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A blind screen test has everyone picking the iPhone XR over a Full HD display

Published Nov 1st, 2018 7:45AM EDT
iPhone XR Display
Image: Apple Inc.

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One of the iPhone XR features that I’ve seen criticized a lot after Apple unveiled the phone is the screen’s resolution. At 1792 x 828, that’s just better than HD (720p), but not enough to call it a Full HD (1080p) device. However, just because the iPhone XR doesn’t have a Full HD display, it doesn’t mean it’ll get you a different experience. The phone still features a Retina-class screen, a term Apple coined years ago, which can describe any screen whose individual pixels can’t be distinguished by the human eye. A YouTuber managed to prove that point in a genius blind test that had everyone picking the iPhone XR display over a true Full HD screen.

The same Jonathan Morrison, who trolled Pixel fans earlier by posting iPhone XS Max photos and claiming they were taken with a Pixel phone, is back for the iPhone XR test.

As you’ll see in the video below, he placed the iPhone XR and the Pocophone F1 inside a contraption that hid everything about each phone aside from the screen. Not even the notch was visible, so users could not tell the phones apart, or recognize them.

The Pocophone F1 is a new Xiaomi handset sold under the Poco brand in Europe and other markets. The handset costs half what you’d pay for the iPhone XR and is even cheaper than OnePlus’s latest handsets. It also happens to feature a 1080p display, which explains why it was chosen for this comparison.

All the testers watching the same video on the two devices liked the iPhone XR screen better than the Full HD screen sitting next to it. Some favored the better colors, and others highlighted viewing angles, but the conclusion seems to be pretty simple. They could not tell that one was an 828p display and the other a 1080p screen.

This goes to show that just because Apple placed a cheaper LCD screen insider the iPhone XR, a move meant to help it reduce the price of the handset, it doesn’t mean that Apple cut corners on performance. Let’s not forget that all the 4.7-inch iPhones, from iPhone 6 to iPhone 8 had great LCD panels, that were time and again proven to be superior to competing LCD screens. And all of those 4.7-inch displays came with the same HD resolution: 1334 x 750.

Check out Morrison’s clip below:

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.