Apple iPhone XR

APPLE’S GREAT COLOURED HOPE.

WITH MOST SMARTPHONES limited to muted colours, the iPhone XR is a sight for sore eyes, with a rainbow of rich hues that include yellow, coral and blue. Granted, you’re likely to hide those eyecatching colours in a case the first chance you get, so it’s good there’s more to the XR than meets the eye.

The most recent iPhone X and XS models made it difficult for those on modest means to upgrade, but the XR costs $400 less than the equivalent XS. The two devices share the same speedy A12 CPU, iOS 12 operating system, and edge-to-edge display design – the main differences are the screen and rear camera.

The XR’s 6.1inch screen is larger than the XS’, but it lacks the superior OLED technology and has a lower display resolution (although you can really only notice the difference in a side-by-side comparison). As for the rear camera, the XR only has a single 12-megapixel sensor, which means it’s stuck with digital zoom for closeups and can only manage portrait photos with people. The latter is due to the software not being able to simulate the portrait effect on anything other than humans – but it’s worth noting Google has been able to pull this off very effectively for three generations on its single-sensor Pixel cameras.

Still, these are small sacrifices. The XR is easily the most powerful smartphone in this price range; a relatively affordable and beautifully-designed device that has swiftly become Apple’s best-selling iPhone. If you have an old smartphone to trade in, you can even get your hands on it for less than a thousand bucks.