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.
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Quantumz0d - Wednesday, October 16, 2019 - link
Lol. Very funny. Just 2.5% of the screen, why not take a pencil and poke in your laptop/monitor display and say just a 0.3% like Samsung HOLED or this dead pixel zone. And put an RGB strip around/inside it to make it similar to S10 Hole notification led.A phone's primary component is Display which allows for man-machine interface, and if that itself is ruined no matter how much value the device has, it is a complete waste. Even Google realized this after their horrible Watertub 3XL disaster notch.
Notch, Hole are worse than an Asymmetric bezel on Pixel 4 and Symmetric bezels are much better to look at - V30, ROG II, Note 8, S8 while S9 and Note9, OP7 Pro, Zenfone 6, Nex have asymmetric design but they are fine over the dreaded Notch abomination or holes anyday anytime.
Apple did this crazy thing in 21 century. If engineers from CRT era were there they'd be laughing like no tomorrow. Kudos to Apple for creating something utter miserable and complete bullshit.
Why didn't the CMOS sensors / Panavision or any Film cameras or any Display shape have a notch/hole or any. Or our eyes or any animal eyes, even the insects like spiders with many eyes have full uninterrupted vision without no hole or notch in their eyes, hell even mirrors ? Until this POS hit the market the perception of a display was perfectly uniform with no interruption, it all changed thanks to Apple. They should be ashamed of creating the worst abomination while claiming the best industrial design.
"Sir" Jony Ive should be ashamed of his Knighthood lmao. Wonder he left because of Apple that he couldn't stand this Notchabomination as a black mark on his life forever (Also not note, since Chief Design Officer role doesn't exist anymore and the design teams report to Operations COO, It's interesting as if Andrei says this is the last Notch BS from Apple or whether we will see a smaller notch in 2020 lol)
uhuznaa - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
You have a literal blind spot in your eye where the optical nerve passes through the retina. Really. You just don't see it because it's always there. Same as with the notch by the way...Quantumz0d - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
No man stop convincing yourself, Retina blind spot is not notch lol. 210 Degree FoV and a blind spot how can you relate these ? Insane.uhuznaa - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
OK, so then just put a piece of black tape on the parts of the screen left and right of the notch and you have a bezel instead if you like this better.Seriously, what's so bad about having a bezel on top that still displays a clock and a few status symbols in the left and right corners? Exactly this is what the notch is. It just means using parts of the bezel in a limited but still useful way. I really don't understand what you notch-haters want instead of a notch. A full-width notch (aka "bezel")? Why would this be better? It would just push the status bar down, leaving less room for actual content for apps.
WinterCharm - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
The notch is the only weak excuse some Android fanboys have to convince themselves about why they can't move to iPhone.willis936 - Friday, October 18, 2019 - link
The space is virtually useless and makes for a more difficult user experience. Nothing is gained by forcing information into a tiny nook or to have the user need to stretch to hit a small target. Just keep the display a rectangle. It just works.Quantumz0d - Sunday, October 20, 2019 - link
Exactly, but look at the Apple apologists they will buy excuse for whatever they seem fit to make the company look great. Any wrong pointing bam personal attacks, eh. New low for AT commenters to be honest. "Insecure Android phone" these noobs do not know how an Israeli company deals with breaking smartphones. Idiots. Only god can help them.Anand2019 - Monday, October 21, 2019 - link
"Only god can help them". What does a fantasy figure have to do with this? Maybe santa can help them too?Xyler94 - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
Every time I look at my mother's iPhone X, the first thing that pops into my mind is "why do people fuss so much about the notch?"It's barely noticeable when you use it. It's just like your nose. your brain will ignore your nose when you're looking, but the moment you realize your nose is in your view, you'll see it again. Same as the notch, don't even think about it, and it becomes a non-factor.
Total Meltdowner - Thursday, October 17, 2019 - link
ahahahahahahahahaahAHAhahaha!