In addition to the iPhone XS and the XS Max, Apple unveiled the iPhone XR which was supposed to be the so-called ‘affordable’ version. As it turns out, the iPhone XR in India will be available from 26 October onwards, with prices starting from Rs 76,900.
At this price, the cheapest iPhone is still expensive than this year’s Samsung Galaxy Note 9, which you can get for Rs 67,900. The iPhone XR doesn’t get an OLED screen, the build quality pales in front of its bigger and expensive cousins.
The use of XR for this variant is still a subject worth debating but for what it’s worth, it hardly makes sense to spend upwards of Rs 90,000 on the iPhone XR, especially when the XS and XS Max are accessible, at least for some.
Talking about features, the new iPhone XR gets an aluminium body finish, which becomes vibrant with colours like blue, orange and few more. It sports a 6.1-inch LCD screen with 1792x828 pixels resolution and this means you’re getting a display that’s low on quality, especially for its price.
It packs the same A12 processor like the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max though, so the performance matches up to what the latest flagships offer.
The other cost-cutting (if you can call it that) comes in the camera department, where you get a single 12-megapixel wide-angle lens and a 7-megapixel unit on the front. Instead of IP68, the iPhone XR gets IP67 protection and there’s no 3D Touch support as well.
As always, Apple didn’t mention how much RAM is packed in this iPhone and even the size of the battery wasn’t revealed. The dual-SIM support is a welcome move, one that Apple should have brought in long back.
The iPhone XR debuts in India later next month and will be available in 64,128 and 256GB variants.
For everyone hoping for an affordable iPhone, this is the best Apple has to offer.
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