It's no secret that the iPhone XR is one of my favorite iphones of
all time it was one of the best values on the market when it came out in 2018.
And year after year it continues to stay relevant and get recommended when people ask me what phone
they should buy but now that we're in 2022 and the competition is stronger than ever
does it still make sense to buy an iPhone XR is it still the best bang for your buck
iphone on the market right now or should you sell it and upgrade while you can
when the iPhone XR was first announced alongside the iphone 10s and 10s max it was met with severe
backlash due to its LCD display that had a resolution of 1792 by 828 under 1080p but this
was also before people realized how well apple's liquid retina displays looked in person since this
was the first of its kind so once people saw these displays in person and saw that price tag of 750
compared to a thousand dollars for the iphone 10s they were sold and the iphone 10r went on
to become the number one best selling smartphone in the world in 2019 and it was easy to see why
once you set aside all of your biases i mean the display looks perfectly fine and your average
consumer will not be able to tell the difference especially if they are coming from an iphone 8 or
earlier this display has true tone it has the p3 wide color gamut it has a 1400 to 1 contrast ratio
and the same peak brightness as the iphone 11 and 12 at 625 nits so watching movies playing games
and browsing the web is enjoyable and just normal i mean it's not like you're going to use the phone
for a week and want to sell it because the quality of the display is bad that's just simply not going
to happen unless you're coming from an oled display and expecting to see the same or better
quality so overall the display of the iphone 10r is as good as it gets for an lcd display
and anybody who is even considering this phone in 2022 will absolutely have no issue with it
whatsoever but it's more than just the full size display and the lack of a home button it's the
back of the phone that makes the iphone 10r so special to me still to this day i think this
is the cleanest and most fun iphone the apple has made recently maybe even ever and it's mainly due
to that one solo camera on the back looks so clean and the fact that there are six different colors
to choose from now i will say that the durability is a weaker area of the iphone 10r as you can see
by some of the scratches on the screen and also on the back but honestly it could have been a lot
worse this phone is ip67 dust and water resistant so it can be submerged in up to one meter of water
for 30 minutes thankfully it's not just one minute submerged in water because i have dropped this
phone in a pool more than one time actually in the ocean as well but it survived and you never know
that it happened if i did not tell you because nothing has been affected by that on the display
the camera or anywhere else the ports nothing has been impacted by those dips in the water
the front and the back are both made of glass and the edges are made of aluminum so it feels solid
and the hands albeit a little bit slippery in my opinion but it obviously won't feel as premium as
the iphone 10s or any of the other iphones with a stainless steel frame but if you use a case all of
this is going to be irrelevant to you anyways now underneath the notch on the front of the display
is the front-facing camera and when i first got the iphone 10r i used it a lot i took a lot of
selfies and even videos from the front-facing camera and everything was fine everything was
perfect it was honestly nothing special it was just about what you expect from a front-facing
camera of an iphone it wasn't a huge jump up from the iphone 10 so everything was fine but now that
we have the iphone 11 the iphone 12 and the iphone 13 and after we've seen how they perform
when i go back to the iphone 10r you know here in 2022 i am honestly extremely underwhelmed
not only by the image quality but also the video being limited to just 1080p and sure you can point
to the 7 megapixel lens as the issue but it's deeper than that it's mainly due to the chipset
inside and that next generation of computational photography aka smart hdr that was introduced
with the iphone 11 the year after the iphone 10r release so we still have smart hdr here
with the front-facing camera but the next gen the gen 2 of smart hdr is what really started to turn
you know the the quality and just make everything so much better but with all that being said the
selfie camera on the 10r is not bad i mean i'm just comparing it to the latest and greatest so of
course it's not going to be as good your facetime calls your snapchat selfies everything is going
to look perfectly fine especially if there is compression involved like on facetime or social
media the iphone 10rs front-facing camera is going to look just about as good as the latest and
greatest when there is compression involved and the story is pretty similar when it comes to the
rear-facing camera on the iphone 10r so we do have a single 12 megapixel f 1.8 lens which looks a lot
less powerful compared to the crazy lenses on the back of the phones today but as i said earlier
it's a big part of the reason i love the look of the iphone 10r so much it just looks so clean
with only one small lens i don't know what it is about it it just looks awesome but anyways
as we talked about before it's not as much about what's on the outside it's more about what's on
the inside and what we're referencing here is that post image processing and the iphone 10r was one
of the first three phones that had smart hdr since it was introduced in 2018 with apple's a12 bionic
chip smart hdr improved the dynamic range it improved the colors and just the overall look and
feel of photos was so much better like it was very obvious how much better photos looked compared
to the iphone 10 and prior iphones at the time everything just popped more and it wasn't really
because of the lens the magic was what happened during and after the photo was taken and the game
would be changed from this point on now of course like with everything there are some drawbacks
due to only having that one single lens and the main one is zoom so we do not get that handy 2x
or 3x button to tap to zoom easily we have to digitally zoom with our fingers and rely
on the software to crop into the shot and this obviously leads to very poor and grainy results
so i did really miss zooming in while i was you know shooting photos and videos on the iphone 10r
but honestly it's not the end of the world especially if you are not used to zooming in
anyways if you don't like zooming in this is not going to be a big deal to you but once you
get used to that telephoto lens obviously it's hard to go back to something without a telephoto
lens another thing i missed when switching back to the tnr here in 2022 is portrait mode more
specifically shooting objects and portrait mode and that's because the iphone 10r can only shoot
portrait shots of people we also do not get night mode or deep fusion on the iphone 10r
and night mode i honestly don't use very often anyway so i didn't really miss it too much
but deep fusion actually makes a difference in the detail of images and videos so i did miss
the sharper images from the iphone 11 through the iphone 13 but overall compared to the iphone 11
and 12 there's really not a massive difference in photo or video quality especially if you are
not pixel peeping and nitpicking like i am yes they're gonna take slightly better photos and
videos thanks to deep fusion a more advanced version of smart hdr again that second and
third generation of smart hdr and of course the dual camera setup but the difference will not be
worth the extra money for 90 of people now on the other hand compared to the iphone 13 i do think
there's a massive difference in both the photo and video quality both from the front and the
rear facing cameras but again if you're looking at a 10r and 20 22 you likely are not trying to pay
at least double the price for the iphone 13 but if you are looking for confirmation on upgrading
from a 10r to a 13 i think that's an excellent and honestly a very worthy upgrade and we'll
talk more about that at the end of this video but overall the camera on the 10r is still very solid
here in 2022 even after using the best of the best with the iphone 13 pro max there are just a
few features missing but if you never had them to begin with you won't be missing them so it won't
be a big deal for you everything's going to be just fine with this camera and since we talked
so much about that chipset inside let's continue by discussing the performance so the iphone 10r
has the a12 bionic chip which is the same chip found in the iphone 10s 10s max and even the
2020 ipad 8th generation so it's obviously a very powerful chip and using it here in 2022 honestly
feels great you know we spend so much time doing these speed tests here on youtube to see how much
faster the iphone 13 is compared to the iphone 10r but when you separate them and just use one device
you care a lot less about how it compares to the latest and greatest iphones because this 10r
runs perfectly fine here almost four years later i've been using this phone every single day
for the past two two and a half weeks so i've been using social media i've been gaming i've
been controlling my music through the homepod i've been texting i've been browsing the web
and pretty much everything you normally do in a day and i've had zero issues so far i mean
no issues whatsoever now i will admit that the display looks a lot less you know good and vibrant
nowadays since i am used to that crazy 120 hertz promotion display on the iphone 13 pro but again
if you're not coming from that the display is perfectly fine as is the performance yes there
are occasional hiccups but never anything too bad i've not had to restart the device for any reason
at all another major selling point for the iphone 10r ever since it was first introduced is the
battery life and the iphone 10r has participated in my massive battery drain comparison videos
here on the channel and it's fared very well against phones with bigger batteries and more
powerful chipsets so it's always been a beast when it comes to the battery life
and the funny thing about it is the apple actually claimed the iphone 10r will get you 16 hours of
video playback or 65 hours of audio playback and what makes that so funny is because those claims
were bolder than what apple advertised for the iphone 10s and 10s max their two flagship phones
of 2018 so that's another reason i think that a lot of people really gravitated to the iphone 10r
to begin with because it had great battery life even better than the flagships while also being
cheap and still rocking that modern edge-to-edge display this modern look that we see right here
even still on today's iphones aside from the edges i mean it looks very very similar
to today's iphones but anyways here in 2022 it's crazy to say but the iphone 10r is holding up
extremely well in at the battery department as well i was not able to quite make it through a
full day like i used to be able to back in 2018 honestly through 2020 i mean 2021 and then now
going into 2022 i'm not able to get through an entire day so we're starting to see some wear
on that battery but it almost gets me there i mean it lasts me almost the entire day now granted i
don't use it as much as i use like my iphone 13 but still i mean battery life is perfectly fine
and most people are not going to have any issue with the battery life on the 10r and if you're
wondering about my battery health on this phone you can see here we have a maximum capacity of 95
so i never replaced the battery i'm still rocking a 95 battery capacity which is pretty good if you
ask me and if you're looking to buy an iphone 10 are used make sure you look for one with a
98 to 95 or higher maximum capacity right here now with all that being said let's answer the
big question and really the point of this video should you still buy the iphone 10r and 2022 and
if you have one now should you keep it or should you upgrade it to a newer iphone so first off i
think the iphone 10r is still a fantastic value in 2022 now you can't buy them new from apple anymore
but you can buy them in great condition from places like ebay and i actually just recently
made a video showing you how to get the best deals on used iphones without getting scammed so you'll
definitely want to check that out before going to purchase an iphone 10r online so if you look at
the current going prices for the iphone 10r you'll see that they're going for anywhere from about 200
to 350 depending on the condition and the storage capacity now i will say that you should only
consider looking at the iphone 10r with a 128 gigabyte you know internal memory or higher don't
go for the 64 gigabyte and you know if you narrow your search results down you will see that there
are more in the 300 range for the 128 which honestly is still an amazing deal especially
considering that these sold new for 750 just a few years back so yes i think the iphone 10r is worth
every penny if you can get one in mint condition with a 90 plus percent battery capacity especially
if you're coming from an iphone 6s an iphone 7 or an iphone 8. now if you currently have an iphone
10r should you upgrade now or should you hold on to it for a little while longer maybe another year
or two and to this i would normally say to hold on for a little bit longer but honestly with how good
the iphone 13 is i would strongly consider upgrading to this either this year or wait until
you know in the end of the year when the iphone 14 gets released and the iphone 13 drops a little bit
and price i think that we reached a whole new level with the iphone 13 and pretty much every
category so in my opinion it is worth upgrading from the iphone 10r if you have one right now
now you might want to wait again for the 14 to get released to get a price drop on the 13 but
i would not disagree with you if you just decided to upgrade right now and pay the full price for
the iphone 13. i mean it's really that good but i understand everybody is not in the position
financially to do that but if you are if you could save up for a little bit i would honestly go for
the iphone 13 but still i'm not taking anything away from the iphone 10r because this is still a
fantastic phone at a fantastic price here in 2022 and if you do decide to hold on to the iphone 10r
or if you're just planning on getting one soon rest assured you will be getting software updates
for at least another two to three years so you don't have to worry about the phone just becoming
obsolete you know next year or even the year after that you're gonna get again at least a bare
minimum two to three years of software support you're gonna get all the new features and things
like that so there you have it that is my opinion on the iphone 10r and 2022. i love this phone to
death again it's one of my favorite designs of all time really one of my favorite iphones of all time
so it's no surprise that i'm still recommending it here and at 2022. so if you have any thoughts
to share let me know with a comment down below if you enjoyed this video i would appreciate if
you give it a thumbs up and of course make sure to subscribe for a lot more long-term iphone reviews
just like this one but anyways guys thanks again for watching and i'll see you soon
you