Back in July, I was limping along with an iPhone 6 that was in the ballpark of 4 years old. I'd replaced one screen(it fell out of my shirt pocket without a case), plus did the $30 battery last year. It was having some issues, though-namely that its reception had degraded to the point where it no longer worked in a good part of the basement at work(where I spend a lot of time, and also where I need to be reachable if away from my desk) and the built-in handset volume was so low that hearing with a lot of background noise was futile.
I needed a phone, and at the time a friend advised waiting because new ones were on the horizon. I went ahead and got an XR-it's not the first time I've bought a phone close to end of cycle, and honestly I've never regretted it. In this case, I needed it now, and decided that the XR was the best option for me. Also tying into the "need it now" thing, new models often have sporadic availability after their initial release.
My biggest complaint about the XR is that it's a heavy beast(it made me appreciate just how light the 6 is) and also the screen is almost TOO large. Holding it with one hand, I have a hard time sometimes reaching the far edge of the screen. With that said, though, I like it. The lack of a home button took a few days of getting use to, but I don't miss it now. FaceID was also a bit of an adjustment, but I've found that on the whole I like it better than Touch ID. I appreciate the fact that it works when I'm wearing gloves, or if I do something stupid like sand my fingerprints off(that's caught me a few times with touch ID). In normal use, it works so seamlessly that I don't even think about it. About the only times it catches me are in the morning when I grab my phone to check it and am still half asleep-FaceID will fail because I often only open one eye, or because I'm holding the phone too close to my face. Under normal circumstances, with the phone at a "natural" distance, it just unlocks without my thinking about it.
