iPhone 11 Review - The Phone Most People Should Buy
iPhone 11 Review - The Phone Most People Should Buy
I'll make this simple for you, if you're an iOS person and its time to get a new phone and you don't want to spend $1000, you should get an iPhone 11. It's a
really good phone with one of the best cameras I've ever seen on a smartphone and excellent battery life. Apples also dropped the price by 50 bucks. The iPhone 10 R started at
Starting Price :
749and the iPhone 11 starts at 699. That doesn't mean the iPhone 11 is a perfect phone or that it even has all of the best specs and features that you can get.
iPhone 11 Pro which I reviewed in another video. But I think most people looking for an iPhone upgrade, don't need to overthink this. Just get an iPhone 11, you'll be happy. Lemme tell
you why. The iPhone 11 is fundamentally the S update to last years very popular iPhone 10 R.It has the same design, the same 6.1 inches 720p LCD with fancy rounded corners,
the same biggish bezels and the same aluminum body. From the front it looks almost exactly like an iPhone 10 R.But, Apple says it made the glass on the front and the back
a little bit stronger, the water resistance is a little better and the camera bump on the back is now milled right into the glass, which is kinda neat. And, it comes in a
bunch of new pastel colors. This lavender one we have looks very nice. The whole design is still a little surfboard and its definitely not small. If you're looking to upgrade from an iPhone
this thing is gonna feel huge. But really, the only major difference is between the iPhone 10 R and the iPhone 11are the cameras, the slightly better battery life, and the new processor. There's
a bunch of other little things that well get but that's really what you need to know. And, it's $50 cheaper, this is not exactly the hardest review I've ever had to
do. But Verge executive editor, Dieter Bohn has been using an iPhone 10 R for the past year. And he's also been testing the iPhone 11 this week. So, I called him up to
see what he thinks. (ringing)(beeping)All right, let's start with battery life. You've been using the 10 R for the past year. Apple says the 11 gets an hour longer than the 10 R, what
- I mean, I bought the 10 R in the first place because I didn't wanna have to worry about battery life. So, I didn't it just lasted all day and the iPhone
11 also lasts all day, I don't have to worry about battery life. I think it's a little bit better but I don't know for sure. And look, like you could maybe kill
this thing less than a day but you'd really, really have to try. I think the battery life is great. What is not great, is the fact that there still in the box,
including that dinky five-watt charger.- I feel strongly that I could make you go on a USB-C rant here, but I won't do that to everyone else. Instead, I'm gonna ask
you about the camera. Now, I think Apples actually pulled it off and they've done an amazing job with the camera. They pulled ahead of the Pixel, what do you think?
- So, I actually wanna start with the hardest possible situation that I could figure out, or close to it. So, this is the iPhone 11 versus the Pixel 3.Its zoomed in a
a little bit more than 2xand its night mode and you can see that the iPhone 11 really holds its own. It still really wants to bring up the shadows but its right there
looks unnaturally bright and weird. So, I much prefer the iPhone 11.- You know I've been saying for months on The Vergecast now that I think the iPhone 10 S looks bad and
then Apple HDR was kinda bad last year. But I think they really improved it this year. It's so much more willing to let shadows be shadows and highlights be highlights. They're doing this
semantic rendering thing, where they're processing the hair and the sky and faces differently. I think it really works. Heres a photo of Moya, that honestly, I think could be the entire review. The 10 S
Max is kinda blurry, it lost a lot of detail. The 11 is super sharp, there's a ton of detail, and it's just rendered the shadows and highlights much more effectively.
Its kind of a wash with the Pixelbut I actually prefer the 11.- You know, in addition to the detail thing, I'm just happier with the iPhone 11s color choices.
So, here's a portrait mode of 11 versus the 10 R.And the 10 R just thinks that yellow counts as natural and that's not right.
The iPhone 11 actually is way better but if you look closely, a weird thing you'll see the iPhone 11 seemed to do a worse job on the cutouts
on portraits, it really screwed my glasses up.- So, that's really interesting because the 11 has two lenses on the back.
So, it's actually using two cameras to figure out the depth map while the 10 R is just doing it in software.
I actually asked Apple about this and they were pretty surprised.
They think obviously the 11 should do a better job and they told me they specifically spent time working on glasses this year. So, this is one of those things
were were just gonna have to see if software improves it over time.
on team ultra-wide.I think it is way more useful than just a 2x telephoto. So, for example here is a photo of a vineyard standard wide and the ultra-wide and I just
like the ultra-wide way better.- So, I agree with you that the ultra-wide is the right call over the telephoto. But, where I disagree is in how much I'll actually use it. The
ultra-wide has a slower lens, it got a smaller sensor.I'm just way less impressed with these photos. So, while its really fun, I think its actually better to use the main camera
and just back up. And I think its way easier to back up than zoom in, that's just a fact.- That's just not true at all. Its way easier to walk three steps
forward and get a better you know telephoto, get a better zoom in than it is to walk backward. I dunno where you take photos but it's in weird places.- I mean, backward
is better than forwards, it's just obviously true. (laughing)When we were out shooting Bec and Alix took a ton of selfies. Heres one, I don't wanna talk about it at all really. But, video on
iPhones have been better than on Android phones for a long time. This seems like it's increasing the gap. You've been testing a lot of Android phones, what do you think?
- So, man, the only Android phones that are anywhere near the same league as the iPhone are Samsung phones, like the Note 10 or the Galaxy S10. And even though they're
in the same league, they still lose basically every time. And, I know that the Pixel 4 is coming soon and I don't wanna pre-judge it here, but let's just say right now, the
iPhone is definitely the best camera for video.- Yeah, I think that Pixel 4 kinda looms over this whole thing, but it's not out yet. It's leaked all over the place, but its
not out yet. Well just have to test it when it comes. So, you've been using a 10 R for the year. You've had the 11, what do you think, worth the upgrade?
totally worth it. And actually, hang on a minute, I've got stuff to do this is your review, you should go finish it. (beeps)- That was really quite rude. There's really not that much
Liquid Retina is just Apple's fancy name for how it curves LCD corners with microscopic apertures. This is a 326 dpi, 720p LCD and it looks like one. It simply doesn't have
the deep blacks of an OLED display which mean the new Dark Mode in iOS 13doesnt look as good as it could. And, it's definitely lower resolution than the iPhone 11 Pros. The good
news is that Apple LCDs are typically great and this display is typically great. Unless you really deeply care about displays, it's more than fine. Last year I said the only reason to spend
$250 more on the iPhone 10 S over the iPhone 10 R was the display. And, I feel the same way this year. Only now its a $300 jump. It's definitely worth it to
me, but I recommend going and looking at them for yourself to decide. Like the iPhone 10 R, there's no 3D touch on the iPhone 11. Apples replaced it with it calls Haptic Touch. Which is really just a fancy name for long-pressing on things. I really miss 3D Touch to preview links and scoot the cursor around using the keyboard but I adjusted quickly and long-presses are a
little simpler to understand and they're gonna be a little bit more consistent across other iOS devices like the iPad now. Apples also updated the speakers on the iPhone 11 to have call spatial
audio.Which is essentially a virtual surround decoder that supports Adobe 5.1, 7.1, and Atmos. I don't know if I'm ever gonna be convinced that stereo speakers on a phone are actually delivering surround sound, but
these speakers sound great and they are extremely loud. And, of course, there's no headphone jack and no headphone dongle in the box. So, just be ready for that. The iPhone 11 also
has Apples new A13 Bionic processor which is both more powerful and more efficient than the A12 Bionic in the iPhone 10 R.Its also the same shape as in the iPhone 11
Pros and its plenty fast. Although the A12 Bionic was pretty fast and I couldn't tell you that I noticed some huge performance difference between the 11 and the 10 R.But, iPhones tend
to stick around for a long time and all that extra processor performance is why. That headroom matters more towards the end of the phone's life, not now at the beginning. Face ID has
slightly improved from the iPhone 10 But its another thing you might not even notice. It's just a little faster than before and it works from a slightly larger range of angles.I've
come to really like Face ID, so any improvement is welcome. Especially if it encourages people to actually lock their phones. The iPhone 11 also has Apples new U1 positioning chip in it, which uses
an ultra-wideband radio to precisely locates the phone in relation to other U1 devices. This will initially make AirDrop a little easier but it doesn't do anything yet. That feature will come with iOS 13.1which
is scheduled to ship at the end of the month. And that really brings me to iOS 13in general which is pretty buggy in all of my iPhone review units so
far.I've seen some weird glitches and app crashes during testing. And I've had to restart a couple times just to get things back on track. Apple told me some of these things will get
cleaned up in iOS 13.1, but if you're currently happy with your phone would not rush out to upgrade until we know iOS 13 had settled down, which should be soon enough. Assuming Apple
cleans up the rough edges of iOS 13, it's basically a bunch of small updates to iOS 12that make things a little cleaner and simpler. There's a Dark Mode now, the Share
Sheets a little nicer.The Photos app is a little more engaging and Reminders has been redesigned.You can swipe to type on the keyboard now. Its a bunch of stuff like that.
If you've got an iPhone older than the 10 Rand its upgrade time for you, I think the answer is yes. The camera is substantially improved and you'll get vastly better battery
life than anything aside from the iPhone 10 R.Those are the things most people care about and Apples really delivered here. Id only spend the extra money on the iPhone 11 Pro if you
really care about the display. I don't think you're missing out on much by not having a telephoto camera lens, to be honest. Now I do, really care about displays, so I'm getting
a Pro. But I think most people will be very happy with the iPhone 11. That is after Apple cleans up iOS 13. If you're looking for an even deeper dive in the iPhone 11 camera.
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