honest question - without snark - can one really tell the difference between 720 and 1080 on a phone-sized screen?
First, the XR is not 720p. It's 828p.
Second, that per se doesn't matter anyway. It's not about 720p, 828p, or 1080p. It's all about pixel density.
The XR screen is a 326 ppi screen, which is the exact same as the iPhone 8, but significantly lower than the 401 ppi of the iPhone 8 Plus. Can we tell the difference? Yes, for sure some of us can. However, some can't, and moreover, not everyone who can tell the difference necessarily really cares all that much.
After using the 401 ppi 7 Plus for a couple of years, I think I might miss such a screen if I went back to a 326 ppi screen like the iPhone 8 or XR, but for my wife, she's been using a 326 ppi 6s all along with no complaints and wants a bigger iPhone, so the XR upgrade is a perfect fit for her.
However, if you want to get an impression of what the quality of the XR screen will be like, take a look at the pix below. I posted about it
here as well.
iPhone 8 with 326 ppi screen on the left. iPhone 8 Plus with 401 ppi screen on the right. The way the picture was taken above, it's hard to see much difference in the font quality. This would be analogous to holding your phone at 18 inches away from your face. 326 ppi like on the XR would look pretty decent.
Even closer up, the quality of the screen on the left looks pretty good in comparison to the one on the right.
However, click on the picture to zoom in. Look at the "v" in the word "very" just above the blue text on the right side. Look at how smooth it looks when blown up. In contrast, look at the "v" in the word "over" three lines down from the blue text on the left. It looks quite jagged when blown up like that.
In order to see such obvious jagginess you'd have to hold the phone just a few inches from your face, which of course few people actually do.
However, what about at say about 11 inches? At that distance I can see an improvement in text quality of the 401 ppi screen (right) over the 326 ppi screen (left). I don't really see the jaggies, but what I see is soft edges around the text. It makes the text just a bit blurry, whereas on the higher pixel density screen it looks very crisp.
So yes, the 401 ppi screen of the Plus is perceptibly better, but it's not obvious to everyone. If they like the iPhone 8 screen, then they will like the XR screen.
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BTW, that argument that 326 ppi looks worse on a bigger screen makes no sense at all. It will look the same, at the same distance. If anything, the reverse can be true. For some content, a bigger screen allows one to put the screen further away, making the lower pixel density even less of a concern. This is why MacBook Pro 13" screens are 227 ppi and iMac 5K screens are 218 ppi, yet still look excellent.
