I have an iPhone XS Max and an iPhone XR I use as my work phone, i absolutely love the design of my XS max but i have found myself loving the iPhone XRs design even more and the reason for this is the gorgeous colour, strangely enough the thicker bezels and the fact I’m able to use an apple made clear case on it. This is something I have always wanted as I can really enjoy the look of the iPhone while using it. Does anyone feel the same way as me, do you prefer the iPhone XR design over the XS? I look forward to hearing all of your opinions
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone XR iPhone XR is the best iPhone design ever.
- Thread starter ThatiPhoneKid
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I just bought a iPhone XR 2 days ago. I bought an iPhone X on launch and just sold it in November and jumped to the one plus 6t. Although that phone was almost perfect I missed iMessage too much. So I went with the XR so I’m not shelling out 1000+ dollars. I love the phone but the screen bothers me a bit. Although in most cases I don’t mind it. But on Instagram and watching YouTube videos I deff can tell the screen is not great. If they gave this phone a bit higher quality screen I would say this would be the best iPhone they ever made. But overall I’m happy.
Op why do you prefer thicker bezels as part of design?
I’ve learned to not care / deal , coming from x but curious
I’ve learned to not care / deal , coming from x but curious
I prefer the bezels being more prominent, I don’t know why I just love the look of them, I like the fact there is a bit of bulkiness with the iPhone XR also, it feels nice to hold in the hand.
Yeah I think once you get over it not being stainless steel, and aluminum (which will scratch much less than the silver polished stainless steel but I think is also better with RF), I think it feels better balanced weight distribution wise than my X did
Also prefer the aesthetic of single lens over the vertical friggin ugly teardrop dual cam if we're talking about the look
The contoured horizontal dual cam on 7+/8+ was fine & I never took issue with it but vertical and a sharp edge looks sorta gross and like a design compromise
Someone else pointed out that with a case on, the thicker bezels make edge swipes a bit easier
the thick bezel disappears in use imo its just when you're taking in the overall look of the phone do you notice it
im just impressed Apple went at lengths to have a rounded display with anti aliasing or something, a notch, and tap to wake in an LED and things I thought wouldnt be possible (even though the notch and rounded display are their design prerogative, tap to wake is great). I still sorta dont believe it haha
And small observation - how they had to have the lightning port off axis from speakers (down slightly lower) to accomodate the LED panel backlighting stuffed underneath
Last edited:
Looks like a decent enough phone but wouldn’t say the best.
Though both flawed devices for getting scratched to hell, I'd probably give it to slate 5 with the flat camera too, 7+ jet black (never had one, the OCD would drive me nuts but I was tempted a few times, and it never being in stock when I found a Matte black 7+ solidified it)... then probably XR as nicest looking devices in ~ half decade
iPhone 4 definitely takes the cake as best design ever though. That thing still oozes a premium feel & look (even though wouldnt want to return to 30-pin or 3.5") and its 8.5 years old!
The X/XS/max is awesome but has some concessions and I'm not a HUGE fan of any of the three colors. Silver was my go to despite dealing with the muddied looking silvery-white instead of a solid white like on XR but none of them scream 'this is it!'
iPhone 4 definitely takes the cake as best design ever though. That thing still oozes a premium feel & look (even though wouldnt want to return to 30-pin or 3.5") and its 8.5 years old!
The X/XS/max is awesome but has some concessions and I'm not a HUGE fan of any of the three colors. Silver was my go to despite dealing with the muddied looking silvery-white instead of a solid white like on XR but none of them scream 'this is it!'
Agreed on the slate 5
Space grey 7 looked great too
I think that would be the iPhone 5S. That thing was rock solid.
Don't see many mentions of the 5s on here, but I just upgraded from a 5s to and XR. 5s has served me well for a long time and left to my own devices I might have tried to milk it for another year. But storage was pretty limiting, the screen was looking pretty bad compared to what's available, and I pretty much found the camera unusable (I'm a photographer). I'll actually use the camera on the XR. These new phone cameras are dang good. Bought my wife an X for her birthday last year and she was determined to buy me a new phone for Christmas. I've looked at her X a lot, and looked at XS, XS max, and XR in stores. Biggest draw of the XS to me was actually that it was a little smaller. Going to take some getting used the size of the XR going from the 5S. The OLEDs certainly have better blacks and contrast. But that's usually only very obvious in certain kinds of light; like watching a movie in a dark environment. To me, the resolution differences are completely overblown. It's like comparing HD to 4K on a small television. Differences in color and contrast may be apparent, but differences in resolution ... My wife, who doesn't read any of the tech stuff, likes the screen on the XR better than on her X. Still not sure what to think about the size. Need to figure out where I'm going to keep this thing when doing stuff like skiing.
“Best design ever”..according to the OP, highly subjective, I would say that varies for everyone, because we all have different likes of what we want from Phone sizes, features, etc. Is the XR a ‘great’ phone, yes, is it the best phone ever? No, but that’s my opinion.
Last edited:
I love my XR but oh boy how I miss my brand new 6 out of the box. Thin, lightweight and powerful (when new) 
I love my XR but the iPhone 4/4s to me was the best iPhone. What a nice looking phone it was and still is.
It also performs amazing as a ping pong paddle, I don’t have to carry both now with me when I go for a match
The white iPhone is really fresh looking, much better than the white back on the 8 Plus and Xs
I think the iPhone Xs is my favorite phone I have owned but my 5s is the goat design.
I’d love to see apple bring an inspired iPhone 5s design to the iPhone XS and Xr
I wonder is the next “r” will have a dual camera or do you guys think Apple will stick to the one camera set up on the r