Apple iPhone 11 review: The best $700 iPhone Apple has ever made
The Good Even
faster speed, improved battery life. The iPhone 11's cameras get an excellent
new Night Mode and an ultrawide-angle camera that can add extra detail in
photos. Fantastic video camera.
The Bad Only Pro models get the 2x telephoto.
The ultrawide-angle camera doesn’t add Night Mode. No USB-C port. The Pro
phones have a faster 18-watt charger but the iPhone 11 doesn't. Still has a
good (but not OLED) display.
The Bottom Line Apple may
have skipped flashy extras on this year's phones, but the iPhone 11 is the best
midtier model the company's ever made.
When you first hear the names of Apple's new iPhones -- the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro
Max -- you may have some questions. Where's the iPhone X ($899 at Amazon)? And what makes the
iPhone Pro... Pro? What happened to last year's XS and XS Max ($1,000 at Amazon)? This year's new phones
are polished sequels (literally and figuratively) to the three we got last
year. For some people the iPhone 11 just needs to be better than the XS. And it
indeed is. But for others, it's nice to know where Apple stands in the larger
landscape of phones. There are wild 5G speeds on the horizon,
plus bizarre and expensive foldable phones like Samsung's Galaxy Fold.
And then there's the more expensive $799 Google Pixel 4,
which actually makes the $699 iPhone 11 look like an even better value.
did a great job with new features, including some serious camera
improvements like Night Mode for taking photos in
dimly lit situations and Deep Fusion, a new way the
iPhone 11 and 11 Pro to process photos taken in
situations where the lighting is bright enough for you to see, but nothing like
being outside on a sunny day.
But there's a good reason why the company named its more expensive
and fancier phones "Pro" this year: Price. Apple is smartly targeting
the $699 (£729, AU$1,199) iPhone 11 as the phone for most people, in the same
mold as the iPhone XR ($749 at Amazon) last year.
Essentially, the iPhone 11 and 11
Pro are 85% the exact same phone. If you want a dedicated telephoto camera with
2x optical zoom, different size options, a better screen and finish, you're
going to pay 30% more. That is not to say the $999 iPhone 11 Pro and $1,099 11
Pro Max aren't great phones. It's just that the iPhone 11 is actually that good.
And that is why Apple's "value" phone with its wonderful cameras,
solid build (which survived CNET's drop and water tests) and iOS 13.2 earns the
iPhone 11 a CNET Editors' Choice Award.
Editors' note, Nov. 6: Updated with results from CNET's battery tests, water tests and
evaluation of Deep Fusion photo processing. The original review, published on
Sept. 17, follows below.
Still
starts at 64GB
The $699 iPhone 11 model gets 64GB of storage, which is probably
fine for many people -- and it's a $50 price drop from last year's iPhone XR
base model. 128GB for $749 probably makes more sense if you're shooting any
video and 256GB for $849 should only be a consideration if you're shooting a
lot of video. The Pro phones add a 512GB tier that you won't need unless you're
shooting in 4K for a living. See the chart at the bottom of this review for
complete pricing details, including UK and Australian prices.
Colors: iPhone 11 is the fun phone
For whatever reasons, Apple is still making the lower-priced
iPhone 11, the one that comes in fun colors. There are two new colors, called
green and purple, that are more like mint green and lavender. These new pastel
colors replace the blue and coral options from last year.
I have the green iPhone 11. Its color is pleasant, and the
aluminum case color is much closer to seamless with the glass color. The glossy
glass back feels the same as last year's XR. So does the rest of the phone --
except for the dual cameras, which are raised up from the back and placed in a
frosted glass camera square.
In contrast, the iPhone 11 Pro models all have metallic shades:
silver, space gray, gold and a military-esque midnight green. The three cameras
seem more industrial (maybe imposing). The back glass is matte, instead of
glossy. They're made of steel instead of aluminum. And the Pro phones feel
significantly denser. They pack larger batteries, and the steel adds weight.
I like that the iPhone 11 follows in the footsteps of the iPhone
XR and is the middle-size phone again with a 6.1-inch screen -- compared with the two iPhone
Pro models at 5.8 inches and 6.5 inches. I've
come to favor the smaller iPhone 11 Pro, like the iPhone XS last year.
Cameras
Over the past few years, Apple has made impressive strides in
camera quality, but so have many other phone makers like Samsung, Huawei and
Google. The camera arms race is something that hard-core photographers study
closely, but I'd argue it's gone way past what most people need. The iPhone 11
cameras are some of the best for photos and video capture that you can buy
today.
Night Mode, how it works and when it doesn't
Like the Google Pixel 4, the Huawei P30 Pro and Samsung's Galaxy Note 10,
taking startling low-light photos seems to be in every phone-maker's
computational wheelhouse now. Apple's version brightens photos, captures less
image noise and does all of this automatically. The way it works is when you
open up the default camera app, the phone determines when it's dark enough to
go into Night Mode. At this time, there isn't a manual way to trigger the mode.
Night Mode uses adaptive bracketing and takes a series of photos,
some with a longer shutter speed, others with a shorter one. The iPhone then
fuses all the photos together to reduce motion blur and brighten shadows. When
I took handheld Night Mode shots the sequence would take about 3 to 5 seconds.
When I put the iPhone on a tripod I got a 10-second time and was even able to
manually override that for a 28-second Night Mode shot.
I took a photo of a tree in my backyard that was in complete
darkness. Below is a shot with the iPhone 11 using Night Mode and another with
last year's iPhone XS.
The HDR-like feel of the photos keeps some of the night effects,
but at other times the photos can end up looking like day. Night Mode can be
turned off by tapping the icon and sliding the timer off, but so far it's been
an improvement in nearly every instance.
It's not a perfect tool: Faces can get blurred, detail can be
lost. But still, I've been wowed. The Night Mode effects work the same on the
iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, but the Pro also gets a telephoto camera that can
use it.
You can't use Night Mode in the ultrawide-angle mode, though. That
camera ends up looking a lot darker, and it doesn't have optical image
stabilization, either. That's true on all this year's models.
Ultrawide angle = drama camera
The newest camera has an ultrawide 13mm equivalent lens that is
just a plain fun to use. If the main wide camera is like a business suit and
the "tele" lens is a sporty blazer, then the ultrawide is the
equivalent of a Hawaiian shirt. It's obviously different and really changes the
way you shoot. It won't be great in every situation, but it can be equal parts
handy, like when shooting in smaller spaces, and artistic, adding drama to a
mundane scene.
Apple balanced the distortion so there's a little (which you want
for that ultrawide look) but it's not horrible. I immediately found angles on
my subjects that made them look larger than life. Best of all, you can use the
ultrawide lens when shooting video. In fact, during a recording you can switch
between cameras. Apple even put a cool zoom effect to transition between
lenses.
Without a doubt, it can make for stunning shots. Ultrawide cameras
are another new trend across phone cameras. Apple promises a few extra benefits
here. The iPhone 11 gets an improved ultrawide-angle Portrait mode that can
work with close-ups of your pets and other things. All the phones get an
expanded-view viewfinder that now previews what's outside the shot, which can
help you know when to use the ultrawide lens.
