Apple iPhone 11 review

Thanks to a new wide camera sensor with 100 percent Focus Pixels and smarter software, the iPhone 11 does a much better job snapping pics in little to no light. And the Night Mode kicks in automatically, so you don’t have to swipe or tap to activate it as you do with the Android competition. With the iPhone 11, you just have the hold the phone steady for up to 3 seconds as you shoot.

We didn’t need Night mode on the iPhone 11 or Pixel 3 for this shot taken inside a dim bar, but it still proved to be a good challenge for both phones. The iPhone 11 triumphed in this case, as it delivered a brighter overall image, especially in the overhead lights. You can also make out more detail in the woman’s hair in the iPhone 11’s photo, and the Pixel 3 has more trouble with the light shining behind the bottles in the upper left corner.

The other big improvement comes from the iPhone 11’s new 12-MP ultra-wide camera, which joins the standard 12-MP camera. This feature lets you fit in up to four times more scene without having to back up, thanks to a 120-degree field of view. In a clever move, the redesigned camera interface gives you a sneak preview of what you could squeeze into the frame if you engaged the ultra-wide lens.

In this photo taken in Bryant Park on an overcast day with the iPhone 11 and Galaxy Note 10, the Note 10 delivers a brighter shot overall. The grass is definitely a more vibrant green. There are other aspects that make the iPhone 11’s ulta-wide shot look better, including sharper details and less distortion toward the edges of the frame, but in this case I prefer the Note’s pic.

Apple also takes Smart HDR to the next level in the iPhone 11, as the machine learning can understand what the subject is and keep the details you want in the face while retaining the shadows.

In this portrait of my colleague Shaun, his face looks warmer and you can make out the finer lines in his forehead more easily. The Note 10’s shot looks washed out. However, the iPhone 11’s image accidentally cut off a piece of Shaun’s head on the right side.

My only gripe with the iPhone 11 and taking portraits is that it puts you farther away from your subject than the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro do, because the regular iPhone 11 lacks a telephoto lens. So, you’ll either have to walk up to your subject or just accept having more of the background in the frame.

The one photo that won me over with the new iPhone’s camera versus the Note 10’s is this cookie. The iPhone 11’s photo captures practically every nook and cranny and the M&Ms really pop, while the Galaxy Note 10’s pic looks somewhat washed out and overly bright.

I’m not including many comparisons here versus Google’s Pixel 3 because the Pixel 4 is on the way, but I thought this flower shot taken with 2x digital zoom with both phones was interesting. The iPhone 11’s shot delivers more realistic colors given the lighting conditions. Still, some may prefer the Pixel 3 photo because of the darker lavender petals and slightly sharper detail.

With an iOS 13 update, the iPhone 11 offers a new Deep Fusion feature to perform pixel-by-pixel photo processing to deliver even more detail and better textures along with less noise. Again, you don’t need to activate a separate mode; it will just kick in when you’re indoors and there’s a decent amount of light.

We put Deep Fusion to the test using the iPhone 11 Pro with a beta version of iOS 13.2 and found that there was a subtle improvement. (Deep Fusion works the same on the regular iPhone 11.) Take the above portrait of my colleague, Henry; you can make out more detail in his eyebrows and hair, but his sweater looks pretty much the same across both shots.

Video recording

What Apple set out to do was give videographers the ability to shoot the same quality video using either lens while maintaining the color and exposure even as you walk through trick lighting situations.

To put the phone’s video capabilities to the test, I walked on a gravel path on a park trail, and found that there’s really no contest between the new iPhone and Galaxy Note 10. Although Samsung’s cameras produced more vibrant greens, the colors were not realistic, and you get more gradation of color and contrast in the iPhone 11’s footage. You can also make out more detail in the surrounding grass and leaves in the iPhone 11’s video. The Note 10 also had a bit more difficulty with lens flare.

To make shooting video feel more integrated with taking photos, Apple redesigned the iOS 13 camera interface so that you can easily capture QuickTake videos. You just hold the shutter button to start shooting video. You then slide your finger to the right to continue shooting that clip. Don’t worry, if you press the shutter and then slide to the left you can still do burst captures of still images.

Front camera

You could say that the iPhone XR’s 7-MP front camera was selfie challenged, but the iPhone 11 rectifies that with a sharper 12-MP sensor with a wider field of view. With a tap you can engage the wider angle or you can simply rotate the phone to landscape mode and the wide view will turn on automatically, which is a smart implementation.

But the one front camera feature everyone is talking about with the new iPhone is “slofies,” which are slo-mo selfie videos shot at 120 fps. I don’t know if the name will take off, but it’s a fun feature for those who want to add some drama to selfies.

For kicks, I took a slofie while trying to make a basket in the driveway behind my head. Apple makes it easy in the editing software to slow down just the bits you want. I won’t tell you how many takes it took to make the basket, but I like the detail in the shot, especially in the clouds behind me.

For regular selfie videos, you can shoot in 4K up to 60 fps, though if you want the same extended dynamic range offered by the iPhone 11’s rear cameras you’ll have to stick with 30 fps.

Performance

Apple already had the fastest CPU in a phone, and it has extended its lead with the A13 Bionic chip inside the iPhone 11. Apple claims that this chip offers 20 percent faster performance across the board, including CPU, graphics and machine learning.

The game Grimvalor played silky smooth on the new iPhone as I hacked, slashed and double jumped my way through this side-scrolling platformer. I didn’t notice any hiccups even with multiple enemies on screen. Also enjoyed playing Angry Birds AR; I could get up real close to the pigs before I flung my sling shot and didn’t notice any stuttering as I walked around the level.

(Image credit: SleekMart)
On Geekbench 5, a benchmark that measures overall performance, the iPhone 11 notched a single-core mark of 1,333 and a multicore score of 3,251, compared with 736 and 2,691, respectively, for the Galaxy Note 10 Plus. The OnePlus 7 Pro hit 744 and 2,802 on the same test.When it comes to graphics performance, the iPhone 11 fell behind top Android phones on the 3DMark benchmark app. On the Slingshot Extreme Metal portion of the test, the iPhone 11 scored 5,785 on the Slingshot Extreme Unlimited Test. By comparison, the Note 10 scored 6,295 on and the OnePlus 7 6,375.We also ran GFX Bench, which is another graphics benchmark, and this time the iPhone 11 crushed it. On the Aztech Ruins High Tier offscreen test, the iPhone 11 hit 1481 frames (23 fps), compared with 1,058 frames (16 fps) for the Galaxy Note 10. On the Normal Tier version of the same test, the iPhone 11 hit 4,366/67.9 fps versus the Galaxy Note 10’s 1,486/23 fps.

To test real-world performance, we used the Adobe Rush app to edit a 4K video and then transcoded it to 1080p. The iPhone 11 took just 45 seconds, which is surprisingly just about as fast as last year’s iPhone XR result. However, this time still smokes the Android competition, as the Note 10 Plus took 1:34.

Apple iPhone 11 review: Battery life

The iPhone 11 offers very good endurance. On the Tom’s Guide Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over 4G at 150 nits of screen brightness, the iPhone 11’s battery lasted an average of 11 hours and 16 minutes. You can see how the iPhone lineup fared overall in our iPhone 11 battery life guide.

(Image credit: SleekMart)
By comparison, the Galaxy S10 hit 10:35 and the Galaxy S10 Plus lasted 12:35. The OnePlus 7 Pro was much further behind with just 9:31. The iPhone 11 Pro Max lasted a bit longer than the iPhone 11 with an average time of 11:54, but the smaller iPhone 11 Pro lasted an average of 10:24.

Unfortunately, while you can fast charge the iPhone 11, you don’t get a fast charger in the box like you now do with the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. Those higher-end phones come with an 18-watt charger. So if you want to juice up to 50% in about 30 minutes, you’ll have to pay $25 for a 18-watt charger plus another $19 for a USB-C to Lightning cable. Boo.

Apple iPhone 11 review: Wireless

Apple is skipping 5G networking altogether for the iPhone 11, which is a bummer because you’ll miss out on the blazing speeds offered by phones like the Galaxy S10 5G, which can go as high as a gigabit per second. Still, if you want a true future-proof iPhone, you may want to wait for the iPhone 12.

The iPhone 11 supports 4G LTE, which offers decent performance but not the same speeds as the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max. Why? Because while the new iPhone has 2x 2 MIMO antennas, the iPhone 11 Pro models offer 4×4 MIMO for better performance.

(Image credit: SleekMart)

On the Speedtest.net app, the iPhone 11 delivered an average download speed of 13 Mbps compared with 15 Mbps for the iPhone 11 Pro Max. Uploads speeds were a similar story, with the iPhone 11 averaging 5.4 Mbps to the iPhone 11 Pro Max’s 6.1 Mbps. That’s not much of a speed difference. One unique wireless feature on the iPhone 11 is a new U1 chip for spatial awareness that uses Ultra Wideband technology. With this chip, the iPhone can accurately pinpoint the location of other U1-enabled devices; for now, that just means other iPhone 11 handsets, and the U1 chip initially benefits just AirDrop at this point. Point in the direction of another iPhone 11, you can then share the files more efficiently than you could before.Rumor has it that Apple has an AirTags object tracker in the works to better take advantage of the U1 chip. This would directly challenge the best key finders made by Tile and others.

iOS 13

In my time with the iPhone 11 I didn’t really notice that much of a difference having Apple’s new iOS 13 software being on board, with two major exceptions.

The Photos app is dramatically different (in a good way) with Days, Months and Years view that curate your photos and make your library look more lively. For instance, in the Days view, the iPhone 11 auto-played a short animation of transitioning from regular to ultra-wide mode on the same shot.

Dark Mode is another welcome addition, even though it’s more of an aesthetic change. The new feature can make looking at menus easier on the eyes while also making your content pop more on screen. Other highlights include a rebuilt Maps app and Sign in with Apple.

Available this fall, iOS 14 will bring much bigger changes to the iPhone 11 and other iPhones, including new widgets on the home screen, App Library for automatically organizing your apps, picture in picture support, pinned conversations in Messages and a Translate app. Siri is also getting a new compact design and AirPods will get spatial audio support.

Apple iPhone 11 vs. iPhone 11 Pro vs. iPhone 11 Pro Max

If you’re on the fence about which new iPhone to buy, these are some notable differences between Apple’s different models. The biggest? The iPhone 11 Pro costs more than the iPhone 11. And for that premium, you get a third rear camera for telephoto zoom, higher quality OLED displays, a fast charger in the box, slightly better water resistance and zippier LTE.

Apple iPhone 11 review: Verdict

Like the iPhone XR before it, the iPhone 11 is the iPhone I’d recommend to most people. And not just to existing iPhone owners — anyone looking for top-notch cameras should consider this handset, especially because of Apple’s aggressive $699 price. Based on our testing, the iPhone 11 can now hang with or beat the best cameras from Google and Samsung.

The only strikes against the new iPhone are its skimpy 64GB of storage in the base model and that a fast charger costs extra.

If you prefer Android, the Samsung Galaxy S20 looks great with its 120Hz displays, 5G and more powerful zoom camera. A better Android alternative is the OnePlus 8 Pro, offers a bigger 6.8-inch 120Hz screen, triple rear cameras and 5G support.

At this stage it may pay to wait for the iPhone 12, as that should offer 5G support along with lots of other upgrades. But the iPhone 11 remains an outstanding value and is undoubtedly one of the best phones you can buy.