The iPhone 11 came as a big surprise because it cost less than the iPhone XR in 2018 and had more advanced technology, especially in the camera and processing power. It has a big 6.1-inch screen and a body that feels high-end. It also comes in many colors.
It’s important to note that Apple’s newest numbered smartphone is not the iPhone 11. That would be the iPhone 13, which came out in September 2021 along with the iPhone 13 small, the iPhone 13 Pro, and the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
The iPhone 12 range from 2020 wasn’t much better than these, but they’re still the most powerful Apple phones on the market.
Even though they came out in 2019, the newer smartphones look a lot like the older ones. They have better camera sensors, a newer chipset, and flat edges instead of curved ones. It can also connect to 5G networks. They are big improvements in some ways, but our review of the iPhone 11 will show that this phone is still worth looking at, especially since it has been on sale for a long time.
The most interesting thing about the iPhone 11 is its camera. It has two cameras on the back, so you can take wider-angle photos along with the “normal” ones. Each of these sensors is 12MP, and they’re raised from the back of the phone in a square glass case that we don’t like the look of.
The best thing about the iPhone 11’s camera quality is its night mode, which makes scenes that look too dark to be really bright and clear. The new iPhone also has a better portrait mode that blurs the background.
People aren’t as interested in this phone now that the iPhone 12 and 13 lines are out.
iPhone 11 Key Features
- The iPhone 11 has two cameras, which is a big improvement over older iPhones.It has a great Night mode too.
- You can shoot in more ways with an ultra-wide camera, and the app lets you see what the mode will look like if you want to switch to it.
- The iPhone 11 is the fastest phone you can buy thanks to its A13 Bionic engine.
- Most of the time, the OLED screens on the iPhone 11 Pro models are brighter than the 6.1-inch LCD screen.
- You can choose from six fun colors, such as purple, yellow, green, and black.
- From our test, we saw that the battery lasted over 11 hours, which is a lot longer than most smartphones.
- The iPhone 11 doesn’t come with a fast charge, which is a shame.
iPhone 11 Full Specification
| LAUNCH | |
| Announced | September 10, 2019 |
| First Release | September 20, 2019 |
| NETWORK | GSM / CDMA / HSPA / LTE |
| BODY | |
| Dimensions | 150.9 x 75.7 x 8.3 mm |
| Weight | 194 g |
| Build | Glass front (Corning-made glass) Glass back (Corning-made glass) Aluminum frame |
| SIM | Nano-SIM and eSIM |
| DISPLAY | |
| Type | Liquid Retina IPS LCD |
| Size | 6.1 inches, 90.3 cm2 (~79.0% screen-to-body ratio) |
| Resolution | 828 x 1792 pixels |
| Protection | Scratch-resistant glass |
| PLATFORM | |
| Operating System | iOS 13, upgradable to iOS 17.1.1 |
| Chipset | Apple A13 Bionic (7 nm+) |
| CPU | Hexa-core |
| GPU | Apple GPU (4-core graphics) |
| MEMORY | |
| Card Slot | No |
| Internal | 64GB/ 4GB RAM 128GB/ 4GB RAM 256GB/ 4GB RAM |
| MAIN CAMERA | |
| Dual | 12 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide) 12 MP, f/2.4, 120˚, 13mm (ultrawide) |
| Features | Dual-LED dual-tone flash, HDR (photo/panorama) |
| Video | 4K@24/30/60fps |
| SELFIE CAMERA | |
| Single | 12 MP, f/2.2, 23mm (wide) |
| Features | HDR |
| Video | 4K@24/30/60fps |
| SOUND | |
| Loudspeaker | Yes, with stereo speakers |
| 3.5mm jack | No |
| COMMS | |
| WLAN | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6, dual-band, hotspot |
| Bluetooth | 5.0, A2DP, LE |
| Positioning | GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, QZSS |
| NFC | Yes |
| Radio | No |
| USB | Lightning, USB 2.0 |
| FEATURES | |
| Sensors | Face ID, accelerometer, gyro |
| BATTERY | |
| Type | Li-Ion 3110 mAh, non-removable (11.91 Wh) |
| Charging | Wired, PD2.0, 50% in 30 min (advertised) |
| MISC | |
| Colors | Black, Green, Yellow, Purple, Red, White |
| Models | A2221, A2111, A2223, iPhone12,1 |
| TEST | |
| Display | Contrast ratio: 1544:1 (nominal) |
| Camera | Photo / Video |
| Loudspeaker | Voice 70dB / Noise 72dB |
| Battery life | Endurance rating 94h |
Read More: iPhone 13 review: Long battery life
iPhone 11 Price and Release Date
- The iPhone 11 will come out on September 10, 2019.
- The iPhone 11 will come out on September 20, 2019.
- The iPhone 11 starts at $499, £489, or AU$849.
Around the world, the iPhone 11 came out on September 20, 2019, and you can easily buy one in the US, UK, and Australia. You can still buy it from a number of other stores, even though Apple no longer sells it directly.
For $499, £489, or AU$849, you can get an iPhone 11. This phone comes with 64GB of storage space. It used to cost $699, £729, or AU$1,199, so that’s a big drop. Now that it’s only offered by third-party stores, you should be able to get even bigger discounts.
As usual, there are different storage options. Besides the 64GB model, there is also a 128GB ($549.90, £539.90, AU$929) and a 256GB ($749.90, £749.90, AU$1,249) model, based on what you can find at a third-party store.
Since the iPhone 12 and 13 have come out since then, it should be a lot less expensive than it was. If you can discover it. You should also look for Apple coupon codes that can help you save even more money.
iPhone 11 Design
- It weighs 194g and measures 150.9 x 75.8 x 8.3 mm.
- With IP68, dust and water can’t get in.
- New camera style.
- You can now see green and purple colors.
You’ll feel right at home if you’re coming from an iPhone XR. Aside from the new color choices and a redesigned camera module, the new iPhone 11 and the XR from last year look almost exactly the same. I love the new color paint jobs that aren’t as bright. The purple and green ones are my favorites. The back camera bump is about the same size and shape as the ones on the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max. It is a very unique part of the iPhone 11’s design.
One feature that doesn’t get as much attention as it should is the iPhone 11’s better water resistance grade. The phone is now confirmed to be IP68 safe. There is no difference between the iPhone 11 and the iPhone XR in terms of how well they work. It’s still that big, heavy thing that’s neither small nor light. Even though I’m used to big phones, the iPhone 11 was too big for me. I wished there was an entry-level iPhone that was smaller.
iPhone 11 Display
- 6.1-inch Clear Retina.
- 1792 x 828 pixels, or 326ppi.
- Not HDR.
- Touch that feels.
The Apple iPhone 11 has a 6.1-inch Liquid Retina screen, which is basically an LCD display if you take out the Apple language. This is the same screen size as an iPhone 6, 7, or 8, but it’s bigger.
LCD screens aren’t usually as bright or impressive as OLED ones, and the iPhone 11 is no different. The iPhone 11 Pro is clearer, its colors are brighter, and its blacks are deeper, but you probably wouldn’t notice the difference unless you were looking at the two models next to each other.
The screen on the iPhone 11 is great and will meet the needs of most users. The iPhone 11 doesn’t have as high of a resolution as the iPhone 11 Pro or the Samsung Galaxy S20, and it also doesn’t work with mobile HDR as these other phones do. However, it does have a good screen with plenty of brightness and colors that may be more true to life than those on the Pro models and other OLED smartphones.
Since the iPhone 11 doesn’t have HDR, it tries to give you an HDR-like experience with material that supports it, but it’s not the real thing. Smart HDR shots don’t stand out as much on the iPhone 11 as they do on the 11 Pro, and you can’t see as much detail in a dark HDR TV show or movie as you can on the 11 Pro. This is one of the few things the iPhone 11 doesn’t have over the Pro models.
Viewing Angles
The iPhone 11 has good viewing angles and clear pictures and text. It also has True Tone technology and a P3 wide color gamut. True Tone is a feature that Apple added to the iPhone 8 models. When the phone is turned on, it automatically adjusts the screen to match its settings, and it can make a big difference.
There is a haptic touch on both the iPhone 11 and the iPhone 11 Pro. It’s a new technology that Apple put in the iPhone XR to replace 3D Touch, which had been on iPhones since the 6S. Like the trackpad on the MacBook, Haptic Touch makes you feel like you’re moving something when you’re not. It lets you long press on the screen to open the torch or change settings in the Control Center, but it doesn’t give you buttons for most apps like 3D Touch did.
Apple has made a lot of progress on the display front since the iPhone 11 came out. The iPhone 13 Pro now has 120Hz refresh rates, so if you want the best screen on an Apple device, this model is now quite behind the times.
iPhone 11 Camera
The most interesting new thing about the iPhone 11 is its super wide-angle camera. It has a 12MP sensor and an aperture of F2.4, while the main 12MP camera has an aperture of F1.8. The main camera is the only one with OIS; the ultra wide-angle lens doesn’t need one.
Since the super wide-angle camera and the new Night Mode were added, some changes have been made to the camera interface. In the past, iPhones had several buttons at the top of the camera app that made it easy to reach the flash, the camera timer, different filters, and more. Now, the Flash and Live Photos are the only buttons you see. The rest are hidden in a tray that you can touch to access them. When you’re using the main lens, you can now see through clear bars on the side how much more of the scene you’d be able to include in the picture if you moved to the ultra wide-angle lens. In addition, this is another change.
Image Quality
The iPhone 11 has really consistent picture clarity, just like all the other iPhones. The pictures are properly exposed and have enough clarity. The colors are standard iPhone colors: realistic, not too bright, and leaning toward the warmer spectrum, which is something that only the iPhone camera does.
Ultra-Wide Angle Camera
The iPhone now has a great new camera with a super wide angle. From my point of view, it seems like a much more useful thing to have than a normal 2X telephoto lens. It can capture so much more of the scene in a single shot that it’s now my favorite thing about the iPhone 11.
Of course, the corners of the frame are distorted, but that’s normal for wide-angle lenses. The only bad thing about this super wide-angle camera is that the new Night Mode doesn’t work with it. That’s too bad because it’s not very good at working in low light.
Portraits
The portraits look good, a little better than the ones from last year’s XR. Subject separation is mostly good, but it’s still hard to tell long hairs from backgrounds with a lot of detail. There are probably some flaws in the pictures taken with an iPhone 11 if you zoom in and look closely, but for the most part, you can use the portraits taken with an iPhone 11.
Selfies & Selfie Portraits
The iPhone 11 takes beautiful selfies. The colors look great and tend to make facial traits stand out. I like the warmer color palette which is an important feature of the selfie camera, but just like with the main camera’s portrait mode, selfie portraits often turn out badly here too.
Subject separation is an issue that becomes more obvious when you turn up the artificial aperture setting to make the background look more blurry.
Night Mode & Low-light Photos
The iPhone 11’s new Night Mode turns on automatically when the sun goes down. This mode takes a slightly longer exposure to get a brighter shot in low light. Night Mode usually takes two to three seconds, but if you put the iPhone on a tripod or lean it against something that won’t move, it can take even longer images of the night sky.
Video Quality
Videos on the iPhone 11 look great. The quality is great, and the stability is great. You can record 4K videos at 60 frames per second with this device, but you can also choose smaller resolutions and frame rates if that’s more your style.
iPhone 11 Processor: A13 Bionic Chip
The iPhone 11, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max all have the same powerful A13 Bionic chip, 4GB of RAM, and at least 64GB of storage. It might be the fastest and most energy-efficient chip Apple has ever made, but it’s really hard to tell. In everyday use, the iPhone 11 doesn’t feel faster than the iPhone XR/XS from last year or even the iPhone X.
That’s not a surprise, since Apple’s chips are designed to make the things you normally do faster while still giving you the power to do something different if you need to. In two, three, or maybe four years, the iPhone 11 should still be the best phone on the market. The only thing you really need to know is that the iPhone 11 can do everything you need it to do and more.
Apple also claims that the iPhone 11 lasts an hour longer than the iPhone XR, which I tested and found to last 32 hours between charges.
Well, I’m happy to say that’s not quite right. Based on my tests, the iPhone 11 lasts about 35 hours without being charged. This makes it the longest-lasting iPhone I’ve tried, getting me from 7 am until 6 pm the next day.
When I used it as my main device without a smartwatch, I sent and received 150 emails and messages, got 80 push alerts, listened to five hours of music on Bluetooth headphones, watched an hour of Netflix, and took about ten photos a day. This was after the iOS 13.1.1 update.
iPhone 11 Battery Life
The iPhone XR really impressed with how long it lasted. It outlasted the “Plus” models and is now the Apple top phone with the longest battery life.
The iPhone 11 Pro Max may have won because it is so much better than the iPhone XS Max, but the iPhone 11 is still a great phone that lasts a long time. I found that it went a little further on a single charge than its predecessor.
Apple’s claim of “all-day battery life” seems very real, and during the review period, there were a few days when I took the phone out of charge in the morning and didn’t plug it back in until noon at my desk the next day. That’s true even with the slightly more heavy use that comes with getting used to a new phone. On other days, I was down to one charge by 10 p.m., and I’ve found that taking a lot of photos and videos drains the battery a lot faster.
I’ve always thought that Apple phones were better than Android phones when it came to how quickly the battery died when doing heavy things like streaming and gaming. I’ve been playing a lot of the great Apple Arcade games, and 30 minutes of Oceanhorn 2 played through 8% of the game.
Charging
It’s not as great that the box comes with a 5W charger. It’s clear that leaving out a fast charger was done to save money, but it’s still a big problem with this phone. The charger that came with the iPhone has always felt slow, and it feels even slower now that the iPhone 11 Pro models come with an 18w charger.
The iPhone 11 went from completely dead to only 13% charged in 30 minutes with the plug and Lightning cable that came with it. This isn’t great if you’re in a hurry and forgot to plug it in the night before. It got to 38% in the same amount of time when charged with the 18w plug that comes in the Pro. For a little extra money, I think you should buy the Apple 18w plug (£29) and the USB-C to Lightning cable (£19) at the same time as the iPhone 11.
You can also charge wirelessly with Qi (7.5w), which is faster than plugging it in, as long as you have a pad that works with it.
There’s no question that the iPhone 11’s battery life is great, but it’s not the best out there. There are much better phones on the market, like the Huawei P30 Pro and the Moto G7 Power, if you care about battery life and don’t mind switching to Android.
iPhone 11 Speaker
This uses Apple’s new spatial audio technology, which you can also find on the Pro models. It does a great job of making a stereo sound that also hints at even more precise 3D audio places.
Most likely, people who watch movies on their phones will do so with headphones, so it might not get to use its full potential very often. However, the fancy speaker arrays are very loud and sound pretty good.
For music and podcasts, the iPhone 11 is a great straight speaker. Very clear, with a pretty good and full mix. It has to be turned up pretty loud for it to sound harsh. They’re really cool!
iPhone 11 Performance
Right now, you could stop reading because the only real difference between the iPhone 11 and the Pro is the screen. In terms of performance, it’s just as fast, and the cameras on it take pictures and videos that are just as good.
But when you look at the other smartphones on the market right now, the iPhone 11 looks even better than the Pro. It has better test results across the board than any other phone on the market.
And even if you think that a phone with that much power is overkill, keep in mind that there are everyday uses that can benefit from it. The extended dynamic range 4K video mode on the iPhone, for example, needs all of this power.
It’s impressive that it shoots 4K at 120fps while fully stabilizing the video. It also records each frame at a different brightness level and then combines them at 60fps to make what looks like HDR.
The battery life is also pretty good. The iPhone 11 lasts a little longer than the Pro, which makes sense since it has a bigger battery (3,110mAh vs. 3,046mAh). As we watched a movie, it ran for about an hour longer, up to 18 hours and 36 minutes, before it needed to be charged again. That’s a big step up from the XR, and it’s the same kind of improvement on the 11 Pro that the XR had over the XS last year.
iPhone 11 Verdict
There are clear changes between the Apple iPhone 11 and the iPhone 11 Pro, but you should already know that the iPhone 11 is a pretty good phone. The screen isn’t nearly as good, it doesn’t look as nice, it’s not as waterproof, and it doesn’t have a zoom camera.
The price of £729 isn’t bad for an Apple phone, though, and it’s a lot less “ouch” than the Pro models that cost over £1000 or the new Samsung Galaxy S20 phones. Yes, you can get an Android phone for the same price or less that can do most of the same things as this one but has better battery life and more cameras. However, the iPhone 11 still beats it when it comes to performance and picture quality.
After all, I think the iPhone 11 will be a big boost for Apple’s smartphone sales this year. Even though Apple has lowered the price of the iPhone XR to £629, this phone is still much better than that one and not much more expensive either.
