Iphone 11 Pro Review : Does the cameras make it a true flagship smartphone??

The iPhone with the best set of cameras.

Apple iPhones are one of the biggest selling smartphones in the world which gives somewhat different kinds of experience compared to Android smartphones in the market with the same usability.

Last year iPhone XS and XS Max were launched which came with very good specifications at a good price tag. Later a much affordable iPhone XR came to the market and shook the sales of many flagship smartphones by offering good value. This year the iPhone 11 came and replaced the iPhone XR with improved cameras and with a powerful A13 Bionic processor underneath.

Similarly, the iPhone 11 Pro and the iPhone 11 Pro Max replaced the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max with some good improvements and most importantly having the same price tag. And now all the variants this year come with iOS 13 and powerful A13 Bionic chip.

Let’s have a look at the iPhone 11 Pro and see whether those cameras are worth the hype and see is it the best flagship smartphone that money can buy?

iPhone 11 Pro Design:

The design on the iPhone 11 Pro is identical to that of the iPhone XS with glass on the front as well as the back and sides made of stainless steel. Now instead of two cameras on the back of the iPhone XS, you get three cameras to the back by addition of an ultrawide camera placed on the top left corner at the back.

There is a matte finish to the back which provides a solid feel while holding and resists fingerprints. The iPhone 11 Pro is IP68 rated and can withstand being submerged in up to 4 meters for up to 30 minutes.

On the front like its predecessor, the iPhone 11 Pro houses a larger wider notch which does provide a hindrance to the screen. The display looks really good which we will discuss in a later section. On the sides, there is a power button with the volume controls.

The device weighs around 188gms which is slightly heavier than the iPhone XS. The back of the iPhone 11 Pro supports wireless charging and the back can easily customize by using mobile skins.

Overall the design is good but the wider notch at the front does affect the device as many other flagships come with a dewdrop notch or full-screen display.

The device also lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack.

iPhone 11 Pro Display:

Coming to display, the iPhone 11 Pro sports a 5.8 inches Super Retina XDR (eXtreme Dynamic Range) OLED display (1125 x 2436 pixels) with a screen to body ratio of 19.5:9 and 458ppi. The screen is very bright and the colors on it look crisp and pop out well.

The brightness and contrast levels are well maintained. Viewing under direct sunlight, the OLED panel shines as it provides a good level of color contrast and at night the screen can go very low thus not putting a strain on the eyes. This OLED panel can also support DCI-P3 which is automatically seen after enabling it.

This OLED panel supports HDR contents and Dolby Vision but one thing it lacks is a 90Hz display like the OnePlus 7 Pro and some other devices. Nothing to worry the animations and scrolling is smooth with that 60Hz panel.

The iPhone 11 Pro doesn’t have any fingerprint scanner as it relies on Apple’s Face ID that is the face unlock which is much faster compared to normal face unlock.

The iPhone 11 Pro Max, on the other hand, has a larger screen with higher resolution but the iPhone 11 Pro with the OLED panel looks great with good viewing angles and color reproduction.

iPhone 11 Pro Performance:

The iPhone 11 Pro sports an Apple A13 Bionic chipset which has a much better performance compared to last year’s Apple A12 Bionic which was seen on the iPhone XS. The Apple A13 Bionic has 2×2.65 GHz Lightning high-performance cores and 4×1.8 GHz Thunder efficient cores built on a 7nm process.

The Lightning cores are 20% faster and 30% more efficient compared to those on Apple A12 Bionic.

The GPU is the same as the one on the A12 Bionic that is 4 core but this time it is 20% faster and 40% efficient compared to the one on the A12 Bionic. This helps in delivering improved and better performance compared to the iPhone XS and XS Max.

The third generation Neural Engine has 8 cores working very well for shooting videos and taking images. The device comes with 4GB RAM onboard.

Coming to the gaming aspect, the iPhone 11 Pro handled all games with ease as PUBG Mobile, Asphalt 9 Extreme, etc. played extremely well barely heating the device. The only hindrance is the notch otherwise the gaming experience would have been slightly better.

In terms of benchmarks, the iPhone 11 Pro scored 5483 and 13829 in Single core and Multi-core scores respectively in Geekbench 4.1. This is a good leap from the Apple A12 Bionic and slightly more than the Snapdragon 855 on devices like OnePlus 7, Samsung Galaxy S10 series, Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro, etc.

When it comes to performance, the iPhone 11 Pro with the A13 Bionic is a great device.

iPhone 11 Pro Software:

The newer iPhones always ship with the latest version of iOS and this year it is no different with the iPhone 11 Pro as it ships with iOS 13.0.1. This was later updated to iOS 13.1 with some very interesting features like a system-wide dark mode, some improvements to charging speed and battery life, and some applications like Photos, Maps, Sign -In Apple ID got a kind of new look and more access to the lock screen.

Sadly we miss the 3D Touch of the earlier iPhones but we do get Haptic Touch which we can enable from the settings. Siri also works pretty well and with the iOS 13, it brings improvements to speech recognition as well.

The Photo application is a completely new one in iOS 13 as there are now four tabs- Years, Months, Days, and All Photos. This also brings new editing modes to the application.

With iOS 13, there is a new sign-in with Apple Pay. It helps quickly to sign into apps using Apple account using FaceID and TouchID making it more secure.

The iOS 13 brings all the major improvements and with the A13 Bionic the software of the iPhone 11 Pro is very good.

iPhone 11 Pro Camera:

Last year the iPhone XS came with two cameras one being the main camera which is a 12MP one with dual-pixel technology and a telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom.

The cameras were great and this year with the iPhone 11 Pro and the iPhone 11 Pro Max, you get the same setup from the predecessor with the addition of a 12MP ultrawide camera for wider aperture shots and some camera improvements.

Now there are three cameras to the back: 12MP f/1.8 main camera with dual pixel autofocus + 12MP f/2.0 telephoto lens with 2x optical zoom and 12MP f/2.4 ultrawide camera. You can easily switch between cameras as the device knows the correct focus and exposure by providing good photos and videos.

The photos captured from the main camera are extremely good with proper color accuracy and exposure in the surroundings. The dynamic range is also wide enough and with HDR on it produces excellent photos as of the photo has been taken from a DSLR.

Coming to low lighting situations and night, the photos come out to be good with rich colors and more natural-looking.

The dedicated Night Mode helps the camera with balanced color production in the background and helps prevent background noise. The OIS helps the camera capture good photos by providing good light in the surroundings.

The colors are excellent and the contrast is also very good. I think compared to other flagships like the OnePlus 7 Pro, Huawei Mate 30 Pro, Samsung Galaxy Note 10+ this camera is the best when it comes to nighttime photography.

Coming to a telephoto camera which is a 12MP one, the photos come out to be very good. All the photos are rich in detail and the background noise is also well maintained. It captures depth shots very well but here the colors are a little bit warmer compared to the ones on the main camera.

The one thing that the telephoto camera misses is OIS which would have been better. In some photos there was oversharpening but isn’t a big problem as the software update will help resolve this issue.

At night without the Night Mode, the photos came out to be great with good details in the background and the sharpness and exposure were well maintained.

However the colors do look a bit washed out but with the Night Mode turned on, the photos tuned out to be excellent with good color reproduction, and the exposure was also well maintained. When it comes to the telephoto camera, the iPhone 11 Pro is the strongest offering in its segment.

This is a new camera the 12MP ultrawide camera which takes good photos but not as the ones taken from the telephoto and the main camera. The colors come out to be rich but the contrast levels aren’t appealing that much. There is much softness in the surroundings which needs to be improved a lot.

Coming to shots taken during the night, the photos were taken from the ultrawide camera are good with good exposure in the background but the level of detail in the shadows does take a hit as this camera lacks the Night Mode.

But still, you take good photos at the night thanks to the wider aperture and good dynamic range.

Now coming to portraits, the iPhone 11 Pro like the OnePlus 7 Pro uses the telephoto lens for capturing portraits. The portrait mode offers many lighting effects and adjusts the skin tones of the person thus providing good background blur and edge detection in the photos.

Thanks to the Thir generation Neural engine equipped in the Apple A13 Bionic.

During the night, the portraits come out to be excellent with the dedicated Night Mode and edge detection whether it is the object located farther or nearer works very well. The skin tones also look more natural.

With the telephoto camera, the portraits come out to be good and the new Lighting effects work really well.

Switching to video, the iPhone 11 Pro supports 4k@60fps with good stabilization and wider dynamic range. At 4k@30fps, the footage from the video comes out to be much more natural and with good color accuracy in the background.

Coming at night the videos come out great with both the main cameras as well as the telephoto camera. The Smart HDR works very well both for 4k as well as 1080p videos.

The iPhone 11 Pro also can switch between three modes and the autofocus works very well by adjusting the exposure and contrast throughout the video. But the videos lack a little bit of detail and the color reproduction isn’t that good when taken from the ultrawide camera.

On the front, the iPhone 11 Pro comes with a 12MP f/2.2 aperture combined with a ToF camera. The photos were taken from the front camera come out to be good with rich skin tones which were natural looking and proper contrast levels suited to the surroundings.

The dynamic range is very wide and with HDR the photos come exceptionally well.

The portraits also come out to be really good as the portrait Lighting effects make the human subject make proper separation from the surroundings and the background blur also works well. The iPhone
11 Pro supports 4k videos from the front camera which is a big improvement over the iPhone XS.

It can also record SlowMo videos at 120fps what Apple likes to call Slofies with a good level of details and wider dynamic range.

Overall considering the iPhone XS which had a really good camera, the iPhone 11 Pro improves upon it by an extra ultrawide camera and some new features like Slofies (slow-motion videos from the front camera) and support for 4k videos from the front camera.

But the ultrawide camera needs some improvement but otherwise taking the photos and video quality, the iPhone 11 Pro is an excellent camera-centric smartphone and if purely you are looking for a flagship smartphone with the best set of cameras, then the iPhone 11 Pro is the perfect one to suit your needs.

iPhone 11 Pro Battery Life:

The iPhone 11 Pro packs a 3046mAh battery which is slightly less than its elder sibling the iPhone 11 Pro Max which packs a massive 3969mAh battery that is the highest in an iPhone to date. The battery life is a good improvement over last year’s iPhone XS.

With normal web browsing, 2-3 hours of video playback, and continuous gaming with PUBG mobile, Call of Duty the device went easily through a day. But nothing to worry about since Apple has bundled the iPhone 11 Pro with an 18W fast charger.

The charger quickly tops to 50% in the first half an hour but the full charge takes place close to 2 hours.

The iPhone 11 Pro also supports USB PD fast charging through power banks or when connected to devices such as a laptop. The iPhone 11 Pro, as well as the iPhone 11 Pro Max, supports 10W wireless charging.

iPhone 11 Pro Sound Quality:

The iPhone 11 Pro like the iPhone XS has stereo speakers where the first speaker is the vent facing the bottom and the earpiece acts as the secondary one. The sound output is very crisp and clear. The bass level is also very good and with the Apple Airpods, the sound is exceptionally good.

The loudness levels are good but when taken in a large crowd it becomes shrill. Still the iPhone 11 Pro has better sound quality than the iPhone 11 and iPhone XS.

Verdict:

Wrapping up everything into consideration, the iPhone 11 Pro is a great flagship smartphone to buy. It has the strengths in the form of powerful rear cameras that provide the best image and video quality, then the powerful A13 Bionic chipset for high-end gaming and good overall performance.

The 18W fast charger and the larger battery ensure good battery life and fast charging for quick usage. IOS 13 also brings major improvements and some new features with it. The only disgusting thing is that wider notch on the front as most of the flagships have a teardrop notch or full-screen displays.

However, Apple has thought of ditching the notch in the upcoming iPhones of 2020. Nowadays higher refresh rates have been the defacto and being a flagship, the iPhone 11 Pro misses a 90Hz or a 120Hz panel which most of the flagships offer nowadays.

The ultrawide camera needs some improvements with respect to image and video quality but still, it is very good compared to some other rivals.

On an overall basis, the iPhone 11 Pro isn’t a huge upgrade over the iPhone 11 or the iPhone XS but does make a good buy. The only problem is that it is priced very high as the base model which comes with 64GB storage is priced at Rs.99000, 256GB at Rs.1,13,000, and 512GB for Rs.1,31,000 all paired with 4GB RAM.

All are available on the Apple store online as well as on Amazon. It may be on the expensive side but what you are getting is a fast and fluid smartphone with good software and an excellent set of cameras.