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iPhone XR Screen Resolution....
- Thread starter AdamNC
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There isn't a "Retina" resolution, except in terms of Apple marketing.
1. " in our experience, most people who own Smartphones that have a PPI higher than 300 can perceive that there is a difference in sharpness. That is especially true when looking at nature scene photos or simply text and icons."
2. "Most research points to the fact that 300 PPI does not represent the human visual acuity limit in the context of Smartphone displays."
3. "Research from Sun Microsystems estimated the limit to be at least 2X what 20/20 vision is (pdf link), and Sharp thinks that humans can see up to 1000 PPI (pdf link)."
https://www.ubergizmo.com/what-is/ppi-pixels-per-inch/
I’m pretty torn on the XR. To be frank I haven’t even put my SIM card in it since purchasing it and have been mostly using my 8+. The size is just about perfect and the display has the best color/contrast of any LCD display I’ve seen from Apple — it’s a noticeable improvement in that regard. However, the 326ppi makes some text look blurry in comparison to the 8+ and it’s lacking a bit in overall sharpness although the improved color/contrast mostly makes up for it and in some cases it looks better than the display on the 8+. Unfortunately half of the apps I’ve tried also aren’t fully-optimized for the XR and suffer from poor upscaling or even poor performance in some cases. I could see a lot of consumers that received the phone for Christmas returning it due to Facebook and Instagram’s apps dropping native support for the XR (due to their decision to use an older version of XCode to appease iOS 9.0 users) and assuming it was “blurry” due to the display so it is unfortunate that that hasn’t been addressed.
I also do most of my writing/typing on an iPhone and use 3D Touch quite often — the alternative on the XR isn’t nearly as intuitive and removes the functionality to select text. On the other hand, it’s a beautifully-designed phone and would be great for the average consumer that doesn’t care about PPI or 3D Touch. I would happily upgrade to the XS Max if it didn’t have the same PWM as the X. As much as I want to switch to the XR, I wish I didn’t have to make any compromises coming from an 8+ to do so.
I also do most of my writing/typing on an iPhone and use 3D Touch quite often — the alternative on the XR isn’t nearly as intuitive and removes the functionality to select text. On the other hand, it’s a beautifully-designed phone and would be great for the average consumer that doesn’t care about PPI or 3D Touch. I would happily upgrade to the XS Max if it didn’t have the same PWM as the X. As much as I want to switch to the XR, I wish I didn’t have to make any compromises coming from an 8+ to do so.
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Sounds to me like the Xr is not for you. Don’t compromise. Keep your 8+ and wait for the next iteration of iPhones.
Meanwhile, FaceID works virtually flawlessly and the phone itself looks and feels great. The blue is especially stunning, even more so than the red 8+. They could have saved a lot of hassle by giving the XR a 3x point resolution but the lack of 3D Touch may be more of a dealbreaker than I realized.
[doublepost=1546926862][/doublepost]The display of the XR is actually quite nice. I think for its intended audience it’s a practically perfect device.
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I’ve been with my Xr for almost a week now.
The resolution drop is noticeable in video but I don’t notice it for normal email, text, and web stuff. I overall really like the size and ergonomics of it. But far more than the resolution I think it being a standard LCD instead of OLED is the real downgrade. I notice it every time there’s black borders on the display. You can always see the notch at night while watching Netflix.
It’s not the end of the world but it is still unfortunate when most other phones at this price, or even significantly cheaper, have OLED. And I can’t help but feel like all that engineering they did to round an LCD panel was wasted when an easily available technology eliminates the need for such a solution. Like was it really cheaper to do it this way?
The resolution drop is noticeable in video but I don’t notice it for normal email, text, and web stuff. I overall really like the size and ergonomics of it. But far more than the resolution I think it being a standard LCD instead of OLED is the real downgrade. I notice it every time there’s black borders on the display. You can always see the notch at night while watching Netflix.
It’s not the end of the world but it is still unfortunate when most other phones at this price, or even significantly cheaper, have OLED. And I can’t help but feel like all that engineering they did to round an LCD panel was wasted when an easily available technology eliminates the need for such a solution. Like was it really cheaper to do it this way?
If they made it a OLED, why would anyone by the Xs or Max? Also, in addition to cost, I suspect they really wanted to increase the battery life of this model by using LCD.
I suspect that the engineering had been done for the new iPad Pro’s and that the LCD in the XR is just a spin off from that.
OLED screens are really expensive. Samsung makes more money from Apple compared to all of their own devices combined. It wouldn’t have been a lower tiered phone if it had all upper tier specs, would it?
The XR has the same pixel density as the iPhone 8, released just last year.I'm gonna play the devil's advocate for a minute "sorry I have to, only fair to customers". The 750 dollar XR has the same pixel density as an iPhone 4, which was released in 2010. So to put things in perspective, unless you live in Oregon, you're going to pay over 800 dollars after taxes for a so called budget phone that has the same density of that almost 9 years ago, that cannot do 1080P playback on Netflix, YouTube and the rest... There! I said it...
Never see anybody complaining about the ppi on the iPhone 8, did we.
8 plus with a hypothetical apple battery case would be my ideal phone. It's a crime they don't make them for the bigger phones.
Great points here. If Apple included an OLED panel on the XR, that would conflate way too much with the XS, as both of them are highly similar as it is. And the fact that the battery management and power level draw with the LCD panel seems to highly manageable, the XR has exceedingly exceptional reviews with the battery life.
Okay. So the products conflate.
The battery life on my XR is pretty good as well I admit.
But these points are just in relation to other iPhones. You can call the XR a budget phone all you like but really it's just positioned as 'less expensive' and not 'budget'. It's as expensive as many other flagships that offer OLED panels that are nearly edge to edge as well. It's about margins. I don't understand why as a consumer I should give a **** about Apple's margins. The XR is still an expensive product no matter how you slice it and as long as I'm rambling, I might as well say that the XS should be priced near where the XR is. Hell starting at $800 and forget about the XR. That would be a reasonable offering. Instead of that I get an expensive midish upper tier phone or a vastly overpriced flagship.
I suppose I could do some reading first but, I feel like I do remember disappointment over the iPhone 8 line? But obviously the roots of those products were in the iPhone 6 still and were a bit cheaper but nobody - at least from what I read - was super enthusiastic about the pricing or displays... or really anything but the SoC inside which of course is shared with the entire iPhone lineup anyway.
I really do like my XR but the price was really pushing it and after a year with the Galaxy phones I'm not sure Apple's software experience is really so far ahead anymore that I can sit here and feel great about the purchase price up front. The one big favor Apple still retains regardless though is their outstanding software support. As I recall the S6 or S7 actually is getting security updates but 3 years is a far cry from the 5 to 6 Apple will support this thing, bad value or not on the pure spec sheet, that's one of the reasons I went ahead and bought this phone for cash. To be frank had I not destroyed it my iPhone 6+ would probably still be my main phone.
*Feel free to call me out on things if I'm wrong. This ramble fueled by chardonnay.
The battery life on my XR is pretty good as well I admit.
But these points are just in relation to other iPhones. You can call the XR a budget phone all you like but really it's just positioned as 'less expensive' and not 'budget'. It's as expensive as many other flagships that offer OLED panels that are nearly edge to edge as well. It's about margins. I don't understand why as a consumer I should give a **** about Apple's margins. The XR is still an expensive product no matter how you slice it and as long as I'm rambling, I might as well say that the XS should be priced near where the XR is. Hell starting at $800 and forget about the XR. That would be a reasonable offering. Instead of that I get an expensive midish upper tier phone or a vastly overpriced flagship.
I suppose I could do some reading first but, I feel like I do remember disappointment over the iPhone 8 line? But obviously the roots of those products were in the iPhone 6 still and were a bit cheaper but nobody - at least from what I read - was super enthusiastic about the pricing or displays... or really anything but the SoC inside which of course is shared with the entire iPhone lineup anyway.
I really do like my XR but the price was really pushing it and after a year with the Galaxy phones I'm not sure Apple's software experience is really so far ahead anymore that I can sit here and feel great about the purchase price up front. The one big favor Apple still retains regardless though is their outstanding software support. As I recall the S6 or S7 actually is getting security updates but 3 years is a far cry from the 5 to 6 Apple will support this thing, bad value or not on the pure spec sheet, that's one of the reasons I went ahead and bought this phone for cash. To be frank had I not destroyed it my iPhone 6+ would probably still be my main phone.
*Feel free to call me out on things if I'm wrong. This ramble fueled by chardonnay.
Ok I’m getting really tired of these xr resolution threads lol. We are literally beating a dead horse. I got the max. Went to an xr. Now selling my max. It’s good enough. Got to apple store. Compare the screens. Buy xr. Return in7 days if you don’t like. End thread.
Not calling out as such but your whole post is in context of Apple pricing against other Android OEMs. This has been the case since the inception of the iPhone. With Apple you don’t just pay for the hardware, you pay for an awesome after sales service and warranty coverage as well.
So the comparison shouldn’t be just money against the hardware. It’s what you’re getting for the money.
In fact, this can be played the other way around. Flagship Samsung devices are definitely comparable to Apple pricing at present and you don’t get any of the after sales support or warranty services with the devices. In reality Samsung is horrible in terms of customer service.
Actually, the more I use the XR the better the display looks. Text looks surprisingly natural. Most people don’t know this but the Plus phones actually render at a 3x point resolution and downscale it to 1080p. Don’t get me wrong, the 8+ looks sharper in most circumstances but the native 2x point resolution looks more natural to my eyes in some cases.
I would have still preferred a native 3x display like the other X phones (especially considering the power of the GPU and the size of the battery) and the display nerd in me would have enjoyed the OLED panel on the XS or XS Max had the PWM not been so problematic. But for all intent and purposes the XR has a great LCD display. I wish they would have stuck with a 3x point resolution so that it wouldn’t have gotten so much negative press over its PPI but I assume they hadn’t because with the way the pixel array is laid out it would have looked sharper than the XS.
I would have still preferred a native 3x display like the other X phones (especially considering the power of the GPU and the size of the battery) and the display nerd in me would have enjoyed the OLED panel on the XS or XS Max had the PWM not been so problematic. But for all intent and purposes the XR has a great LCD display. I wish they would have stuck with a 3x point resolution so that it wouldn’t have gotten so much negative press over its PPI but I assume they hadn’t because with the way the pixel array is laid out it would have looked sharper than the XS.
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My eyes have gotten used to the xr. I love the size in my hand but has bigger screen than the xs. And it’s cheaper... so no case! First time I’ve gone careless since the 5s!
I don't think they are that expensive. Other phones like the pixel, huwawei etc manage to have OLED screens on their phones (made by Samsung) and don't charge as much as Apple does for the iphone. OLED has been around on phones for years. It's not new or cutting edge.
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I think even my eyes would accept and adjust to the Xr if I used it for any length of time. However whilst I don't think it's as good as the Xs max/X/XS it's a good LCD panel, that cannot be denied. I just wish the resolution was higher
Same, I notice the 8+ is sharper when I switch back to it. If it had 3D Touch and a higher PPI so that it was a definitive upgrade I would be happy with it. Considering the complex engineering of the display it’s understandable why there’s no 3D Touch but we’ve had it on iPhones for over three years so it’s difficult to give up. The alternative to move the cursor is okay but I also use the deeper press of 3D Touch to select text often throughout the day; in fact, I used it when I typed this.
[doublepost=1547096341][/doublepost]
There’s really no way to avoid PWM on the XS phones, even at 100% brightness.