Apple’s iPhone XR is real. All that speculation about a new, “cheap” iPhone can finally come to an end.
The device, and its perplexing name, got an official reveal on stage today at Apple’s fall product event. The iPhone XR will cost you at least $749—so long as you don’t mind the compromises that come with keeping its price in our stratosphere.
Speaking on stage, Apple called the device “an iPhone X experience on an LCD display.” But if you’re looking for the latest, fanciest version of that “iPhone X experience,” see our iPhone Xs rundown. Now, back to the XR.
It features a less glamorous-sounding, but surely capable water-resistant aluminum body and a 6.1-inch “liquid retina” LCD display (at 326ppi)—instead of an OLED display like on the iPhone X. Apple says it’ll come with “haptic touch” (not exactly 3D touch), Face ID, better battery life than the iPhone 8 Plus,a single 12MP camera with Apple’s true-tone flash, Apple Pay, and an A12 “bionic” chip.
As for its appearance, we actually have something interesting to talk about here. The device will come in black, white, red, yellow, blue, and coral.
Apple says preorders for the XR will start after the Xs and Xs Max, on October 19. It’ll land in stores on October 26.
For months now, we’ve heard that Apple had three new iPhones in the works, all based on last year’s iPhone X. But once it became clear that the iPhone X’s flagship successors weren’t going to blow us away with any major new features, the device we now know as the iPhone XR started looking like a pretty interesting deal, with its comparatively mid-tier size and moderate price—after Apple really went there and started charging people $1,000-plus for a belatedly revamped phone.
All that, plus its comparatively bountiful color options, makes this lower-cost iPhone seem like it may turn out to be the real star of this lineup, once Apple starts accepting preorders.