iPhone 11 Pro Review: Hands Down, The Best iPhone Ever
The iPhone 11 Pro is the successor to last year’s iPhone XS and, likewise, comes in two different sizes; there’s a 5.8-inch iPhone 11 Pro and a 6.5-inch iPhone 11 Pro Max. The overall design of both models is essentially the same as the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max – same size display, same notch – but Apple has bumped up the specs, added some new features and given it a completely new camera system.
The iPhone 11 Pro is the first iPhone to have a triple-lens camera system; it has the same 12-megapixel wide and ultra-wide lenses as the iPhone 11, with an addition 12-megapixel telephoto lens for zoomed-in and Portrait Mode shots. That said, the iPhone 11 Pro shares so many similarities to the expensive iPhone 11 – same A13 Bionic processor, same upgraded front-facing camera as the iPhone 11, same Night Mode, same improved Dolby Atmos sound, same IP68 rating – that it really comes down to few key differences and if you’ll take advantage of them.
The Good: The iPhone 11 Pro has the distinct advantage of coming in two different sizes. The iPhone 11 Pro is smaller than the 6.1-inch iPhone 11, while the iPhone 11 Pro Max is slightly larger. I suspect that people will opt for either of the iPhone 11 Pro’s for the simple fact that they want a small or a big-screen iPhone – the Goldilocks-sized iPhone 11 simply won’t be for everybody.
The most compelling and conspicuous feature of the iPhone 11 Pro is its triple-camera system, and after using it for the better part of the week, it’s definitely the best and most versatile set of cameras that Apple has ever put in any iPhone. The ultra-wide lens will feel like a pretty significant upgrade for anybody who has an older iPhone, but as the iPhone 11 has it too, it really comes down to the telephoto lens and how if you’ll take full advantage of it. This extra lens enables the two Pro models to take two different kinds of Portrait Mode photos, one that is really zoomed-in (which is similar to what the iPhone XS could do) and one that is more zoomed-out (which is exactly the same Portrait mode as the iPhone 11) for those who want to grab for background in the photo. If you find yourself taking a lot of photos of people and pets, rather than landscapes, this extra telephoto lens feels like a real selling point.
The nice thing about all three lenses is that they all take the same quality photo. Each is a 12-megapixel camera that has its own high-quality sensor, so you can expect a pretty decent photo nobody which lens you’re using (this is not the case for most other smartphones with a multi-camera system). Each of the three lenses is capable of shooting 4K video at 60fps, which is a nice feature for vloggers and videographers to have. It’s worth noting that despite the extra lenses, like the iPhone 11, the Pro’s Night Mode only really works while using the wide lens (you can technically use Night Mode with the ultra-wide lens, but it’s really just a blown-up shot taken by the wide lens.
Aside from the size and triple-camera system, the third big selling point of the iPhone 11 Pro is its hardware. Its OLED display is significantly better than the LCD display of the iPhone 11, but it’s also better than the Super Retina display of last year’s iPhone XS; the new “Super Retina XDR” display is brighter (1,200 nits versus the iPhone XS’s 600 nits) with double the contrast ratio. It’s easy to get lost in the tech jargon, but the bottom line is this: iPhone 11 Pro’s display is the best and brightest display ever in a smartphone. So if you’re somebody who plays a lot of mobile games or streams lots of shows on your iPhone, that’s a good reason to upgrade to the Pro.