Apple iPhone 11 Pro

Apple has settled into a new stride when it comes to the yearly iPhone release: two separate handsets, differentiated slightly by price and a few features.

On the one hand, the iPhone 11 is the successor to the XR and the ‘people’s iPhone’. It loses the window dressing and doubles down on core aspects: price, battery life and performance. Meanwhile, the ‘iPhone 11 Pro’ variant is for the Apple fan that wants everything: more camera options and the best possible screen available on an iPhone. It also comes with a ‘Max’ sizing for those that want the biggest screen and longest battery life. Crucially, performance between all three models is the same. They all run on Apple’s A13 Bionic chip and all have three configurations of storage space: 64GB, 256GB and 512GB. If you’re happy with two lenses instead of three and don’t need an OLED HDR screen, then you can save £320 by opting for the 11 over the 11 Pro. Prices for the former start at £729 while prices for the latter start at £1,049. The Max will take an even bigger chunk out of your savings with prices starting at £1,149.

Those that do opt for the 11 Pro (which we’ve been testing out) or the 11 Pro Max will get what Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing calls the ‘most powerful and advanced smartphones we have ever made.’ Mr Schiller said: ‘They are packed with sophisticated technology that pros can count on to get their work done, and for anyone who wants the very best device made, even if they are not a pro.’ But leaving aside the marketing speak for a minute, anyone with an iPhone XS, XR or even an X will still enjoy a few more years before feeling the need to upgrade. Thanks largely to improvements to iOS which are made available for free, iPhones tend to age better than their Android brethren. And yes, we know Apple messed up by trying to throttle performance. Should you decide your iPhone 7 or iPhone 8 is a bit long-in-the-tooth then making the jump to an 11 or 11 Pro is set to blow you away.

First though, it’s time for a bugbear. Apple still insists on using the Lightning port despite moving both Macbooks and iPad Pros over to USB-C. We’re now seeing wireless headphones, speakers and other accessories making the jump to USB-C and I was really hoping that Apple would finally include it here. The iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max do at least come with an 18W wall adapter with a USB-C connection on one end so you can fast charge the battery. It makes a world of difference and smacks up against the iPhone 11 which still comes with 5W wall plug Apple has been shipping since the first iPhone in 2007. You can still fast charge the iPhone 11 but you’ll need to shell out for a new charging brick and cable to do so. All three models can be charged wirelessly but none have the rumoured ‘reverse wireless charging’ feature that Huawei and Samsung have both adopted. That’s a shame as it would have been cool to be able to charge up a pair of AirPods by just laying them on the back of the gadget.