Welcome back everyone, I'm ThioJoe, and it's once again time to review this year's iPhone.
As you probably know, Apple created three models, the iPhone 11, the 11 Pro, and the
11 Pro Max. The one we're gonna be looking at today is the iPhone 11 Pro which I chose
because I like the size of this one, I just think the Max would be too big. But it's not
like this is going to be a comparison video or anything, we'll just be focusing on this
phone. And as usual I'm going to be doing a ruthless review, so I'm gonna tell you everything
I love, what I hate, and everything in between with no sugar coating, especially considering
the pricetag.
Before we jump in also be sure to follow me on Instagram I try to post cool stuff and
hilarious jokes on there. So if you want to check that out it's just @ThioJoe over on Instagram.
So what we'll do is start out with the basic design of the phone followed by the internal
hardware, then onto performance with stuff like the camera and battery, then move onto
the user experience and software features, and finally I can talk about more general
things I like and dislike about this phone.
Alright so the first up the general design, the screen is a 5.8" OLED screen Apple is
calling the "Super Retina XDR display", and basically it's just a really good looking
OLED screen that's even brighter than last year's XS. There's still the notch for FaceID,
which I will never think is not ugly, and Apple didn't even shrink it so that's a bummer.
On the sides you have what you'd expect, with the volume buttons, silent mode toggle, power
button, and speakers on the bottom along with the lightning jack.
Things get a bit more interesting on the back where there's now a matte finish to the whole
thing, which I'm definitely a big fan of because it's way less likely to show fingerprints.
The other big thing is obviously the triple camera setup at the top, so there's the regular
wide, ultra wide, and telephoto lenses, then the flash and microphone next to them. We'll
talk more about the cameras later but one thing I don't like is how there's basically
a double camera bump here, so the whole module is elevated, and then each lens is also sticking
out. I'm not a fan of camera bumps in general but I'd think this is even more likely to
get dirt and dust stuck in the crevices. That being said, as a side note, the case I have
extends to the camera bump so it sits flush on surfaces which I really like. It's the
Spigen 'liquid crystal' case, I like it because it's thin and clear so the phone doesn't feel
any bigger. It does tend to discolor over time though, but it's so cheap at like $10,
you can just buy a new one when it does. If you want to check it out I'll put that link
in the description for Amazon. That's the case I use.
Besides the cameras though, and the now centered apple logo, the overall body shape and design
is pretty much the same as the last two generations of iPhones.
Talking a little bit more about the screen though I will say it's noticeably brighter,
at least when it needs to be like in bright sunlight. It supposedly has 800 nits of typical
max brightness which compares to the XS which was rated at just 625 nits. And when I tested it with my own light
meter, the 11 Pro was reading about 970 lux vs the XS at 900 lux. That's a different unit
from nits so it doesn't convert exactly, but it still shows that it is indeed brighter. As
for how the screen looks generally, iPhone OLED screens are going to look great in any
case, so I wouldn't say I notice any difference coming from the XS, but obviously it just
looks good. And the resolution is 2436x1125 at 458ppi, so which is the same as the XS.
I am really disappointed though that they didn't add a high refresh rate screen, it
DEFINITELY feels like they're holding that back which I hate, especially considering
they've been offering the iPad "pro" with a higher refresh rate for a while now, and
I think it would be a feature that a lot of people would immediately notice and love.
So now we've seen the outside of the phone, let's talk about the internals. The CPU is
Apple's own A13 Bionic, so no surprise it's just a new and improved CPU that's faster
as you'd expect, and also apparently more battery efficient. The battery capacity for
the 11 pro isn't listed on Apple's website, but is 3190 mAh. I'm really happy about this,
because Apple has had a history of putting tiny batteries in their phones, and even though
iPhones are way more energy efficient, it was still a joke. So this battery capacity
is actually decent, and when combined with the great power efficiency for the phone,
it's a big plus, though we'll talk more about battery life later.
As for RAM there's 4GB, which in my opinion isn't really enough considering Apple literally
branded this as a "pro" device, and apparently the camera app uses a lot more memory than
previously. I think 6 GB would have been more appropriate, but I'm not surprised Apple is
again just putting in the minimum amount they can get away with here. And when it comes
to storage capacity, the base model is still only 64GB, which for a so-called "pro" phone
is kind of a joke. The next step up is 256GB which I think is more than enough, but does
cost an extra $150, and the 512 GB model costs an extra $350 above the base model. I think
if Apple made the base model 128 GB that would be perfect, but I'm not gonna even hold my
breath for next year.
As for water resistance rating, I will give them props for improving that even further.
It's still IP68 technically but they went beyond that rating so it can now survive being
submerged in 4 meters of water for 30 minutes, as opposed to 2 meters of water. So theoretically
it could survive being dropped into the deep end of most pools.
Finally for specs we can go over the cameras. All of the cameras including the front facing
one are 12 megapixels. The three on the back are the regular wide angle at f/1.8 aperture,
the ultra wide at f/2.4, and the telephoto at f/2.0. The front facing camera is f/2.2,
and is actually capable of capturing slo motion video at 120fps, compared to the back cameras
which can do 240fps.
Alright so let's get into what it's like using the phone, just in general and then we'll
get into specifics like with the camera. Overall, there are really no surprises, it's a top
end iPhone, so it does not lag or stutter at all. Apps open really quickly as you'd
expect, so it pretty much performs flawlessly just like every recent new iPhone generation
does when it's released. FaceID does feel a little bit faster at times I think, which
makes sense, the whole phone is faster. And while FaceID apparently can now capture from
a wider angle, it must be very slight because I have not really noticed any difference in
that regard. It's not like it can unlock when it's sitting on my desk even right in front
of me when I'm looking at it. So yea, I still hate FaceID and want my fingerprint sensor
back, but I doubt that's going to happen.
Now one feature that you will probably notice did get removed is 3D Touch, which I liked
so I'm kinda bummed. But apparently it was removed so they could fit the bigger battery
in. So if that's the case, I guess I'll take that tradeoff, but I do findmyself trying
to force touch things and then remembering it doesn't work anymore. So they replaced
force-touch with just holding things down now.
Alright so now let's get to possibly my favorite part of this phone, which is the camera, or
rather cameras. I actually love the three camera setup. I used the telephoto camera
on my XS, and I honestly didn't think I'd really need the ultra wide angle lens, but
now that I have the phone, I've found myself using it pretty often. And obviously the telephoto
lens comes in handy too, so having all three is awesome for me.
And obviously you can expect them being iPhone cameras, they're going to look good. And I
had the perfect opportunity to test out the camera because Waymo, Google's self driving
car company actually invited me and a bunch of other people to their facility and check
it out. They flew everyone down and gave us a tour, and let us even ride in the cars,
so here are some photos from that. And by the way I will be making a separate video
about that probably next week so be sure to subscribe to see that. Anyway these aren't
even the best lighting conditions basically being in a big warehouse mostly, and they
still look good, there's a combination of mostly wide and ultra wide shots here.
All that being said, the regular wide angle lens is clearly the highest quality of the
three in most situations, probably because it has the widest aperture so it can let in
more light, so there's less noise. The ultra-wide is noticeably softer, and has nearly a full
stop slower aperture, so while it's not bad, if you have the ability to shoot with the
regular focal length, that's the one to go with. If the situation is really bright though,
I would think they'd all look really good.
One big feature with the camera app though, is there's actually a feature in the settings
called "Photos capture outside the frame", where if you take a standard picture with the regular lens, it will
actually save the ultrawide image too, or at least some data of it. So if you go into photos and edit it after the fact,
you can basically uncrop the image. So this is great if you realize later that there's
something cut off the edge of the frame, you can salvage the picture. And interesting,
when I tested this out, when you 'uncrop' the image, it seems to retain the same detail
from the regular lens, so it does NOT appear to be just capturing a regular and separate
wide shot, then switching to the wide shot if you uncrop it. I think it's intelligently
stitching the ultra wide lens image data onto the edges of high quality regular image, which
is impressive.
The camera app for the Pro is also redesigned, so when you zoom you can drag your finger
which brings up this dial. I like this because you can see the exact zoom amount, and also
see exactly when it's going to switch between lenses. And you can kind of notice it when you go from one level to the next. Also there's this swipe gesture to
bring up some capture settings, like flash setting, timer, aspect ratio, and filters.
And then when you swipe down again you can cycle through the camera modes like photo,
video, portrait, panorama, etc.
But next, we have to talk about night mode. I think the camera's night mode is actually
my favorite feature on the whole phone. Basically when the scene is dark enough, the night mode
option will appear which you can toggle on with a little button, and if it's really dark,
night mode will automatically be enabled. When it's enabled, there's a little dial next
to the shutter which determines how long it will capture the image for, kind of like a
long exposure, but much more advanced. It will have an automatic suggestion for how
long it will go based on how dark it is, but you can adjust it to be a bit longer if you
want, but the maximum you can set it to is also determined by how dark the scene is,
and I think it can also tell if it's on a tripod. So usually if it's handheld I think
the longest you can go is 10 seconds, but if the phone is still, the longest I think
it goes is up to 30 seconds.
Anyway, the images the night mode can produce are actually amazing, they look awesome. Here's
an example from the top of a hotel without night mode, and this is the ultra-wide lens
which does not support night mode unfortunately. And then this is with the night mode on the
regular wide lens. It's really night and day. Notice how it maintains the brightest part
which is the pool, but also does an awesome job lightening up the surrounding areas with
the chairs, which were completely blacked out in the other one.
I also did a couple extreme dark room tests where I basically went into a bathroom and
closed the door so it was super dark and tested it out. So this is what it looks like just
taking a regular photo, obviously it's super dark, you can really only see my outline.
Then even dragging up the brightness it's still completely muddy with no details whatsoever.
But even with a tiny amount of light just from the cracks in the doors, this is what
it was able to do with night mode at 3 seconds exposure. It literally makes the room look
bright. Now I know just looking at this picture by itself it looks crappy, but compared to
what it would have looked like, holy crap it's literally like night and day. And that's
an extreme test, so you can see why in a a normal, reasonably dark environment, it can
capture crazy detail.
Up until now I would have definitely said that Google's pixel cameras were by far the
best, specifically because of how well they performed in low light. But I actually think
with the iPhone 11 Pro, the night mode here is just as good as the Pixel's Night Sight
mode, and in some situations even better based on some people have made comparing the two.
Now as for video, it's also great. The dynamic range in particular is surprisingly good.
Here's another great example, when I was inside one of the waymo self driving cars, where
not only can you actually see everything inside the car, but also outside for the most part,
specifically out the side windows, even though it was an extremely sunny day. And this was with
the wide angle lens too, so that came in real handy, I was able to actually capture the
whole inside of the car because of that.
So yea the camera overall is awesome as usual, but is even more so when you consider the
three lenses and that night mode.
Next up when it comes to performance, we can't forget about battery life. And I'm happy to
say it's actually great this year. Not only is the battery physically larger by a significant
amount compared to last year, but apparently the A13 has some specially power efficient
cores on top of that. Coming from the XS it's really a huge difference. I'm a pretty heavy
user, I like to watch YouTube videos all the time on my phone, and before I'd have to recharge
my phone once a day around the afternoon, but now I can usually get through the whole
day without charging it at all, even using it on medium screen brightness. For example
I've gotten nearly 6 hours of screen on time having only used around 50% of the battery,
which is crazy. So finally, I think I can say the battery life on this iPhone is good or even great.
Not totally amazing or anything, but much better than it used to be for iPhones. Super
happy about that.
So finally, let's get into some other miscellaneous features and thoughts I haven't talked about
yet. One nice thing is Apple FINALLY included a fast charger in the box with the 11 Pro
and Pro Max. I don't even think most average people didn't even know iPhones since the
8 have supported fast charging. I mean it's still a joke they only include the crappy
small one with regular iPhone 11's but at least they're shipping them with the Pros.
There are also a couple features that are apparently coming soon to the iPhone 11 Pro
that are worth mentioning. The first has to do with the camera and it's called "deep fusion",
and will basically allow the camera to capture lots of images in the background up until
the point you press the shutter, and then combine them into one.
And this will just make the images look a lot sharper potentially.
This feature is available
in beta versions of iOS only so far, but reports have shown that it really does look pretty
good, so I'm excited about that.
Another hardware feature in the phone that apparently hasn't been activated yet is the
U1 chip, which is like an ultra-wide band radio. This will give the iPhone 'spacial
awareness' so to speak, meaning it will be able to locate other devices with similar
chips much more accurately. For example, if you go to airdrop to someone elses' iPhone
11 Pro, the phone will know when you're pointing at them, and prioritize their phone to airdrop
to. It's would also probably work with the rumored upcoming device locator product from
Apple, kind of like Tile, where instead of just telling you how far away your lost item
is, it can tell direction. So it will be really exciting when this feature actually comes
to be.
So now with everything we talked about, we have the big question, is this phone worth
upgrading to. The answer, as you'd expect, is not so easy. In my opinion, there's not
really any one single KILLER feature that is unique to this phone. I mean yea we do
have the camera's night mode which is awesome, the battery life is greatly improved, and
having the three cameras is really nice. But I'd just consider these all great improvements
to existing features, nothing totally new. The only exception might be that night mode
but it's subjective. I'd say if you're coming from an iPhone XS or even X, and you don't
have enough money to upgrade every year, you might want to hold off until next year, when
we'll likely get a bigger redesign. But if you're coming from an older generation like
an iPhone 7 or earlier, even that will depend on whether you'd rather wait until a much
bigger upgrade next year. From an older generation, the cumulative incremental upgrades would
be a huge jump for you, so if you feel like you really need an upgrade I do think you'd
be happy with this phone.
Now as a side note, one thing to keep in mind is because batteries degrade over time, you
might be considering upgrading your old iPhone just because the battery life sucks. But remember
you can go to the Apple store and pay to have a brand new battery swapped out in a matter
of hours. You should check your battery's health in the settings to see where it's at.
If it's below like 80% or so, it would probably be worth it to pay the $50 to get a new battery.
But I digress.
As for me, even coming from an iPhone XS, I am actually very surprised that I do feel
like it was a worthwhile upgrade now that I have it. Originally after watching Apple's
announcement keynote, I was really disappointed that there were apparently no new major features.
You might have even seen my video where I said it sucked, but I bought it anyway because
I felt obligated to review it, and honestly didn't think it would be worth it. But now,
I actually think Apple SOMEHOW managed to undersell and overdeliver in this case. After
using it for the past couple weeks, especially with the cameras and night mode, and improved
battery, I've found myself liking it a lot. So in my case at least, even coming from the
XS, I'm happy with the purchase.
So basically what I'd say is if you're someone who usually upgrades every year, you'll probably
be really happy with the iPhone 11 Pro. And if you have a pretty old phone that just isn't
cutting it anymore, I also think you'll be really happy after upgrading. At the same
time, if you have a phone that you're fine with, and you're on the fence about whether
you should upgrade or wait till next year, in that case you should probably just wait.
Again all these features are incremental, even though they're pretty big increments.
So you won't be missing out on anything game changing. And if there is a feature you just
know you have to have, well you can probably just decide that for yourself anyway.
And that's what I have to say about that. Now remember there are a lot of other new
features in the recently released iOS 13 that you might not know about, but should have
even on older iPhones. I made a video talking about that which I recommend that you can
see by clicking here next. So thanks so much for watching guys, and I'll see you in the
next one.