The Apple iPhone 11, 11 Pro & 11 Pro Max Review: Performance, Battery, & Camera Elevated
by Andrei Frumusanu on October 16, 2019 8:30 AM ESTVideo Recording
Video recording on the iPhone is known to be extraordinarily good in terms of quality. The iPhone 11 series is said to improve in this regard thanks to an improved HDR with more dynamic range (though Apple still stores video in SDR format). Naturally of course what’s also exciting is that we’re now able to capture video with a wide-angle lens, and seeing a lot more content of a given scene.
Apple has improved the EIS this generation, and it now results in a much smoother video capture experience than the past iterations. When you have with a lot of detail in a scene though, you can sometimes see the jitter caused by the OIS and EIS interacting with each other.
In the wide-angle recording, the EIS was a bit haphazard. In the first part of the video walking down the path it doesn’t look to be stabilizing much at all, when I turn left to the second path suddenly the EIS kicked in and things were a lot less shaky, and it then again loses the stabilization for few steps until it finally resumes again. This happened all three recordings with the wide-angle camera, and I don’t know it was me holding the phone any different between those two paths.
The quality and detail of the videos are all great. The one thing noticed though is that there’s the occasional exposure flicker in some areas. In effect Apple here is doing two exposures per frame and combining them together like Smart HDR – we can notice that in parts of the scene, and most visible the sky is flickering or pulsing in brightness.
The handling between the three camera sensors is very good, it’s particularly fast and seamless to switch between the main and wide-angle modules, while there’s a small delay to switch to the telephoto module. Switching between the three modules is only possible in 30fps recording modes; it’s still possible to record 60fps in any of the three modules but you have to start out the video with the camera that you want to use, and you’ll be limited to digital zooming only while recording.
Speaker Evaluation
In terms of audio for the iPhone 11 series, Apple’s big addition is the inclusion of Dolby Atmos. Naturally you have to watch multi-channel audio content to be able to take advantage of the feature. For regular stereo audio playback, we investigate if Apple has done any changes to the speaker setup and if it differs to that of the XS.
In terms of audio volume, the iPhone 11 Pro is ever so slightly quieter when being held in portrait mode. The bigger difference that’s definitely more audible is when holding the phone in landscape mode with both hands and the palms cupped – the usual way one would hold a phone in landscape. Here it’s 3dB quieter than the iPhone XS, which is a noticeable amount.
Investigating the phone’s stereo bias thanks to a binaural microphone setup, we see that that things have notably regressed for the iPhone 11 Pro when compared to the XS. It’s relatively normal for the main speaker (Right side) to appear louder, however it’s extremely weird that it’s now 1.6dB more biased than on the iPhone XS. Indeed when comparing the 11 Pro and XS side-by-side, and muting the main speaker by holding a finger on it, volume being equal and otherwise calibrated between the two phones, it’s immediately audible that the 11 Pro earpiece speaker is much quieter compared to what we experience on the XS.
This has a rather large knock-on effect on the spatial sound reproduction of the 11 Pro as it just isn’t able to fill up the surrounding area quite as well as on the XS.
Looking at the frequency response between the 11 Pro and the XS, we see that things are extremely similar up to the high mid-ranges, with a more noticeable peak at 95Hz for the 11 Pro. Towards the treble we see some more deviations, it’s here that the 11 Pro is a bit quieter and I think that’s due to the weaker earpiece speaker.
Overall, the sound signature of the iPhone 11 Pro hasn’t changed all too much, and it is actually more of a downgrade in audio playback due to the weaker earpiece speaker calibration. The Galaxy S10’s notably stronger lower mid-range and mid-range still make for a much superior audio playback and is in my experience the device to beat in terms of speaker quality.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
242 Comments
View All Comments
Zerrohero - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
Just get the battery replaced at authorized repair after three years or whenever it starts to go bad.And as you very well know, the throttling (if it kicks in) can be toggled on/off in the settings.
I have a two year old iPhone X and the battery capacity is at 91%.
michael2k - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
You're asking that the phone under report it's battery reserve and shut the phone down at 40% battery to preserve battery longevity?Because that would be the effect. So instead of a battery that lasts 14 hours for the first year and then 10 hours the second, it would 'shut down' after 11 hours the first year, and 'shut down' after 11 hours the second year, and 'shut down' after 11 hours the third year, before the degradation actually causes the battery life to actually be 10 hours in year four.
melgross - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
Wow! That makes no sense. All phones slow down over time, and all batteries hold less charge. Apple’s are t worse, if anything, they’re better. My Max, from last year still reads 100% on battery health after more than 11 months of fairly heavy daily use. I’d like to see other phones that do better.shompa - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
Look at intel /AMD / Qualcomm. They list a "turbo speed" that is not guaranteed. But customers believe it is. That's why they don't need to downclock stuff because they never need to hit their speeds. Apple is the last vendor having a real CPU speed and holds it. I have had a multitude of Intel CPUs that under-deliver in speed and as a customer you can't do anything. The service centers simply don't understand the problem since they only do a CPID check and says "it works". Take any intel laptop and fire up an H265 encode and watch the CPU speed go down. A CPU labeled 2.9ghz /3.9ghz turbo suddenly is a 2ghz part and you can't do anything about it. At least with Apple: get a good battery and it works.Total Meltdowner - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
All for the low low price of $1300. Pass.Zerrohero - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
$999 actually.This is a device that you can use for five years, or more, always with the latest software. Just get the battery replaced once.
Amazing value, as iPhones always are.
Total Meltdowner - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
Nice troll brother. But a full loaded iPhone 11 Pro is $1299.iPhones are trash.
Total Meltdowner - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
Sorry, it's $1450! LOL!Almost $1800 with applecare! https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-11-pr...
ahahahahahahha
Irish910 - Friday, October 18, 2019 - link
You can get an iPhone 11 with 128 gigs for $749, which pretty much mops the competition with battery life, CPU, GPU, longevity and value.I know your troll self will say something like “BR0 it’s only GoT a 720P scr33n, my 2015 GaLaXy HaS h1gher Res0lution!
Fact is, most people don’t care about that. That’s why the XR was the most popular phone last year and that trend will continue.
The pro starts at $999. Stop trolling. This site is for adults only. If you only post your lame hate comments, please go to YouTube. There’s plenty of room for your kind there.
Shoo shoo now.
Quantumz0d - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
This analysis is great but the Whiteknighting is insane.The design the primary aspect of a device, the display itself is notched no matter what calibration it has it's destroying the proper nature of how we perceive through our eyes and mind. Dead pixel zone for $999
No expandable storage, No Filesystem access - Must use iTunes. This means for every basic work you must rely on your computer and the iCloud, mega ecosystem lockdown.
No 3.5mm jack. Its really a shame how this company made billions by buying up Beats (Sub par garbage audio) and AirPods ($179 of Sub 320kbps audio with limited life due to Li Ion) and making a dongle business out of an Analog standard and whole industry reeks of this greed by dongles snd their own BT products which are massively inferior in sound snd usage and also wear down the only port it has.
Sealed battery, Strong adhesive with new 4m depth rating. $600 for back glass repair if no Apple care and they are forcing you to buy because its $300 only and 70USD per repair. More profit for Apple for $100 battery services. Unfortunate that Apple has brick and mortar rest do not but they want to siphon off. Also did author note how iPhone XS got the new battery throttling with latest iOS update ? Yeah bonus package to wreck all that performance, inherent overdrawing of Voltage and planned obsolescence.
Too much of this price hike and offering measly 64GB base. Next year another $50-100 due to new design or whatever they want to call.
Desktop performance. I want to see, can this A series chip run an Adobe CS6 or Blender or do a H264 Conversion faster or on par with a desktop chip ? Or play high refresh rate gaming or can it execute x86 instructions with ease and replace my PC with this BGA pile of junk ? (It cannot, I think it's too much of blowing into this hot balloon of Apple for mega limelight) same for 9900K or 3950X they can't be fit in a pocket.
Finally the corporation of American back, has no backbone when it comes to China. The $$$$ speaks. Censorship and aiding the Orwellian draconian principles for cash is more than the American culture that spawned the company and its people. A big shame.