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The pixel density is the same as the Plus phones. Whenever I switched from a Plus to an Android flagship I noticed just how bad small text look. I wouldn't consider the XR just from the screen alone.
 
The pixel density is the same as the Plus phones. Whenever I switched from a Plus to an Android flagship I noticed just how bad small text look. I wouldn't consider the XR just from the screen alone.
... and better than the iPad Pros. Missing the outcry there.
[doublepost=1544645725][/doublepost]Enjoying Apple folks who says specs don’t matter debating specs matter.
 
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This crappy technology will be swept away once Microled will be affordable. Till then an OLED buyer should cross the fingers

Apple has done more to mitigate any concerns in their OS. People should just purchase the device they enjoy using and/or want to budget for.. XR or XS. A comparison was bound to happen (esp. since the OP said they prefer LCD), and the displays being one of the main things, that discussion got brought up.

If this tech was so "crappy", then nearly all of the successful smartphone Companies wouldn't use it in their flagship phones, year after year, after year.... Apple, Samsung, Sony, Google, OnePlus, Huawei, etc. Many provide manufacturer warranties, so if there were many genuine concerns they would've ditched it long ago.
 
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... and better than the iPad Pros. Missing the outcry there.
[doublepost=1544645725][/doublepost]Enjoying Apple folks who says specs don’t matter debating specs matter.


Cant overstate this enough. The same "diehard" people in this thread who insist that their delicate eyes MUST look at >400PPI then consume content on their laptops, at the same distance, at 200PPi or less. iPads same thing. HD TVs are like 65 PPI. But the XRs 326 PPI is super duper fuzzy right?
 
... and better than the iPad Pros. Missing the outcry there.
[doublepost=1544645725][/doublepost]Enjoying Apple folks who says specs don’t matter debating specs matter.

Even so, I'm not sure why the iPad, laptop or TV argument even gets brought up to this day.
A normal viewing distance for a television is much further away, so that should be the first to be dismissed. People typically aren't reading books on a television, either.

An iPad or retina Macbook Pro, both achieve higher resolutions than a XR display. Does a XR have either a 1080p or 4k display? We can't compare those directly in the same way.

PPI and resolution are independent of each other. You can't ignore one without the other. It's like focusing on 2 tires on a car, without all 4 as a balancing act to drive.
 
Even so, I'm not sure why the iPad, laptop or TV argument even gets brought up to this day.
A normal viewing distance for a television is much further away, so that should be the first to be dismissed.

An iPad or retina Macbook Pro, both achieve higher resolutions than a XR display. Does a XR have either a 1080p or 4k display? We can't compare those directly.

PPI and resolution are independent of each other. You can't ignore one without the other. It's like focusing on 2 tires on a car, without all 4 as a balancing act to drive.

Resolution only matters because it's used to calculate PPI. A tiny screen with a 640x480 resolution and a 500 PPI will be sharper than the XS Max screen. Resolution does not matter in this discussion nearly as much as PPI. The XR PPI is excellent. Resolution is not a factor.

The fact that you say Resolution and PPI are independent of each other shows that you really really have no idea what you are talking about. It was clearly evident before, but is now even more so.
 
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Neither are crappy.

...In Which your thread turned into a ‘display war’. Keep in mind, not one consumer outside of these forums would ever consider Apples displays to be inferior of one another, I don’t care if it’s OLED or LCD, they don’t see it like that, it’s just on here, you have ‘Spec wars’ of which display is better over the other, and in the real world, none of that matters.
 
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The fact that you say Resolution and PPI are independent of each other shows that you really really have no idea what you are talking about. It was clearly evident before, but is now even more so.

What I said was they both matter, it's a balancing act.
Yes, resolution and PPI are absolutely independent of each other, they're different, so they change. You cannot calculate the PPI of a device with just the resolution. The PPI is different than the resolution, so that's how they are independent variables. The fact they change with the size means the resolution doesn't give you the PPI without the size.
Are you arguing word semantics here? They change with the size, independent variables. This is a technological fact that has been brought up by actual display professionals in exact wording. This calculator is your friend:

https://www.sven.de/dpi/

You need both the size AND the resolution.

The viewing distances and comparisons you bring here with TV's (and laptops) are not like for like... the viewing distance on a TV is much further away.

The fact you would even bring TV's here, shows how little you know about reasonable viewing distances in discerning clarity.

Kre62 said:
Resolution only matters because it's used to calculate PPI.
You cannot even calculate the PPI from the resolution alone, so this is only partially true. You need the size too, so the variables are independent from each other. If the PPI stayed the same regardless of the size of any device with the same resolution, then they wouldn't be independent variables from each other. The absolute INVERSE is true... the PPI is completely dependent on the size and resolution of the device to be defined, hence the calculator.
 
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What I said was they both matter, it's a balancing act.
Yes, resolution and PPI are absolutely independent of each other, they're different, so they change. You cannot calculate the PPI of a device with just the resolution. The PPI is different than the resolution, so that's how they are independent variables. The fact they change with the size means the resolution doesn't give you the PPI without the size.
Are you arguing word semantics here? They change with the size, independent variables. This is a technological fact that has been brought up by actual display professionals in exact wording. This calculator is your friend:

https://www.sven.de/dpi/

You need both the size AND the resolution.

The viewing distances and comparisons you bring here with TV's (and laptops) are not like for like... the viewing distance on a TV is much further away.

The fact you would even bring TV's here, shows how little you know about reasonable viewing distances in discerning clarity.


You cannot even calculate the PPI from the resolution alone, so this is only partially true. You need the size too, so the variables are independent from each other. If the PPI stayed the same regardless of the size of any device with the same resolution, then they wouldn't be independent variables from each other. The absolute INVERSE is true... the PPI is completely dependent on the size and resolution of the device to be defined, hence the calculator.

They aren’t independent. PPI is dependent on resolution and size as you call out. But the fact remains that if one phone has a PPI of 450 and a resolution of 640x480 (small phone), a phone with a PPI of 450 and a resolution of 1920x1080 will NOT be a screen with higher clarity or sharpness or any other metric. It will simply be a larger surface area of the same quality. This is why your resolution argument for laptops and iPads is insane. If 200 PPI is good enough for a laptop or iPad, >300 PPI is phenomenal for a phone. Resolution is not even a factor in this discussion as it’s irrelevant to judging text clarity in this case (as PPI is the relevant metric here due to size being a main variable)
 
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They aren’t independent.
You can't determine the PPI from the resolution alone, and the PPI isn't static.
I think you are arguing word semantics at this point with that anyway.

If you are arguing an iP4-8 have the same clarity as the XR, I agree since they are mobile phones, so they can be directly compared...and yes, they have the same PPI. You bring up Televisions and laptops which are poor comparisons. I'm not comparing them, I'm saying they can't be compared. Compare mobile phone to phone.
You don't need as high of a PPI on a TV to discern the difference since those are viewed at normal distances further away than one would a mobile phone.

If 200 PPI is good enough for a laptop or iPad, >300 PPI is phenomenal for a phone.
A higher effective PPI would be needed on a mobile phone as opposed to a laptop (especially TV's as you mentioned before), so that isn't a great argument.
Laptops and iPads weren't even the worst example. It was Televisions which are viewed much further away, so they don't need as strong of an effective PPI. Laptops are for sure are also typically viewed further away than mobile phones.

You keep leaving viewing distance out of the equation, so that's why I can see you're not getting it.
You can't compare devices that are viewed further away than a mobile phone.

Let's take your argument and make this solely about PPI, anyway. The Plus phones, X, XS, XS Max, all have PPI counts that are higher than the XR. Even if you take in consideration, the diamond pentile arrangement in the X, XS and XS Max the way Eugw subtracted the lack of subpixels, if this math is correct it goes like this (I'm not saying it's for certain accurate):

Effective PPI estimate according to a forum member:

401 ppi: iPhone 8 Plus (and also all other Plus iPhones)

373 ppi: iPhone XS Max (and also XS and X)

326 ppi: iPhone XR (and also 4, 4S, 5, 5C, 5S, SE, 6, 6s, 7, 8)

This would still explain why the XR may not have as sharp of text as the Plus or X/XS series of phones, which is the only thing that we really need to compare anyway. I believe the effective PPI is possibly even higher on the X/XS series phones than the subtracted math, since it was stated that it still is as advertised since the green channel is what we can discern the most with the most subpixels.
 
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You can't determine the PPI from the resolution alone, and the PPI isn't static.
I think you are arguing word semantics at this point with that anyway.

If you are arguing an iP4-8 have the same clarity as the XR, I agree since they are mobile phones, so they can be directly compared...and yes, they have the same PPI. You bring up Televisions and laptops which are poor comparisons. I'm not comparing them, I'm saying they can't be compared. Compare mobile phone to phone.
You don't need as high of a PPI on a TV to discern the difference since those are viewed at normal distances further away than one would a mobile phone.


A higher effective PPI would be needed on a mobile phone as opposed to a laptop (especially TV's as you mentioned before), so that isn't a great argument.
Laptops and iPads weren't the worst example you gave. It was Televisions which are viewed much further away, so they don't need as strong of an effective PPI.

You keep leaving viewing distance out of the equation, so that's why I can see you're not getting it.
You can't compare devices that are viewed further away than a mobile phone.

Let's take your argument and make this solely about PPI, anyway. The Plus phones, X, XS, XS Max, all have PPI counts that are higher than the XR. Even if you take in consideration, the diamond pentile arrangement in the X, XS and XS Max the way Eugw subtracted the lack of subpixels, if this math is correct it goes like this (I'm not saying it's for certain accurate):

Effective PPI estimate

401 ppi: iPhone 8 Plus (and also all other Plus iPhones)

373 ppi: iPhone XS Max (and also XS and X)

326 ppi: iPhone XR (and also 4, 4S, 5, 5C, 5S, SE, 6, 6s, 7, 8)

This would still explain why the XR may not have as sharp of text as the Plus or X/XS series of phones, which is the only thing that we really need to compare anyway.


Get over the TV example. In the original post I clearly called out viewing distances for ipads and laptops. It is roughly the same as a phone. I can hold my macbook right up to my face and the text is crystal clear. Thats at ~200 PPI. The 326 ppi of the XR is way above that. Sure, other devices can have higher PPI. But to say the text on those devices is significantly more clear is an extreme stretch. And the text on the XR is much clearer than ipads and macbooks, and people are fine with those.

The point is that people are blowing this out of proportion in their minds, and projecting a false reality on to the XR.

BTW - I've seen calculations that show the effective PPI of the XS and Max as being below the XR, when considering all of the missing subpixels.
 
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Sure, other devices can have higher PPI. But to say the text on those devices is significantly more clear is an extreme stretch. The point is that people are blowing this out of proportion in their minds, and projecting a false reality on to the XR.
I agree with this, but I haven't personally said any other iPhone display was "significantly more clear" over the XR. I've said all along that the blurry text comments are a gross exaggeration. I did notice some pixelation in a XR screen on YT paused side by side (not in text) next to a XS Max since someone commented to pause it at a certain point. I posted it here in a thread. I need more time to find the post I brought here and the video.

You point to a "false reality with the XR" but you propagate a "false reality" with the XS...(e.g. "plenty of users have burn in", "it murders your eye balls", etc.). Mostly contrary evidence on either of those points exists, and PWM only affects a minority of users. For myself, it went away after a little over a week. Nilay even mentioned a pink shift on the XR that seemed to bug him, so I'm not even sure why blue shift even gets brought up to support the XR.

Detroitborg as I mentioned, brought up differences in crispness with only certain fonts that he noticed, but not once did he state the XR display was bad or fuzzy (as one example). I've recommended those I know try out the XR along with the other phones, esp. at it's price point, since I'm certain most don't want to spend 1k+ on a smartphone (even though plenty can). I wouldn't recommend they try it out if I didn't think the display looked good. I've always said the display was good since I've seen it. Claiming something is "less sharp" doesn't make the text blurry or the screen as trash.

BTW - I've seen calculations that show the effective PPI of the XS and Max as being below the XR, when considering all of the missing subpixels.
I can't comment on this one way or the other, since we don't have a sound reference of this material here.
I likely saw the same source once claim this, but they didn't show how they came to this conclusion, so it's hard to validate this claim.
 
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Cant overstate this enough. The same "diehard" people in this thread who insist that their delicate eyes MUST look at >400PPI then consume content on their laptops, at the same distance, at 200PPi or less. iPads same thing. HD TVs are like 65 PPI. But the XRs 326 PPI is super duper fuzzy right?

I went from a 6 Plus to a Samsung Note 5 to a 7 Plus to a Samsung 8 Plus. Each time the change from Android to Apple was met with disappointment because small text from the browser looked like crap. Forget about PPI for a moment....the text looks awful and hard to read. The spec explains why but my real world experience is what matters. I'm not speaking theoretically....it's rather 3 or 4 years of experience. And very obviously I have no ax to grind with Android v. iOS as I switch back and forth nor do I have any allegiances to particular phones.
 
It’s been great. I got black. Tempted by red but love the all black look. I picked up the Apple case but don’t really like it. Have a Torras silicone coming today. Rolling the dice ..naked until I get the case. Happy with decision.
Same. Was tempted by the Red but at the end of the day, once you go black...well you know. Also, like you said, I looked at the XS vs XR side by side many times and could not see a major difference in the screens. Maybe at 35 I just don't have the greatest vision to see those differences, but the fact I could get 128GB (which is all I need), and 95% of the XS for $350 less than the 256GB XS 5.8" was a major selling point.
 
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Same. Was tempted by the Red but at the end of the day, once you go black...well you know. Also, like you said, I looked at the XS vs XR side by side many times and could not see a major difference in the screens. Maybe at 35 I just don't have the greatest vision to see those differences, but the fact I could get 128GB (which is all I need), and 95% of the XS for $350 less than the 256GB XS 5.8" was a major selling point.

I have informally ‘tested’ my wife’s X for a year. I had both the XS and XR side by side for almost a week. It’s so close.. and my vision was just checked. Agree completely.
 
I have informally ‘tested’ my wife’s X for a year. I had both the XS and XR side by side for almost a week. It’s so close.. and my vision was just checked. Agree completely.

yeah I think its funny how people are like "If you pause a certain youtube video at the exact spot, and put the phones next to each other, you can see a small difference".

First of all - who cares

Second of all - they are acting like being able to tell a difference means that the XR is no good. In reality, its 99% vs 100%. Both are A+. Being able to tell a difference, in of itself, does not mean anything as far as weather or not its a good screen.
 
Seriously people? 10 years ago we never had such a capable device as the XS or XR in our pockets. Why not stop arguing over which one has a better screen and just USE the devices and be productive for whatever purpose you want. Tech is always going to improve and nobody cares if your screen is better or worse in a “dark room” seriously get over it and move on.
 
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I pay cash for the iPhone that matches the user’s needs. For my wife the 8 64GB because she doesn’t use it except for an occasional call. For my daughter the Xs Max 512GB because she doesn’t change phones often (we traded in the 6). For my boy the Pixel because he’s all in with Linux. For myself I’m going to try the Xr because I buy a phone every year, and I plan to upgrade my watch to series 4 and my tablet to the 3 gen IPP 12.9.

Seems you are the perfect Apple customer (your boy will be switched later on...) :)
 
I can afford any of them. Not everyone spends based purely on limit.

I don’t care how much I make in the future, etc. $1000+ really doesn’t settle well with me. Especially w depreciation and knowing itll be yesteryear by next gen. My contract x $549 I would have to struggle to break even, so I traded it in for $500 on reserve. Can’t imagine the resell slaughter for full msrp people getting the upgrade itch. Probably better off holding off another year and getting close to same resell if worried about that sorta thing

Also since a $70 prEpaid SE can run the same apps and do same things. It’s ceetainly not 7% proportion to the utility of X/x
That’s why they nixed the SE. they don’t want people waking up

Of course putting that against $750 Xr the utility isn’t there either but there has to come a point where enough is enough.
 
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I have to admit, I own the XS Max, and one of the reasons I Purchased this model, I really was anticipating having the larger OLED panel, and side-by-side comparison with the XR and my Max, I can *barely* tell the difference at all between both dislays, and I consider myself a ‘tech enthusiast’ (If that tells you anything). So in theory, being that these phones are so close in competition, I think the XR is the better value.

That is precisely why I went with the XR. I love the XS and the Max but could not justify the price difference. Because I don't use my phone for "serious" viewing, I opted for the XR. It's a great phone, as are the XS and Max, and I believed it to be (and still do) a better value.
 
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