APPLE IPHONE 11 PRO AND PRO MAX REVIEW: THE BATTERY LIFE IS REAL

And the best camera you can get on a phone

Yes, they’re expensive. And yes, I think most people should probably buy an iPhone 11, which has
most of the same features, including the same basic camera system, for $300 less. But if you want to
pay more to have the best display and the best camera, the iPhone 11 Pro is worth the premium over
the iPhone 11.

The headline feature of the iPhone 11 Pro is the new camera system, but I’m going to start with
battery life because I got so many questions about it. It seems like Apple made an incredibly obvious
move this year: it made the phone a little thicker and put a bigger battery inside. The iPhone 11 Pro is
0.01 inch (0.4mm) thicker and 0.3 ounces (11 grams) heavier than the iPhone XS. But unless you’re
comparing them directly, you won’t notice (and even then, it’s extremely subtle). The difference is a
little more noticeable if you’re upgrading from something like an iPhone 7, however, as the 11 Pro is a
full 1.7 ounces (50 grams) heavier.

Between the larger size and the removal of the 3D Touch system, there’s more room inside the case
for a bigger battery, which seems like a big part of Apple’s claimed four-hour battery life increase
from the iPhone XS and five-hour increase for the Pro Max from the XS Max.

MY IPHONE 11 PRO MAX HAS RUN

FOR 12 TO 14 HOURS ON A CHARGE
Those numbers are fairly difficult to test, however. You’ll notice that
the only hard battery life numbers Apple publishes now are fixed
tests of single actions, like video and audio playback on a loop.
That’s not how anyone really uses a phone, and Apple’s claims of
improved battery life over the previous phones aren’t really based on
those tests. Instead, the company takes a huge dataset of real-world
iPhone usage and runs it against a model of the new phone that
accounts for the various processor, chipset, display, and OS power
improvements and the larger battery capacity.
It’s clever, but there’s no way for reviewers to repeat and verify that
test. So the best I can tell you is that Apple has historically been good
about meeting its battery life claims, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max I’ve
been using every day for a week has consistently run for 12 to 14
hours on a single charge, with over 10 hours of screen-on time
reported in the battery settings per 24-hour period.

That’s compared to 8 to 10 hours of battery life at most for my iPhone

XS Max, which is a marked improvement. It’s not enough to make me
stop charging at my desk throughout the day, and I’ll definitely still
carry a battery pack on trips. But it’s a big bump, and it’s better than
most Android phones we’ve tested.

The smaller iPhone 11 Pro also performed well. We used it all day for
the review video, sent it out for several hours of shooting photo tests
and 4K video in the evening, left it off the charger overnight, and it
still had 50 percent of its battery left the next morning. We’ll update
this review with some more real-world usage numbers for the smaller
phone at the end of the week.

Apple’s also finally relented and included an 18-watt USB-C fast

charger with the Pro phones, so you get a USB-C to Lightning cable
as well. Apple’s USB-C charger is not the smallest or prettiest
charger out there, but anything’s better than that slow 5W brick it’s
been including for years.
All in all, the iPhone 11 Pro battery life has been impressive, especially compared to any prior iPhone,
save for last year’s iPhone XR. Turns out, making the phone thicker and putting a bigger battery inside
is a good idea.

T heThe biggest physical difference from the XS is on the back

where Apple says the rear glass is now stronger and comes in a
frosted matte finish. It also integrates a glossy camera bump with
three cameras. The whole back and bump is a single piece of glass
that’s milled out. (The iPhone 11 is the reverse: it has a glossy back,
and the camera bump is matte.) It’s a neat thing to be able to do with
glass, but that doesn’t make this big, silly square look any less big
and silly. It’s still a big square camera bump.

I got a lot of questions about the new matte finish, and I think it’s
quite nice, especially in Apple’s new midnight green color (which is a
grayish, military green that people seem especially drawn to). The
back didn’t really pick up any fingerprints, but it does seem a tiny bit
more slippery than the glossy back of the previous phones and the
iPhone 11. I don’t think that’s a big deal; most people will stick this
thing in a case. A lot of people also asked me if the matte finish
scratches as easily as Google’s Pixel 3, and so far, the answer
seems to be no.
Of course, the big external change to the iPhone 11 Pro is the camera system. There’s now an ultra-
wide camera in addition to the standard and telephoto cameras on the back.
And these new cameras have to compete. The power of iMessage
lock-in means that most iPhone users in the US will probably
upgrade to another iPhone regardless of whether the camera is
slightly worse or better than the Pixel, but Apple doesn’t have that
advantage in huge markets like China and Europe where everyone
uses WeChat or WhatsApp and switching platforms is much easier.
And there’s a pride element: the iPhone camera led the industry for
years, but Google’s Pixel cameras, in particular, have been
outperforming the iPhone for two years now, and Chinese phone
makers have been racing each other to add an endless array of
photography features. I get the sense Apple is clearly feeling the
pressure.
The iPhone 11 Pro has three cameras, all with different focal lengths:
there’s a new ultra-wide camera with an f/2.4 13mm lens, the f/1.8
26mm main camera with a slightly improved sensor, and the
telephoto camera with the same sensor as last year but a faster
52mm f/2.0 lens. (All focal lengths are in 35mm equivalent.) The f/2.2
front camera is now 12 megapixels, up from 7, and it has a wider
24mm focal length so it can pull out to a slightly wider angle in
landscape for selfies, which is incredibly fun.

APPLE IS CLEARLY FEELING THE

PRESSURE FROM OTHER PHONE
CAMERAS, AND THE IPHONE 11 PRO
CAMERAS ARE A BIG STEP UP
Apple’s also updated its Smart HDR processing system, which I was
not very impressed with when I reviewed the iPhone XS and XR last
year, and I have grown to dislike it even more over time. To my eyes,
Smart HDR unnaturally flattened images by aggressively lifting
shadows and bringing down highlights, and it crushes details with a
ton of smoothing and noise reduction.
It appears Apple took all of those criticisms to heart because the iPhone 11 Pro cameras are an
enormous improvement over the XS, and they beat the Pixel and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 Plus in
most of our side-by-side comparisons. In fact, I think the iPhone 11 Pro is the best smartphone
camera on the market right now.

(These image sliders are all cropped in to show detail in the photos
— there are some minor cropping differences to get the sliders to
align. Click on the photos in the grids to see the full-size images.)

This shot of Verge video producer Mariya Abdulkaf outside in bright

sunlight is really all you need to know: this photo shouldn’t be too
hard for any camera to do a good job, and every phone did just fine.
But at 100 percent crop, the improvement from the iPhone XS to the
iPhone 11 is stunning. The iPhone 11 is way sharper, with far more
detail. I think the iPhone 11 also does a marginally better job than the
Pixel 3, and it’s far more natural than the Note 10’s processing fiesta.
(It’s sharpened and smoothed! C’mon now.)

Early reports indicate that the iPhone 11 sensor has a higher ISO
range and faster possible shutter speeds. But Apple told me that the
real improvements are due to a bump from an 8-bit rendering pipeline
to 10 bits, and something it calls “semantic rendering,” which is
basically an update to Smart HDR that recognizes individual
elements of an image and adjusts them appropriately.

From my conversations with Apple, semantic rendering basically

goes like this:

1. The iPhone starts taking photos to a buffer the instant you

open the camera app. So by the time you actually press the
shutter button, it’s captured four underexposed frames and the
photo you want. Then it grabs one overexposed frame. (This is
all basically the same as the iPhone XS and the Pixel 3, except
the Pixel doesn’t grab that overexposed frame.)
2. Smart HDR looks for things in the photos it understands: the
sky, faces, hair, facial hair, things like that.
3. Then it uses the additional detail from the underexposed and
overexposed frames to selectively process those areas of the
image: hair gets sharpened, the sky gets de-noised but not
sharpened, faces get relighted to make them look more even,
and facial hair gets sharpened up.
4. Smart HDR is also now less aggressive with highlights and
shadows. Highlights on faces aren’t corrected as aggressively
as before because those highlights make photos look more
 natural, but other highlights and shadows are corrected to
regain detail.
5. The whole image gets saved and shows up in your camera roll.
6. This all happens instantly every time you take a photo.

The improvements to smart HDR are applicable across cameras.

Check out this comparison of the ultra-wides on the 11 Pro and the
Note 10. The Note 10 did a better job of exposing the sky, but the 11
Pro is just a much sharper photo, with more detail.

The same goes with selfies: the iPhone 11 Pro evenly pulls up
shadows on Mariya’s face but preserves the contrast with the
background, while the XS Max has pulled up shadows so much that it
looks a little hazy. The Note 10 does all kinds of wacky skin
smoothing, and while the Pixel 3 looks great, it has a little less detail
than the iPhone. Look at her eyelashes. This is an impressive jump in
photo quality.

Now, there are places where the iPhone doesn’t win. The XS
struggled with backlit subjects, and while the 11 Pro is an
improvement, it’s still not great. This photo is really blue, and there’s
basically no detail in Mariya’s face. I think the Note did the best
overall job here.

And while the iPhone 11 Pro is a lot better than the XS in low light, I
think the Pixel still does a better job. Apple’s promised a processing
update for medium to low light images called “deep fusion,” which is
supposed to ship later this fall. But I wasn’t able to test it, so right
now, it’s a little behind the curve. (Apple told me that deep fusion
won’t be a “mode” like Night mode. It’ll just be how these medium-
dark images get handled.)

Speaking of night modes, it’s also really impressive, and it preserves

a ton more detail than the Pixel. Apple’s Night mode comes on
automatically in the dark with a suggested exposure time, which you
can tweak or turn off if you want. The Pixel shot here looks more
dramatic, but look a little closer: the iPhone has preserved all of the
detail in the brick and graffiti, which is basically gone in the Pixel
shot.

Two more: look at all of the extra detail in the bushes in the iPhone
shot, and that fence at the waterfront isn’t even there in the Pixel
photo. I think the Pixel continues to produce more contrasty, dramatic
images than the iPhone 11 camera, but I’d rather have the extra
detail.
So the iPhone 11 camera does better in bright light than the Pixel 3
and Note 10, and Night mode beats the Pixel 3 more often than not.
If the deep fusion update improves medium-to-low light performance
as much as Apple says it will, the iPhone 11 will take better photos
than the competition in every lighting situation.

We also spent a lot of time testing video recording, which Apple says
is the best video ever on a smartphone. There’s better stabilization,
all three cameras can now shoot 4K60, and you can switch between
lenses if you shoot at 4K30 and below. The gap between Apple’s
video camera and everyone else’s was already big, and it’s gotten
bigger with the iPhone 11 Pro. But the best way to talk about that is
actually on video, so go watch our video review for more.

T here’sThere’s a new display on the iPhone 11 that Apple is

calling the Super Retina XDR display, a reference to Apple’s fancy
new Pro XDR monitor and the iPhone 11 Pro’s increased peak
brightness levels: 800 nits in standard mode outdoors and 1200 nits
in the highlights of HDR content (compared to 625 nits in standard
mode for the XS).

I think it’s more accurate to say that this is the first real HDR display
Apple’s put on a phone. The iPhone XS was theoretically capable of
HDR playback, but I never found it convincing. The iPhone 11 Pro is
very convincing. It’s an obvious difference when watching a Dolby
Vision movie like John Wick 3, and the display overall holds its own
against the Note 10’s excellent display.

Of course, Apple and Google are still in a fight over video codecs, so
you can’t watch any 4K or HDR content on the iPhone 11 Pro from
YouTube. This is getting past ridiculous; I am sure the iPhone has
the processing power to handle Google’s VP9 codec. Apple just
doesn’t want to let it, so you’re stuck watching 1080p video from
YouTube until these companies sort it out.

YOU CAN’T WATCH ANY 4K OR HDR

CONTENT ON THE IPHONE 11 PRO
FROM YOUTUBE
Apple’s also tweaked its excellent True Tone display system: it now
has a five-channel light sensor, down from six in the XS. Apple says
it got better results by dropping the white channel and making the
color channels more sensitive, and the end result is that I think the
iPhone 11 Pro display has a slightly different color cast compared to
my XS with True Tone on. It’s a little bit warmer and greener. True
Tone is one of the best unsung features of the iPhone, and I wish
Android makers would copy it sooner rather than later.
3D Touch is no more. It’s been replaced on the iPhone 11 Pro by what Apple calls Haptic Touch. Haptic
Touch is just long-pressing with haptic feedback; it’s convincing, but it’s definitely long-pressing. 3D
Touch was a great idea that never really panned out, and the iPhone is not really any worse for its
removal. In fact, some things are a little easier to figure out, like rearranging icons on the home screen
since there’s a context menu that pops up now. You don’t have to explain to people that they have to
press down on the camera icon on the lock screen. Peeking at links is a little different in iOS 13, but
it’s a little easier overall.

Apple says part of the reason it’s moving to Haptic Touch is so that it
can bring these little features to every iOS device, including the iPad,
so expect to see the company lean into it a little.

The only place where I truly missed 3D Touch was the keyboard: you
could press down anywhere on the keyboard to move the cursor
around on the XS. With Haptic Touch, you press and hold on the
spacebar. I never really realized how many times a day I used that
one specific 3D Touch feature, and I miss it. I got used to it quickly
last year when I used the iPhone XR, which also lacks 3D Touch,
and I’m getting used it again with the 11 Pro. And if that’s the trade-
off for a bigger battery, I’ll take it.
The iPhone 11 Pro speakers are really loud and generally sound better than ever. The iPhone 11 and
iPhone 11 Pro now have something called “spatial audio,” which Apple tells me is a virtual surround
decoder that mostly supports Dolby formats, although it seems like games can use it without Dolby
encoding as well.
Spatial audio supports 5.1 and 7.1 surround — Netflix will play in Dolby Digital 5.1 — and it also
supports Dolby Atmos in movies from the iTunes store, which is a little silly for stereo speakers, but
it’s there. I tested this a bunch, and, well, if you close your eyes and really believe, it sometimes
sounds like sounds are coming from behind you. It’s a phone, after all. But hey: Dolby Vision and
Dolby Atmos — I can’t complain.

TheThe iPhone 11 Pro features Apple’s new A13 Bionic processor, which, as usual, benchmarks far
above the competition. There’s a lot of headroom here for things like AR, games, and high-end photo
and video apps, but it’s not like the A12 Bionic in the iPhone XS is slow — most of this extra power will
be useful towards the end of this phone’s life, not now, at the beginning. And I just don’t think most
people buying thousand-dollar “pro” phones will keep them around for more than a couple years,
especially since Apple’s pushing upgrades harder than ever as iPhone sales flatten out. (Have you
seen this year’s trade-in offers?) Thinking about what the company’s huge lead in smartphone
processors means for this high-end phone at launch time is tough. But it’s a fast chip, and it’ll hold up
if you decide to keep this phone for years to come, which is a good thing.
Face ID is a little bit faster and works at more angles, but it’s not particularly dramatic. It just works a
little bit better. That’s the best kind of iterative improvement, especially since anything that
encourages people to secure their phones is a good thing.
The most intriguing new feature of the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro is the new U1 chip inside, which will
eventually be used for precise positioning using an ultra-wideband radio. It doesn’t do anything right
now, so I wasn’t able to test it, but Apple says the forthcoming iOS 13.1 update will allow you to just
point the phone at another U1 device to put it at the top of your AirDrop list. There are also lots of
hints about things like unlocking car doors and locating objects, but none of that works yet, so we’ll
just have to see.

Speaking of iOS 13.1… I would maybe wait to get the iPhone 11 Pro until iOS 13.1 comes out on
September 30th, just 10 days after the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro launch.

My iPhone 11 and 11 Pro review units are running iOS 13.0, and iOS 13.0 is pretty damn buggy. I saw
all kinds of glitches and crashes during my week of testing, as did Verge executive editor Dieter Bohn
with his iPhone 11 review unit running iOS 13. The home screen has crashed and relaunched.

Messages glitches out and puts the text entry field at the top of the screen. AirDrop has crashed out
so hard I’ve had to restart the phone a few times to get it working again. The camera app lags from
time to time. There are a lot of good new features in iOS 13, but it’s clear that Apple’s pushing hard to
get it out, and I don’t think there’s any harm in waiting a tick for these bugs to get cleared up.

Assuming all the little bugs get fixed, the biggest new feature in iOS 13 is Dark Mode, which is very
nice, but otherwise, it’s a lot of little things: there’s a swiping keyboard now. Reminders is a much
better app. There are better photo-editing tools, and you can edit videos as well. Apple Maps keeps
getting a tiny bit better every year. CarPlay has a more useful interface. Siri’s voice is slightly
smoother. I love — love!— the security feature that tells you when apps are using Bluetooth or
location services and prompts you to cut them off. It’s a lot of little things that add up, but if you
handed this phone to someone using iOS 12, they might not even notice unless Dark Mode was on.
We’ll have a full review of iOS 13 (and 13.1 when it comes out), so stay tuned for that.

The iPhone 11 Pro is an expensive phone: it starts at $999 with 64GB of storage (which doesn’t seem
like enough space for this price), and the 11 Pro Max starts at $1,099. You can spec the Pro Max all
the way up to $1,449 with 512GB of storage, which is a lot of money for a phone that doesn’t
really do that much more than take better telephoto shots than the $699 iPhone 11.

So if you’re in the iOS ecosystem and you’re thinking about upgrading, I think the easy choice is the
iPhone 11. It offers almost everything you get from the Pro for $300 less: you’ll still get the improved
main camera, the fun new ultra-wide lens, the A13 processor, iOS 13, and so on.

The extra money for the Pro basically buys you a far superior display, a telephoto camera, and
improved LTE performance. And if you want a smaller phone, the iPhone 11 Pro is a little smaller than
the iPhone 11, which seems a tiny bit unfair to people who want smaller phones. (The entire lineup is
huge, though, so if you were hoping for something to replace that aging iPhone SE, well, keep
waiting.)
THE IPHONE 11 PRO STANDS OUT AS ONE OF THE BEST FLAGSHIP PHONES OF THE YEAR
I’m very picky about displays and cameras, so I’m going to get a Pro. In fact, the cameras on the
iPhone 11 Pro are so improved that I think they’re worth the year-over-year upgrade from last year’s
models for the first time in a long time. Add in the improved battery life, and the iPhone 11 Pro stands
out as a major step forward from the XS, and one of the best flagship phones of the year.
But I would also wait a couple of weeks for Apple to ship some bug fixes to iOS 13 before hitting that
buy button.