Apple iPhone XR goes official in the Philippines, the cheapest A12 powered phone yet

Beyond the Box, an Apple Premium Reseller, just launched the iPhone XR in the Philippines.

Blue

The iPhone XR is Apple's interpretation of an affordable latest iPhone this 2018. Its PHP 52,490 starting price tag is way cheaper than the 67,990 starting price of the iPhone XS series.

As powerful as the XS and XS Max!

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Despite being way more affordable than the XS and XS Max, the iPhone XR has the same 7nm A12 Bionic chip with custom Apple designed four-core GPU. It is arguably the most powerful chip found on a smartphone yet. It also has a 2nd generation 8-core Neural Engine with support for 5 trillion operations per second for AI tasks.

What made it cheaper?

Big screen, small resolution

Then new XR is equipped with a 6.1-inch Liquid Retina LCD with 720p resolution. Apple dubbed it as the best LCD ever made, but its screen resolution is way lower than most flagship smartphones today. It also has thicker looking bezels compared with the XS series.

It loses the telephoto lens as well. It only has a single 12MP wide-angle lens at f/1.8. BUT, it is a powerful single camera. It can also take portraits with Depth Control even after taking the shot. This sensor also has OIS for stabilization and can recording 4K videos at 60 fps and 1080p slo-mo at 240 fps, TrueDepth camera for FaceID facial

camera,optical image stabilization, True Tone flash, 4K video recording at 60 fps, Slo‑mo 1080p at 240 fps.

Other specs and features

Like its higher-end siblings, the XR also has the aerospace-grade aluminum body and a glass front and back. It also goes with IP67 water and dust resistance rating, up to 256GB storage, 2,942mAh battery with fast wired charging/Qi wireless charging, 7MP f/2.2 selfie camera with screen flash, stereo speakers, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G LTE, NFC, GPS, GLONASS, and a dual SIM feature.

It uses single physical nano SIM tray and a built-in eSIM. 

The handset also boots with iOS 12 out of the box.

It measures at 150.9 x 75.7 x 8.3 mm and weighs at 194 grams.

Price and availability

(PRODUCT)RED XR

The new XR comes in white, black, blue, yellow, coral, and (PRODUCT)RED color options. Interestingly, the (PRODUCT)RED variant didn't have a higher price tag. It also has a starting price of PHP 52,490 for the 64GB variant.

The 128GB variant is priced at PHP 55,490 and the 256GB model retails for PHP 62,490. They are also available for 24 months with 0 percent installment with banks like nionbank, Security Bank, Metrobank, BPI, Eastwest Bank, PNB, and Citibank.

For BDO users, they are available for up to 12 months with 0 percent interest.

The first 100 customers of Beyond the Box for the iPhone XR was also rewarded with Premium Essentials kit filled with accessories from Baseus, XPower, Pop Sockets, Fuse Chicken, Laut, Urbanears, and BTW.

Those who lined up also got raffle prizes from Beyond the Box and Marshall. They also got a FREE pizza from Pizza Express.

They also had different sessions like "How to take great photos using your iPhone" before the midnight launch.

What do you guys think? Are you planning to get the new iPhone XR?