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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techsorz - Tuesday, October 22, 2019 - link
Ofc you are, people can freely read the comments and not get mislead by your unprofessional ‘review’. Enjoy being the only site on the planet claiming that it will throttle by 50%.techsorz - Monday, October 21, 2019 - link
And even if you do manage to convince me, you can't put the Android phones on the same graph when the benchmark versions are not even the same.Anand2019 - Wednesday, October 23, 2019 - link
techsorz. What do you Think of Gary's Speed Test G?techsorz - Monday, October 28, 2019 - link
His videos are solid and his tests goes across the entire spectrum, without any bias or shoddy, outdated methodology. Especially because he wrote the test-bench himself and knows what he is doing, unlike Andrei.royrkval - Sunday, October 20, 2019 - link
Great review, Andrei! I love the architectural stuff. How did you discover the multiply and divide pipeline improvements?DJWELL - Sunday, October 20, 2019 - link
This without shadows of doubt was the most lying and false stories of all time!Why then in side-by-side testing on world-wide technology conventions do these iPhones ever win?
Because when people buy and put them side by side with others that doesn't happen?
Why doesn't this also happen in the actual tests on YouTube?
Simple! Tests purchased from Internet to satisfy investors!
royrkval - Monday, October 21, 2019 - link
Many tests on YouTube involve opening and reopening apps. That's kind of like testing a car by seeing how fast you can open the door and buckle up.techsorz - Monday, October 21, 2019 - link
This test is fundamentally wrong as the test-bed used on iOS is completely outdated. This article should be taken down and revised since it is misleading.DJWELL - Sunday, October 20, 2019 - link
In most official tests side by side, you never see an iPhone win! Only win in paid programs or paid places for that to happen!In official tests at official events It never happened and the Apple is always after many. So as many people I say this is a false news! False information!
techsorz - Monday, October 21, 2019 - link
Yes.. fake news... all the others are wrong.. Anandtech is right. Did you vote for Trump aswell=?