In this review, I’m not gonna tell you that the iPhone 11 Pro is the best iPhone ever
made.
It obviously is.
I’m also not gonna reverbatate all of the specs, like you’ve heard a thousand times
already.
What I’m gonna talk about are the things that actually matter, to both a tech enthusiast
and an average consumer, like my wife.
Both of us have been using the iPhone 11 Pro for a few days now, so I’ve collected my
own thoughts and I also interviewed my wife to see what differences she noticed and what
she liked about the iPhone 11 Pro.
But before I get into that, let’s talk about what happened at Apple’s event.
There’s no doubt that a lot of people were a bit disappointed.
A lot of people argued that Apple shouldn’t have used the name “Pro”, since it’s
missing a few Pro features like 120hz refresh rate, a USB-C port and reverse wireless charging,
but after people started to get the 11 Pro in their hands..
The disappointment started to fade away.
So the question is, does it matter that the new iPhone is missing a few Pro features that
Apple fans were anticipating?
For most people, not really.
What it does pack is a few important features and changes that make it a seriously good
package overall in terms of being a premium smartphone.
It now packs all 3 camera lenses that you’d hope to see in a smartphone.
It now packs night mode, which as you’ll see later, works incredibly well.
It packs the best processor in any smartphone.
It has top-of-the-line battery life.
A high-quality display that’s even brighter this year.
Incredibly balanced speakers.
It finally comes with a fast charger in the box.
It packs top-of-the-line security.
And it features a truly unique design that you’ll never confuse for anything else.
It seems as though for the first time in a long time, the iPhone 11 Pro gives you a complete
package of features, and that’s what truly matters.
When it comes to upgrading your iPhone, I thought of a formula for iPhone upgradability
that is more realistic for regular consumers.
And offering a full package of features that work very well together is the first piece
of the puzzle.
Second, the iPhone has to look and feel different.
Not that many people upgraded from the iPhone X to the XS, and that’s because it looked
basically identical to the X.
Only the XS Max looked different because it was obviously much larger, and that’s actually
the flagship model that most people upgraded to.
This year, the iPhone 11 Pro looks and feels WAY different, with a brand new unique feeling
matte glass back, a relocated apple logo, the new popular midnight green color, and
most importantly, a very unique square camera bump with large triple camera lenses that
really stand out.
That new square bump with 3 lenses has become a trademark alongside the Pro branding, so
now, it’s almost impossible to mistake the 11 Pro for the iPhone X or XS, unless you’re
looking at the front, of course.
The 3rd thing that matters is that it sounds different, and having the word Pro in the
name, is more unique than ever before.
When I was standing in line at the Apple Store on Launch day, I kept hearing regular people
saying that they want the new iPhone Pro.
They seemed like they didn’t really know that much about tech, but what they did know
is that they wanted the Pro model.
And throughout the weekend, I kept hearing people ask, is that the new Pro?
Is that the iPhone Pro?
It seems as though the 11 part of the name has faded away under the success of the Pro
name.
So it seems like using “Pro” is already working for Apple’s benefit, even if some
people disagree with it.
And from a marketing standpoint, it totally makes sense for Apple to do this.
They could easily continue using this naming scheme for years, and it actually works quite
well.
I’ll explain why in a minute.
Before I get into my personal thoughts on what truly matters about the iPhone 11 Pro
and Pro Max, as well as the downsides or disappointments of the Pro, I wanna quickly mention the real-world
differences and changes my wife noticed and enjoyed about her new 11 Pro.
First off, she loves the camera, especially the new wider lens on the selfie camera, allowing
her to fit more into the frame without having to stretch her hand out as far as she can.
She also absolutely loves the new ultra-wide lens, and she had a blast taking unique and
creative photos at the park.
She was also really impressed with the video stabilization, and she actually really likes
the square bump on the back compared to the XS’s vertical bump, and she noticed much
better battery life as well.
Her iPhone 11 Pro was still at 67% battery life at 9:30pm on Sunday, with absolutely
zero charging throughout the day, which was something that’s never happened to her before.
In terms of performance, she didn’t really notice a difference coming from the XS, but
she doesn’t really do any heavy tasks like gaming or using professional apps or anything
like that.
So overall, she’s very happy with her new iPhone 11 Pro, even coming from the XS, so
I think regular consumers who are coming from an older iPhone will definitely notice a difference.
Now let’s get into the real-world differences that I, a tech enthusiast, noticed after spending
a few days with the 11 Pro Max.
First of all, I am pleasantly surprised with the battery life.
Every time that I would check it, I’d be surprised at how high it was compared to my
old XS Max.
And on Sunday, I was at 61% battery life after coming home at 9:30pm.
This has never happened on my XS Max, so I think the battery life is perhaps the biggest
deal with the new 11 Pro.
And don’t take my word for it, Mrwhosetheboss just released his battery drain test, and
even the smaller iPhone 11 Pro beat out the Note 10 Plus, and that was with the Note 10
Plus manually set to a lower resolution than both of the iPhones, at 1080P instead of the
1440P the Note is capable of.
And the iPhone 11 Pro Max lasted 8 hours and 32 minutes, the best battery life Mrwhosetheboss
has ever seen on any smartphone.
As far as the design, I seriously can’t get enough of it.
The matte finish on the glass feels incredible in the hand, and I’m shocked at how Apple
was able to pull off the square bump on the back.
It just looks so unique and premium compared the vertical bump on the XS, and so far, everyone
else I know loves the new look.
The speakers have also been improved from the XS Max, with the top and bottom speakers
being much more balanced than before, which is why I think the new surround sound effect
works so well.
As far as performance, I honestly haven’t noticed a difference in the UI and using the
phone normally, but what most people don’t really think about is that the reason the
cameras are as good as they are is solely because of the extra performance of the new
A13 Bionic chip in the 11 Pro.
That’s where most of the improvements are going, and I’ll talk about them in just
a minute.
And even though a lot of the improvements are geared towards efficiency, for getting
that awesome battery life, we actually saw a huge improvement in raw performance in both
processor and graphics workloads.
For gaming, the XS had excellent performance, being able to max out the graphics on basically
any game we tried, but it had a huge issue while playing Fortnite at high brightness
at 60 frames per second.
After only 10 minutes, the XS would heat up and the display would greatly dim.
So I tried it on the 11 Pro Max and it was able to last much longer before dimming, and
it didn’t dim nearly as much as before, so I’m really impressed with the efficiency
of the new A13 chip, especially since you’ll get better battery life during long gaming
sessions.
In my opinion, even if you can’t notice the difference in performance right now, having
the extra power of the A13 for the next couple of years is going to be a big deal for when
new apps and games come out that will actually be able to use it, especially augmented reality
apps.
And now let’s get into the cameras, the main upgrade this year.
We now get the ultra-wide lens, which is actually really fun to use.
The quality isn’t nearly as good as the wide lens, but it’s a blast to get unique
angles and shots.
The wide lens looks better than ever, with excellent dynamic range and image quality.
And I’m glad that Apple added a bit more contrast to the photos so they don’t look
as flat as last year’s XS.
And the white balance looks very consistent between lenses, whereas last year, it leaned
towards the warm side far too often.
And for the telephoto lens, I’ve actually noticed that photos taken with this lens turn
out better with less noise, especially for portrait mode photos.
However, I’m quite disappointed with portrait blur edging.
I thought they would improve on it this year, but it still sucks when it comes to missing
large sections of background.
So I really hope Apple adds a time of flight sensor next year.
Perhaps the biggest deal is Apple moving from 7 megapixels to 12 on the front facing camera,
as well as making the lens wider in general.
It’s much more detailed than before and being able to record 4K 60fps selfie video
is insane.
And finally, Apple has added a night mode, and it does such a great job, especially since
the colors turn out natural and not oversaturated like on a lot of the other Android phones.
The only downside is that you can’t use night mode with the ultra-wide lens or the
selfie camera, which is a huge bummer.
As for video recording, Apple has completely knocked it out of the park with the 11 Pro.
The quality looks incredible and beats out basically every other phone on the market.
And this year, the stabilization is absolutely phenomenal.
It just works so incredibly well.
And I love how you can record with the ultra-wide lens.
But the biggest improvement for video recording comes thanks to the A13 Bionic chip.
You can now shoot at 4K 60 while getting extended dynamic range, which means that the chip is
actually recording at 4K 120, with 60 darker frames and 60 brighter frames, being blended
together in real-time to offer incredible dynamic range.
This is a huge deal and it puts an even bigger gap between it and other smartphones.
However, there’s a massive downside with recording.
While shooting in 4K 60, you can’t switch between lenses.
That means, if you start recording with the ultra-wide lens, you can’t zoom out or switch
to another lens.
It works perfectly fine while recording at 30 fps, but not at 60.
That’s a major flaw especially now that we have the added ultra-wide lens.
But overall, the cameras are outstanding on the 11 Pro, and we’ll be putting out some
very detailed camera comparisons shortly, so if you’re not already subscribed, make
sure to do so now so you don’t miss out!
So that leads me into a few things that I found extremely disappointing this year.
Yes, the 11 Pro offers the most complete iPhone package we’ve seen in years, and I honestly
think that most people who are on the edge of upgrading should just do it unless they’re
perfectly happy with their current device, but if we had these 3 things, I honestly think
it would be perfect.
First off, the same 4GB of RAM on the 11 Pro?
That’s just a bit sad.
And even worse, the same 64GB of storage at the base price is just embarrassing, especially
since the Note 10 Plus comes with 256GB of even faster storage at the same price.
And finally, I was really hoping for an always-on display on the 11 Pro, especially since Apple
added it to their new Series 5 Apple Watch, but we still don’t have it on the iPhone.
Other than that, the iPhone 11 Pro is an excellent package overall, and it looks and feels more
premium than ever before, making the 1000 dollar price honestly seem worth it again,
just like it was with the iPhone X from two years ago.
This has been Vadim with Max Tech, and if you enjoyed this review, make sure to check
out some of our other videos right there, and click the circle above to subscribe for
our upcoming camera comparisons.
Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one!