The iPhone XR Is A Mix Of iPhone 8 and iPhone X Technologies, Teardown Reveals

Could Apple’s iPhone XR, that arrived in stores on Friday, be the ‘lost iPhone 9’ that iFixit suggests?

According to the repair outfit, the total teardown of Apple’s $750 ‘cheap’ iPhone XS revealed “design hallmarks reminiscent of both the iPhone 8 and X.”

Most notably, iFixit notes that with the iPhone XR, Apple repurposed the iPhone 8 single-decker logic board – a pre-X-series design – although the board is vaguely rectangular like its recent brethren.

The iPhone XR also has the “old-school” bar-shaped, single-cell battery versus the L-shaped battery found on the iPhone X, XS and XS Max, the same rear and front cameras and last year’s wireless chip which doesn’t support the speedier Gigabit LTE, which is about twice as fast.

While the XR battery (11.16 Wh) is not as big as the XS Max (12.08 Wh), says the San Luis Obispo, Calif-based startup, it is larger than the XS (10.13 Wh) which gives it the best best battery life out of Apple’s three new iPhones.

One difference that iFixit couldn’t figure out during its teardown though is how could the iPhone XS got its extra IP water and dust protection point, IP68 (maximum depth of 2 meters up to 30 minute) vs IP67 for the XR (maximum depth of 1 meter up to 30 minutes) because opening the XR felt about the same than the XS.

Finally, iFixit points out that the glass on the front and the back of the iPhone X series doubles the “crackability” and that a broken back glass will require to replace the phone’s entire chassis.

You can check the video of iFixit’s iPhone XR teardown below: