The iPhone Xr
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iPhone XR hands-on: A 6.1-inch LCD screen that looks good (Updated)

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

Apple executive Phil Schiller made me chuckle when he was onstage at the Apple event today in Cupertino, California. He said the new iPhone XR had “aerospace grade aluminum” for its case, as if we were going to launch this thing into outer space.

But I would say he doesn’t have to do that hard a sell for one particular group of enthusiasts: gamers. I tried it out at the event for the briefest time, and it was pretty impressive. It’s not Apple’s flagship phone, but it has some features that game players are going to love.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.