone XR for a week, and oooh, is it gorgeous. Besides pairing well with my yellow sunglasses(opens in a new tab), the color just makes me happy. Imagine that: In 2018, when phone anxiety is real and tech companies are inventing new ways to make us use our phones less, a gadget’s brightly colored paint job actually puts me at ease.

The five other colors the iPhone XR comes in are just as fun. I have a soft spot for the coral after yellow.

The metal frame is made from a strengthened aluminum and not the scientific-sounding “surgical-grade stainless steel” that the iPhone XS (and XS Max) frame is cut from, but it doesn’t feel any less premium.

In fact, I’d say because the iPhone XR’s 0.33 of an inch thick (8.3mm) and fatter than the 0.30-inch (7.7mm) iPhone XS/XS Max, going with aluminum helps balance the phone so it doesn’t feel as heavy as it otherwise might. Aluminum is also easier to grip than stainless steel. Extra bonus: It doesn’t attract fingerprints.

Besides the difference in metal, the iPhone XR is IP67 water- and dust-resistant (submergible in up to 3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes). The iPhone XS phones are IP68 rated, giving them double the water depth submersion, but unless you’re worried about it dropping your iPhone in a lake or the ocean, IP67 is still darn good. The iPhone XR can also easily survive a splash of beer, tea, coffee, soda, etc.

The glass back, which lets the iPhone XR support wireless charging, is as durable as the glass on the iPhone X. Meanwhile, the front glass appears as scratch-resistant as on the iPhone XS.

The iPhone XR still lacks a headphone jack — I feel like a parrot reminding people to stop mourning its loss and move on to either wireless headphones or earbuds like AirPods — but at least the stereo speakers are louder and have a wider soundstage.

To the ear, the speakers on the iPhone XR played just as loud as those on the iPhone XS or even the iPhone XS Max. However, the speakers on the Pixel 3 sound slightly clearer, probably because both speakers on the Pixel are front-facing whereas one of the speakers on the iPhone XR is along the bottom of the phone (the other is the earpiece).

Like the iPhone XS, the iPhone XR supports dual SIM. In the U.S., there’s a single nano SIM card slot, and you have the option to activate a second eSIM. Per Apple’s website(opens in a new tab), if you use two SIMs, you can make and receive calls and send and receive messages from both phone numbers. However, you can only access one data network at a time.

However, dual-SIM support won’t be ready until later this year, so I haven’t tried it (I did see it in action during a demo with Apple, but only briefly). In China, the iPhone XR, like the iPhone XS and XS Max, will include a SIM card tray with two nano SIM card slots, ostensibly because eSIM isn’t as widely available in China.

With a 6.1-inch screen, the iPhone XR has a larger display than the 5.5-inch iPhone 8 Plus and the 5.8-inch iPhone X/XS, and it’s just barely smaller than the 6.5-inch iPhone XS Max.

Physically, it slots right in-between the iPhone XS and XS Max. In that sense, it’s counterintuitive — it’s a bigger screen than the iPhone XS without the larger price tag that comes with it.

The main trade-off of the display is the screen technology. It uses an LCD “Liquid Retina” display compared to the iPhone XS’s OLED “Super Retina” display.

The advantages of OLED over LCD are numerous: OLED displays produce deeper blacks, are capable of better brightness and contrast, and tend to have more accurate color reproduction. OLED screens are also more power efficient since they — to get nerdy for a second here — light up each individual pixel only when it’s necessary to do so (black pixels are completely “off” which is why they’re so dark), whereas an LCD needs a backlight that individual pixels block when they’re black (though it’s hard to block the light completely). Since OLEDs don’t have a backlight, they’re also thinner.

However, Apple’s LCD technology has always been a cut above everyone else’s, and the LCD screen on the iPhone XR is no different. Apple calls it the most advanced LCD ever made with a faster 120Hz touch-sensing rate for more touchscreen responsiveness (the display still refreshes at 60Hz for viewing content, though).

Not only has Apple applied a lot of nerdy stuff like “advanced pixel masking” and “sub-pixel anti-aliasing” to curve the corners of the screen and make the bezels uniform on all sides, it says the display has better color accuracy the iPhone 8. Side-by-side with an iPhone 8 Plus, the iPhone XR does look better in my opinion. You can also tap on the screen to wake it (good for checking the time and notifications) just like on the iPhone XS; this is something you can’t do on the previous iPhones 8 and any other iPhone with an LCD screen, for that matter.

Phone geeks will complain about the iPhone XR’s 1,729 x 828 resolution and 326 pixels-per-inch (ppi) display density, but that won’t change the fact the screen’s really bright, colors reproduction is great, and viewing angles are really wide.

As proof that resolution doesn’t matter and image quality matters more, I confess I don’t even know what the iPhone XS and XS Max’s resolutions are without looking at a spec sheet. Apple’s iPhones don’t usually use conventional screen resolutions like 2,960 x 1,440 or 2,880 x 1,080, because most people don’t buy a phone based on pixel count. If that were the case, Sony’s 4K smartphones wouldn’t have flopped so hard.

The bottom line is: The iPhone XR’s screen looks terrific and unless you’re comparing it to the iPhone XS, you’re not gonna find much to dislike. Sure, you’re giving up deeper blacks for a very dark gray, and the XR’s screen isn’t HDR-ready like on the XS, but neither of these are deal breakers.

The same goes for the thicker bezels around the display. They were larger than I remembered from my hands-on with them back in September, but they didn’t bother me at all. Almost all the time, you’re looking at the screen, not the bezels around it. At the same time, some people are bound to find them downright distasteful. If you’re that person, there’s always the iPhone XS models or Android phones like the OnePlus 6 or LG V40 ThinQ, which have thinner top and side bezels, but do come with a bottom “chin.”

I even asked a couple of colleagues what they thought about the bezels — people who are considering upgrading to the iPhone XR from an older phone like an 6, 6S, and 7 Plus — and the litmus test was just as I expected: non-techies couldn’t care less about the bezel.

One feature I personally feel is a real downgrade from other iPhones is Haptic Touch. Yes, I know most people don't even use 3D Touch on their iPhones, but I really like it(opens in a new tab), despite its flaws.

Haptic Touch is similar, but different to 3D Touch. Whereas 3D Touch detects how hard you press into the screen, Haptic Touch is just a long press with a vibration.

3D Touch is more versatile and works on app icons and within apps. Haptic Touch only works in some places, like when you're long-pressing the flashlight and camera buttons on the lock screen, the shortcut buttons in Control Center, or on the space bar on the keyboard to turn it into a cursor(opens in a new tab).

I know I’m in the minority that’s pro-3D Touch and I think most people won't mind its replacement with Haptic Touch, but its no-show on the iPhone XR sort of fragments the iPhone experience across Apple’s lineup.

While I can’t say I miss the app shortcuts (the equivalent of a right-click to bring up a menu of shortcuts) when an app icon is 3D touched, I did miss the “Peek” feature, which lets you preview something like a website link or a photo with a light press and then “Pop” with an even harder press to expand it full screen. These features are especially useful in apps like Instagram and Twitter.

Haptic Touch is limited right now, but Apple told me it’s possible its use could be expanded elsewhere in iOS in the future.

And the notch? Old news. The notch is there because it houses the TrueDepth camera system, which includes a 7-megapixel camera for selfies and a suite of sensors for Face ID and face tracking. It’s the tech that makes Animoji and Memoji possible.

There are many other phones with smaller notches and face unlock, but those are almost always less secure and can sometimes be fooled by photos. I’ve never been able to trick Face ID to unlock with a photo, though having a twin(opens in a new tab) is a different story.

On the iPhone XR, Face ID is faster than on the iPhone X and as quick to unlock as on the iPhone XS models. While it doesn’t work in landscape mode, I found Face ID to work better off-angle compared to my iPhone X.

We all want our smartphone’s camera to be amazing, getting good, sharper photos in all kinds of situations and conditions — even low light. The iPhone XR has the same front- and rear-facing cameras as on the iPhone XS models, minus the secondary 2x telephoto lens on the rear, of course.

I lamented the loss of that lens at first but then stepped back to count the number of times I’ve ever used the 2x telephoto lens and actually share the shot. For me, it wasn’t many. While the 2x optical zoom is useful to sharpen shots from afar, I can’t say I’ve used it more than portrait mode, the other major ability the secondary lens bestows.

Up until the iPhone XR, portrait mode from the back camera required the second lens to create a depth map, which provides the data that tells the phone what’s in the foreground and what’s in the background before blurring out the latter.

Apple introduced portrait mode on the iPhone 7 Plus and didn’t really improve it until the iPhone X. It then stepped things up again for the iPhone XS and XS Max. But as Google demonstrated with its Pixel 2, you don’t need a secondary camera for portrait-style shots if you can train AI with machine learning to analyze a photo and figure out which objects are in the foreground. Once you’ve done that, it’s (relatively) trivial to isolate them from the background and process them however you want (usually by enhancing the bokeh effect).

The iPhone XR’s 12-megapixel camera has a f/1.8 aperture — identical to the iPhone XS’s main camera. But whereas the iPhone XS uses the telephoto lens to create portrait shots, the iPhone XR relies on machine learning to perform the same trick.

Apple says it trained the Neural Engine in the phone’s A12 Bionic chip to identify faces specifically for portrait mode. As a result, it can blur out the background, but only when a person is detected in the frame. If the camera doesn’t see a person, it’ll display “No person detected.”

When I asked Apple if it might be possible to train portrait mode on the iPhone XR to identify pets or other objects, it didn’t rule out the possibility but didn’t make any promises.

So how good are portraits with a single camera compared to portraits on the iPhone XS/XS Max with dual cameras? Actually, not bad at all.

As you can see in the portrait photos below of our Executive Editor Annie Colbert, the iPhone XR does a good job isolating the background. The focal length is of course different — the iPhone XR’s portrait mode takes photos equivalent to a 24mm camera lens (wider) and the iPhone XS’s portrait mode takes shots comparable to a 50mm camera lens (closer) — but it’s not as poor as I had expected.

Even zooming in, the iPhone XR's edge-detection for the subject is quite good. It's not always perfect — if your hair's in more strands and the borders of a person are more jagged, portrait mode can get confused. If you take a look at this front portrait selfie(opens in a new tab) Mashable Tech Editor Pete Pachal took indoors with the iPhone XR's portrait mode, you can see the camera blurred most of his hair right out. 

Different lighting conditions will affect the quality of portrait photos. In my experience, shooting outdoors produces the best portraits with the cleanest separation between foreground and background. It also helps to tap a person's face to focus on it as the foreground.

The shape and quality of the bokeh (the background blur) is also fundamentally different on the iPhone XR vs. the iPhone XS and XS Max. This is because light bends through a lens’ glass differently at different focal lengths (measured in millimeters) and at different apertures (measured with an f-stop number such as f/1.8 or f/2.2).

The difference in bokeh shape is especially noticeable when you edit a photo’s depth using the new depth editor tool in iOS 12. As I saw when shooting with the Pixel 3’s, the iPhone XS bokeh resembles more like a real SLR’s, whereas the Pixel 3’s bokeh (impressive as it is) looks like a gaussian blur effect yanked from Photoshop.

Apple tells me the iPhone team actually used complex optical mathematical models in machine learning to realistically mimic the bokeh from a real SLR lens. It’s nerdy stuff a guy like me really appreciates, but at the end of the day further spells the doom of bulkier interchangeable-lens cameras like DSLRs and mirrorless models.

If you’re into the portrait lighting effects on the iPhone X and iPhone XS, you might be disappointed to find the XR has doesn’t have the Studio Light and Studio Light Mono effects; those require the depth data from a secondary camera lens, I’m told.

Portrait mode also works with the front 7-megapixel (f/1.8) camera. It works as well as on the iPhone XS/XS Max and better than on the iPhone X. There are also no missing portrait lighting effects for the front (selfie) camera. Gotta hand it to the Pixel 3's camera, though — it really takes a crisp selfie.

Otherwise, the iPhone XR’s cameras take shots that are just as good if not sometimes better than the iPhone XS’s. I personally prefer the more true-to-life colors compared to the same shots taken by the Pixel 3 or Galaxy Note 9, but you might disagree.

Using the same Smart HDR camera technology in the iPhone XS, the iPhone XR does a better job with exposure on photos with a lot of dynamic range than on the iPhone 8 phones or the iPhone X, especially in low-light scenarios.

Furthermore, the iPhone XR benefits from 2x faster autofocusing as well as optical image stabilization. Taken together, all these features will let you get better shots in all kinds of day-to-day situations.

The below riverside photos were shot on a cold, but sunny weekday morning. Notice how the iPhone XR and XS preserve more of the highlights in the rocks in the foreground compared to the more overblown results from the Pixel 3 and Galaxy Note 9.

For whatever reason, people love taking photos in places where it's really dark, like bars. So I put the iPhone XR to the test during a recent company happy hour with my colleagues as my models.

I let the camera autofocus on its own (like in virtually all of the camera samples in this review) and while the Pixel 3 creates a bright image, the picture quality was also softer than the iPhone XR and XS. 

I asked both of these awesome coworkers which photo they preferred and they both picked the iPhone XR. For me, the iPhone XS appears to be a hair sharper.

Even worse than taking photos in a bar is taking selfies (or group selfies) in a bar. Each camera was set to auto and each one chose to fire off the screen as a flash to illuminate our faces. The results speak for themselves I think. The iPhone XR and iPhone XS look the least harsh, but the Pixel 3 produces even lighting to expose both our faces and the background.

That said, you can see Pixel 3's selfie does look like it's artificially lit. The brighter reflections on our faces are dead giveaways. Personally, I think the iPhone XS does a good job making our faces look naturally lit while also exposing the background without ruining the mood that we're in this dimly lit place.

I took the iPhone XR to Brooklyn Bridge Park to further test the iPhone XR's low-light shooting. As I watched the sunset cast an orange glow on the bridge and skyline, I snapped some quick shots on all four cameras to compare.

Here I prefer the iPhone XR's shot even over the iPhone XS. The sky's just a shade bluer on the iPhone XR compared to the iPhone XS, which is what it looked like IRL. The Pixel 3's photo looks bland in comparison with a duller gray-filled sky and the Galaxy Note 9's shot is way too cool and crushes the orange sunset.

Moving on to a closer low-light shot to see how well the cameras' HDR performs I went and took these shots of Jane's Carousel before an attendant walked in front to block my picture-taking.

Just like in my test of the iPhone XS's cameras in Grand Central Terminal, the iPhone XR's Smart HDR works wonders for low-light exposures. At first glance, the Pixel 3's photo looks crispy, but look at the light halos around the bulbs (especially on the first row of bulbs just above the wooden horses). On iPhone XR and XS, they're more defined and the color temperature (warm as it is) is accurate. And for once, the Galaxy Note 9 does a decent job in my camera shootouts, but neither it or the Pixel 3 compares to the iPhones.

If you've read this far, you've seen the iPhone XR camera samples and you've seen most of the product shots and the video — all of which were shot with an iPhone XR — and you're either impressed like we are or disappointed. 

As a technology journalist, my work is defined by not just the text, but the images and videos that make a story or review a complete package.

Over the years, I've downsized my gear, choosing a balance between devices that are lighter, but can also get the job done. It's my job and goal to make the content look so good you don't even stop to think about the gear behind it. Because who really cares if you're shooting with a DSLR or an iPhone if the results are comparable? If I didn't tell you at the start that we shot all of our product shots and video with an iPhone XR, would you have even noticed? My guess is most of you wouldn't, especially if you're reading this on your phone.

While I think the photos and product shots are proof enough that the iPhone XR's camera is capable of shooting professional-quality content, I also wanted to see how it'd compare to my Sony A6300(opens in a new tab) mirrorless camera, which I often use to shoot many of the photos for my reviews. How does the iPhone XR stack up? 

(For transparency: All product photos were taken with the XR camera or were screenshots taken from 4K-resolution video clips and lightly edited as with all our regular product shots in our other reviews that are taken with a DSLR or mirrorless camera.)

As you can see for yourself, the two cameras are close. With shot both sets with the iPhone XR set to its default field of view (equivalent to a 24mm lens) and set my 16-50mm Sony A6300 kit lens to the same focal length. After each shot was taken, I opened both in Photoshop and increased only the brightness. I cropped the iPhone XR shot to match the A6300's aspect ratio.

The results are very interesting to compare. In the top shot photo, the iPhone XR does a better job exposing both the iPhone XR and the background — no doubt because of the Smart HDR which increases dynamic range. The A6300 is left in the dust with an overexposed skyline.

But in the second shot, because my A6300's lens is a zoom lens, it was able to shoot the iPhone XR without casting any reflections. With the iPhone XR, you have to get up close to get the same shot. I could have used tricks like placing a whiteboard in front of the phone to reduce the reflections, but for this exercise I didn't.

So what have we learned? A lot, really. First, the iPhone XS is a great camera and in the hands of a skilled shooter, can take professional-quality photos. And second, an expensive "real" camera doesn't necessarily mean you'll get better photos if you don't know how to adjust its settings.

It was no easy task, but I’ve now reviewed just about all of the top smartphone cameras of 2018. Each camera has its own spin on image quality.

iPhone XS and XR cameras tend to lean towards more accurate colors, Galaxy S9 and Note 9 cameras take super-saturated photos, and the Pixel 3 uses machine learning to produce more contrasty and artificially sharpened images.

All are fine cameras if you know how to manipulate the camera and editing to get the results you want and, ultimately, which phones’ photos you like is a matter of personal preference. I prefer the iPhone’s lifelike colors, which gives me more room for editing later. But others swear by the Pixel 3’s cameras, which I admit look processed to fit many of the photographic aesthetics that are popular on Instagram.

At the end of the day, you should pick the camera images that please you, not what anyone else prefers. Once again, I leave you with a gallery of my favorite shots from straight out of the iPhone XR’s cameras (no edits).

Feel free to hit me up on Twitter @raywongy(opens in a new tab) or on Instagram @sourlemons(opens in a new tab) if you wanna argue to the death about why another phone’s cameras might be superior. I love a good open discussion on phone photography. (No trolling, please.)

In the Android world, a more expensive phone is expected to come with the most powerful system-on-chip (SoC) available at its time of release, and a less expensive phone, often called a “midrange” device, usually comes with a less powerful chipset.

There are exceptions like the OnePlus phones, which typically use the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon chips as phones that cost hundreds more, but the rule generally sticks with: pay more to get more and pay less and get less.

Apple doesn’t follow this rule for the iPhone — at least it hasn’t in the last two years. Though the iPhone XR lacks some of the more advanced features from the iPhone XS, the silicon, or brain of the phone, is the exact same A12 Bionic chip as on its $999+ siblings.

In our iPhone XS and XS Max review, I detailed the tremendous power Apple’s custom A12 Bionic chip is capable of. It has processing power that’s up to 15 percent faster and graphics performance that’s up to 50 percent faster than in the iPhone X.

While it’s sometimes the case that phone makers throttle or intentionally slow down a processor in its more affordable devices to prevent overheating, I saw no significant performance difference between the iPhone XR and iPhone XS/XS Max.

Running three tests in the Geekbench 4 CPU benchmarking app and then getting the average, the iPhone XR scored 4,773 on the single-core test and 11,301 on the multi-core test.

That makes the iPhone XR 12.52 percent faster on single-core computations and 9.7 percent faster at multi-core processing than on my iPhone X. And compared to iPhone XS, the iPhone XR’s only 1 percent slower on single-core and 0.8 percent on multi-core tasks.

In other words, allowing for margin of error in the app, the iPhone XR is as fast as the iPhone XS and XS Max and still blows away any Android phone.

Google’s Pixel 3 and 3 XL weren’t available yet when the iPhone XS phones launched, but if you compare the benchmark scores, the iPhone XR is clearly the more powerful phone. Its 102.42 percent faster at single-core and 86.3 percent faster at multi-core computations than Google’s latest.

The iPhone XR’s power is the result of Apple’s own custom-designed silicon. The A12 Bionic chip enjoys the performance lead it has over Android phones that use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chips(opens in a new tab) because the software, iOS 12, is tuned to work most efficiently with the hardware.

The real-life power of the A12 Bionic is felt all throughout iOS 12. It’s what makes the operating system flow without hiccups, it makes 3D games look and run smoother than Android, it allows you to actually process 4K video without spending all day waiting for files to render.

And the A12 Bionic ensures everything from augmented reality with the Neural Engine, to the cameras with their improved image signal processing and Smart HDR, to the security of Face ID work are working properly.

In several AR games like AR Blast, I saw no performance difference between the iPhone XR and iPhone XS/XS Max.

If you’ve got an older iOS device that’s been updated to iOS 12, you’ll already know of the many changes and improvements that make it a no-brainer install.

Features like group notifications, Siri Shortcuts, Screen Time, updated Apple apps (Photos, Books, Stocks, etc.), and two-factor authentication autofill are notable improvements. And for the first time on a non-$1,000 iPhone, the iPhone XR supports Animoji and Memoji. Maybe these goofy avatars aren’t your thing, but I think a lot of people are going to get into them the same way people obsessed over Nintendo’s Miis. I know my mom really loves playing with Animoji whenever I let her play with them. The real fun with Animoji and Memoji has still yet to come with Group FaceTime, which’ll let anyone show up to a video call as a digital avatar.

For our full review of iOS 12 and why it’s a must-download for older supported devices and a rundown of its many other features, be sure to check out our in-depth review here(opens in a new tab).

The only performance spec where you might notice a difference between the iPhone XR and iPhone XS models is cellular speeds.

The iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are Apple’s first devices to support gigabit LTE, which in layman’s terms means “really, really fast LTE.” The iPhone XR in comparison supports LTE-Advanced, which is slower than gigabit LTE, but still quite good.

On paper, download and upload speeds over LTE should be slower on the iPhone XR versus on the iPhone XS. But as always, that’s a best-case theoretical scenario that’s entirely dependent on your wireless carrier.

I used a Verizon SIM card and ran the Ookla Speedtest(opens in a new tab) app (disclosure: Mashable parent company Ziff Davis also owns Ookla) and found inconsistent speeds between the iPhone XR and XS.

On my first test, the iPhone XR managed an 8.63 Mbps download speed and a 4.64 Mbps upload speed. On the same server, the iPhone XS averaged 8.08 Mbps for download speed and 3.76 Mbps on uploads.

Running another test and selecting a different server, the iPhone XR pulled down 22 Mbps downloads and 27.4 Mbps uploads, in contrast to the iPhone XS’s 35.1 Mbps download and 9.44 Mbps upload.

As you can see, sometimes you’ll get faster faster LTE speeds and sometimes you won’t. But that’s also the case with any other phone. Actual real-world LTE speeds depend on a number of factors including where you’re connecting from and whether there’s a network congestion or not.

Should you be concerned the iPhone XR doesn’t support gigabit LTE? Not at all. While gigabit LTE promises much faster speeds, chances are you’ll never see the peak download and upload speeds touted in lab tests. Even with 5G on the horizon, LTE is still going to be around for many years and so it’s not like the iPhone XR’s LTE capabilities will be insufficient two or even four years from now.

It’s interesting how Apple compares the battery breakdown on its website(opens in a new tab). The iPhone XS is advertised with one hour longer battery life than the iPhone X. The iPhone XS Max lasts 1.5 hours more than the iPhone X. And Apple says the iPhone XR lasts 1.5 hours compared to the iPhone 8 Plus.

Beyond suggesting how Apple sees the XR (hint: as a replacement for Plus-sized iPhones), it also sets expectations lower.

With the iPhone XS and XS Max, I consistently got a day and half of battery life, which was on par with the previous Plus-sized iPhones. The iPhone XR has a 2,942 mAh compared to the iPhone XS’s 2,658 mAh battery and the iPhone XS Max’s 3,174 mAh battery.

Disregarding specs because iOS and the A12 Bionic are more power efficient compared to Android phones, which need larger batteries with bigger capacities to run as long, the iPhone XR lasted longer than I expected it would.

Because the screen is so bright, I dialed the brightness down to 50-60 percent, and managed to get anywhere between 2-4 more hours than the iPhone XS and XS Max. Battery life is quite impressive to say the least and if you’re looking for the maybe the longest-lasting iPhone, the XR appears to be the battery life champ.

The iPhone XR supports fast charging and fast wireless charging just like the iPhone XS/XS Max. Unfortunately, like the more expensive iPhones, it too comes with only the 5-watt power adapter and USB-A-to-Lightning cable. To get the faster charging speeds, you’ll need to buy a separate adapter and cable set. I’ll keep wishing for it to be included in the box. Maybe next year!

As somebody who recently upgraded to the iPhone XS(opens in a new tab) (I’m a real sucker for better cameras), I didn't think the XR would be enough for my needs as a power user, but boy was I wrong.

Despite being larger than my iPhone XS, the iPhone XR is still a good size — it’s a barely larger than my XS with a case so there wasn’t much of an adjustment pocketing it — and the bigger screen is really nice even if it’s not an OLED. The longer battery life lasts longer, and the premium construction, best-in-class performance, robust app ecosystem, and excellent cameras means you’re not really missing out much.

You also get to save a couple hundred dollars and choose a color other than space gray, white, or gold. At $750, the iPhone XR is truly Apple's new value iPhone, as strange as that may seem. The price is still less than the new Pixel 3, yet it’s more capable all-around.

The iPhone XR is the Goldilocks of iPhones. But if you’re going to get it, I’d advise not to opt for the entry-level model since it only has 64GB of storage. The 128GB model is just $50 more, so get that one instead.

Serious power iPhone users who want it all have no doubt already gotten a iPhone XS or XS Max. But if you don’t need things like a telephoto lens or the option of 512GB storage, the iPhone XR is the right iPhone for just about anyone who wants a new one.