Everything you need to know about the iPhone ten R. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on Tech. Depending on when you're listening to this podcast, the iPhone ten R is either in stores tomorrow or it's already in people's hands. And one of those people's hands is reviewer Lance Yulanoff. He's been playing with the phone and he joins me on today's podcast. Welcome to the show, Lance, thanks for having me. Lance is often seen on the
Ryan and Kelly Show. He has been covering technology for two decades. And you have which color of the iPhone ten are?
White? All?
Right? White?
I wanted something different?
Yeah, I read in your review, which is on medium, you wrote a definitive review of the iPhone ten R, and full disclosure, I have not gotten my review unit yet, but I did go hands on obviously the Apple event, which I'll be honest, I thought that was enough for me because I understand what the ten S is all about. I get what the ten R is all about. But you've been playing with this thing. What jumps out at you?
Well, obviously you know it's it looks exactly like the sort of the design. Wise, it looks just like the Tennis and the Tennis Max. But you know you see that aluminum body, the screen is there are two things that really jump out and two things that are I guess define this product. There's one is the screen. The resolution of the screen is not as high as the other devices. It's not old, it's LCD. And then on the back, instead of the double camera, you have the
single camera, you have a single wide angle camera. And these things absolutely sound like deficits, but in the end, one you either don't really notice the difference on the screen, and two, I'm not sure the single camera is a deficit because it gives you something extra on the portrait mode side.
Interesting. So realistically, you've got a seven hundred and fifty dollars device, so about two and fifty dollars less than the iPhone ten S, which is kind of their top of the line device. You do get the wireless charging, you do get the portrait mode, you get the stereo audio, you get the water resistance, you get a bunch of
color choices. Realistically, Lance I thought it was really a nice choice by Apple to give pretty much the same insides on this phone as on the flagship model, which is pretty rare.
Yeah, no, I thought it was great. They didn't, especially at the CPU level. So you have, you know, the the A twelve Bionic that is their ultimate mobile processor that is on the new phones, the tens, the Tennis Smax, and I thought with the ten Art that you would, you know, have one generation back. That's actually what they've done typically with their phone line. So to put in as much power inside this cheaper device was a surprise,
certainly a pleasant one. And it shows, you know, because the performance is virtually identical to the other phones which I also tested.
Yeah, usually you have to make a trade off in the lower price when it comes to performance, but this time you don't. So it's really it's kind of created a little mini problem for reviewers because generally, you know, everyone always easily says, if you want the best, you have to go with the ten s, right, because that's the top of the line. But in this case a lot of reviewers are saying that save the two hundred and fifty dollars. To the average person, you're not going
to notice the LCD screen. You're not going to notice that the bezel is a little bit thicker around the edge. You're not going to notice that it has a little bit less water resistance. You're not going to care too
much about the no dual camera. I mean, the dual camera is nice if you ever want to, you know, get that two times optical zoom, but you only use that once in a while, right, Most people just want to take a picture of their friend with that blurry background, and you're gonna be able to do that on this phone.
Yeah, and that's I mean, I think that's the point. So I think for me, actually, I might notice the lack of a two x opticals who are more than others because I'm often taking the phone to an event where I'm trying to get closer to it to share images on Twitter. But in day to day use, you know, I kind of fell in love with this single camera because it actually does something that you can't do with
the other phones. So because they chose the single camera to be the wide angle camera, I get very different looking portrait mode shots. I call them more dramatic because in addition to your focused subject, you've got a lot more of the background, which of course you can blur.
But so of course that helps if you're taking a picture of multiple people, but it also helps just for individual shots where you just get more of the atmosphere, and so it's really it's something unique to the ten R in the ten line.
Yeah, if you've used the iPhone ten or the ten S, you know, as soon as you swipe into portrait mode, it's like, oh, shoot, I just zoomed in like halfway into my screen. So now you have to step back to get your person in that picture. So you're saying, because they use the wide angle and they're also using sort of an algorithm to do this, they don't, you know, it doesn't jump forward because it's not using those two lenses.
That's an interesting thought. Tell me about the three D touch because a lot of folks have said, how you lose three D touch on this thing? What does it mean when you lose three D touch when you press down on an icon? What happens?
Well? Nothing, really, It's like you know, I.
Should say when you hard press, and I can.
When you hard press right, so you can put your finger. You can if you keep your finger on an icon without pressing, for example, on any of your apps you go into that mode, we can delete them. But if you have three D touch and you're pressing and then you give a little bit of a hard press. It's as if there's a depth to your press. Now it's it's basically it's a trick. It's a little motor inside that vibrates to make your finger think that that's happening.
But it gives you all these other feature so that you can press and kind of get these quick quick access to some features of certain apps. You get more access to you know, you get the access to the control panel. What you get on the ten R is called haptic touch. It's it's limited to I think the control panel, the lock screen, and that's it.
So I hard pushed the camera icon on the ten R. Right now, on the ten S, I get take portrait, scan, QR, code record video, take selfie. All those options are gone.
Yeah they're gone. That doesn't it doesn't work that way. So it really sort of confines any sort of haptic response to this, like, you know, this small part of the phone. So if you're if the ten R is locked and I press down on the uh the flashlight, I get that little beat, that vibration, and that feels like the three D touch, but they call it haptic touch, and you know, and that same thing works actually on the camera to access it, but this is only from the locks.
Interesting, so they sort of have it, but they don't enable it for the apps. The water resistance on the ten R is just slightly less, but I don't think day to day that's going to be that big of a deal for most people.
Well, how deep is your toilet? That's the question.
And do you really want to use your phone after it's dropped in the toilet? That's the you know, that's the question for me.
I you know what, I think a lot of people have.
I know, it still works, it's still eight hundred device, so you're like, I have to use this thing, but.
It realistically, it's the difference between two meters and one meter. Okay, two meters for thirty minutes on those on the more expensive devices, one meter for thirty minutes on the ten R.
You get your choice of colors on the ten R, which the colors are black, white, blue, yellow, coral which is kind of pink, and then a red color.
It's funny, I call coral kind of orange. But you know what, I've decided it's because I'm a little colorblind.
Yeah, I think I am too, So maybe we're just we'll just mix what we what we say together. Now, when it comes to the portrait mode, you can't take portrait mode of non humans, right, So you did a little experimentation with this, but you're sort of limited to
people's faces. That's because of the algorithm limitation, So you don't you know, if you want to take these crazy portrait modes of all kinds of stuff, you might want to consider the ten s. Other than that, I mean, realistically, the screen lance are is the average person going to notice a difference in the screen on this device if you're not comparing it to another device sitting right next to it.
Right, if you don't have it next to it, you won't notice. I had the benefit of having all of these devices right next to it, and I could see it immediately. But on its own, you just end up focusing. It is a retina level screen, you know, it is that resolution, so you're still it's still bright, it's still attractive, and you really have to kind of force yourself to look at the bezel and see that it's slightly thicker.
But you I would challenge an individual to notice that without the other phones next to it.
Okay, So is sixty four gigs for seven hundred and fifty dollars, one hundred and twenty eight for seven ninety nine, two fifty six for eight ninety nine. I think the sweet spot is that one twenty eight for fifty more dollars. I mean, you've already gone seven hundred and fifty, you might as well go fifty more bucks, right.
I agree. I agree that. I think that's a really good point. Again, you're still saving that money. I think, Yeah, you know, this is a device capable of shooting four K videos, So you know, if you know you avoid doing that because that fills up that space.
Yeah, yeah, because but if you.
Avoid doing that and you stick with the ten ADP and you know, I think you'll be just fine with it. It's funny over the years, I used to think that sixty four gig avites tod be like, Wow, I'm gonna I'm never going to run out of space, And now I'm like, you know, I'm tend to be leaning into the two fifty six. You know, because our files have gotten larger. We're shooting tons of photos and tons of videos.
I don't think people even realize what they're doing, you know, And and so it fills up faster than you think, and you tend to notice it when you have to buy more iCloud storage.
Yeah, and that's the other thing. It's like, sure the iCloud storage. A lot of people are saying you only need sixty four because if you have iCloud and you have that little switch on that says, you know, optimize my photo storage on my phone, which means it basically offloads a lot of your pictures into the cloud, downloads them when you only need them when you're viewing them. The reality is it's still nice to have that physical space on your phone because apps are getting bigger. Like
you said, the four K video files. I like to shoot everything in four K because guess what, have you ever looked at your old videos, Lance from when you had a VGA camera? They look like garbage on today's screens, right, And you can't believe it because back in the day they looked amazing.
Those darn flipcams.
Yes, exactly. So what do you think do you recommend the ten R for the average person or are they really do they really need to save up and go with the ten S max or the ten S.
I recommend it, and I predict this is going to be a huge seller for Apple. I think that people between the price and the performance and those color choices, which would for whatever reason, just turn people on. I think this is going to be an incredibly popular phone, and.
I concur I agree. I think it's incredibly popular as well. I say, the only reason you need to go with the ten S or the tens Max is if you're in a position of content creation, you know, I really think, or if you're just that kind of person that has to have the absolute best that Apple has to offer. But the biggest thing to me is the fact that they put that same processor in both phones.
It's like almost no sacrifice at all, and just one other thing because I think it matters to people. The screen glass on the front is the same as the tens. The screen glass on the back is slightly different but better than the original ten but lesser than the ten S. So just because everybody's dropping their phone and I know it's a concern.
And I will say too when I was holding the device at the Apple event. Doesn't have white the premium feel of the ten S, but it has the feel of basically any iPhone from back in the day, like the seven or the eight right.
Oh yeah, yeah, you know, surgical steel on the tennis and tennis max is amazing, and you know it just feels great. But the aluminum looks good, feels good actually because it's Matt Finish. It's it's nice to hold. You don't feel like it's gonna slip out of your hand, so I think it's still good.
All right, Lance deeling Off, thanks so much for joining me. Twitter dot com slash Lance U L A n O F F. He also has his review of the iPhone on Medium. He says the iPhone ten R excels where it counts, so you can read his whole review there. And yes, I will be getting my phone, I believe tomorrow, so I will have some hands on and sprinkle that across all my social media. Lance, have a great day you too.
Thanks for having me, And if you want.
More information on the ten R, you can go in the show notes or go on my website rich on tech dot tv. I'm rich Tomiro. Thanks so much for listening. I'll talk to you real soon. Mhm