The Apple iPhone 11, 11 Pro & 11 Pro Max Review: Performance, Battery, & Camera Elevated
by Andrei Frumusanu on October 16, 2019 8:30 AM ESTBattery Life - A Magnitude Shift
By now many will have heard positive things about the new iPhone 11s' battery life. As we have covered in the introduction, possibly the biggest changes to Apple’s line-up this year is the device’s vastly increased battery capacities. The Pro models in particular have seen significant increases: the 11 Pro gets a 3046mAh battery which represents a 14.5% increase compared to the XS, and the 11 Pro Max gets a 3969mAh battery which represents a very large 25% increase. The Pro Max is now the first Apple device which has a battery capacity comparable to Android phones out there, some of which have offered similar large capacities for a few years now.
iPhone XS Max vs. iPhone 11 Pro Max Batteries (Image Courtesy iFixit)
The regular iPhone 11 sees only a 5.7% bump to up to 3110mAh, which isn’t all that big upgrade compared to the XR. But it also doesn’t increase its weight nearly as much as the Pro models.
The battery results in our web test are outstanding. Apple in this generation has gone from being average in battery life to showcasing some of the best results we’ve seen in the market.
What is very interesting here is how our absolute test runtimes end up compared to Apple’s marketing claims. Apple has promised +1H, +4H and +5H of battery life for the 11, 11 Pro and the 11 Pro Max compared to their predecessors, and what we measured is 1.08H, 3.9H and 5.27H, which is pretty damn near Apple’s promoted figures, pointing out to some very similar testing conditions between our test and Apple’s internal metrics.
If we break this down a bit and theorize a bit, if we take the XS Max 10.31H result, multiply by 1.25x for the increased battery capacity (12.88H), multiply again naively by 1.15x for the more efficient screen (14.82H), we’re left with a ~5% margin which would account for the more efficient SoC. Give or take margin of error here or there, the results we’re seeing shouldn’t be all too surprising. The math would also check out for the iPhone 11 without a newer display: 5% increased battery capacity and an on average ~3% more efficient SoC.
There’s not much to say about the new iPhone 11 series' battery life other than it's exemplary. More importantly, Apple has managed to finally catch up and exceed the battery life of the LCD iPhone 8 and Plus models from 2 years ago.
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Total Meltdowner - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
Bingo. I think the writer was just happy that he did notice performance improvements in this model. Still, the iPhone lacks innovation and that price tag is absurd. I'd buy it for $600 but $1000 or more? hah!Zerrohero - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
“No innovation”Plenty of innovation. Read the review.
There is nothing absurd about the price tag. Not a bad price at all for your most important computer that you will use several hours per day for five years, if you want to.
Total Meltdowner - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
That isn't what I would call innovation. Their CPU is nice but that's about it. There is nothing you can do on the 11Pro that you couldn't do on an iPhone 7 -10.WinterCharm - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
Just because the visual style doesn't change does not mean there is "no innovation"There's a bunch of innovation on the chip side from Apple. You can either acknowledge that, or look like an idiot who screams no innovation while the iPhone has a 5x perf/watt lead over other ARM chips. To put that in context, it's 3-4 times the lead that Nvidia has over AMD.
Total Meltdowner - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
You can't do anything new with it that is worthy of praise.Jon Tseng - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
Um, if you're expecting an iPhone with a removable battery, sd card slot and a non-bga socketed processor you're probably making a fairly material category error!!Zerrohero - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
“ Also did author note how iPhone XS got the new battery throttling with latest iOS update ?”...which only kicks in when the battery is in bad shape and if it does, you can choose whether to throttle or not. Everybody’s XS models are running at full speed. But of course you know all this.
(Just get the battery replaced when it goes bad and you get five years of these iPhones)
A high end Android is way worse value for money because you simply can’t use it as long as an iPhone. No software updates after couple of years, apart from some rare exceptions.
When it comes to repairability, iFixit gave the new iPhones 6/10 which is better than most of the competition. For example, Samsung’s high end models are way worse when it comes to repairability.
Again, of course you know all this very well.
It’s always amusing how riled up some people get about the new iPhones. You do know that you don’t need to buy them, there are plenty of alternatives.
steven75 - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
As someone living in the present year of 2019, I wish you welcome, my time-traveling friend! I hope your time spent here is illuminating before you go back to your "current" year of 2010.Total Meltdowner - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
There's a reason why the argument of "muh current year" is a meme. Time is irrelevant, functionality is everything.melgross - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
That’s nonsense. You don’t even notice it after a while, and it’s just 2.5% of the screen. It’s a lot worse from companies that still have big bezels on top, and even one on the bottom, like the new Pixel 4 has. Totally wasted space.