iPhone 11 review

Two-minute review

The iPhone 11 is something of a surprise - it brings more advanced technology (namely in the camera capabilities and the processing power under the hood) and yet offers it for less than the iPhone XR cost in 2018. It combines a large 6.1-inch display with a premium-feeling body, and comes in an array of colors too.

The most eye-catching feature of the new iPhone is to the imaging capabilities: with two sensors on the rear, you can now take wider-angle snaps alongside the ‘normal’ main images. These sensors are 12MP each, and are raised from the rear of the phone in a square glass enclosure - which we’re not enamored with visually.

The night mode is the most impressive part of the iPhone 11 imaging quality, bringing brightness and clarity to impossibly dark scenes, and the Portrait mode, defocusing the background, is improved on the new iPhone too.

The design hasn’t updated much from the iPhone XR in 2018, although there are now six colors - including a new lilac and mint green shade to choose from. The edges of the iPhone 11 still have the same feel as the older iPhone 6, 7 and 8, although the larger 6.1-inch display in the middle takes up most of the front of the phone (although with slightly thick borders around the screen).

That display is bright enough and responds well under the finger, with bright sunlight performance good and the overall movie and video streaming playback strong - although not in the same league as the OLED-toting iPhone 11 Pro range. 

Apple claims that the battery life of the iPhone 11 is an hour longer than that of the impressive iPhone XR, and in our tests this largely bore out. We were able to eke 24 hours’ use out of it without needing to try too hard - although sadly there’s no fast charger in the box, so if you do deplete the power pack you’ll need to wait around three hours before it’s fully juiced up.

The overall speed and performance of the iPhone 11 is robust - and especially so for the price. It’s still one of the most powerful phones out there, according to our early benchmarks.

In reality that just translates to a solid experience when flipping in and out of apps - although we did note that the speed in firing up the camera was a little slow, and processing pictures took longer than expected for a modern phone.

That said, given you can edit 4K footage at 60 frames per second on a smartphone, it seems like a pretty powerful device to have in your pocket - especially if you’re a social influencer.

Overall the iPhone 11 is a triumph for Apple - if, for nothing else, the fact it’s managed to lower the price year-on-year. We feel enough people are going to be won over by the hard-working camera (check the night mode samples further down this review to see what we mean) and the safety that buying a modern smartphone gives you.

You should be able to achieve years of use from this phone, and sure, you could also consider the iPhone 11 Pro or iPhone 11 Pro Max if you want more power and higher spec, but we found the iPhone 11 to be fun to use and often outperformed what we would expect given the price - and that's a feat some wouldn't have expected from Apple.

iPhone 11 price and release date 

• iPhone 11 launch date: September 10
• iPhone 11 release date: September 20
• iPhone 11 price started at $699 (£729, AU$1,199)

The iPhone 11 release date was September 20, 2019 around the world, and it's now readily available in the US, UK and Australia.

In other regions the iPhone 11 price is still lower than the XR, but the saving isn't as great. The 64GB iPhone 11 will set you back £729 in the UK and AU$1,199 in Australia, which represents a saving of £20 and AU$30 respectively over the XR.

There are, as usual, a range of storage options to go for, with the aforementioned 64GB model joined by a 128GB ($749, £779, AU$1,279) and a 256GB ($849, £879, AU$1,449) version, if you’re happy to spend more money to get extra capacity.

An additional bonus is you'll get a year free of Apple's TV Plus service when you buy the new iPhone. That'll give you access to a variety of TV shows, and it's an added bonus when you purchase the handset.

You'll likely be able to find the phone for a little less with some retailers, carriers and networks, and below we've put together the best deals you can find today for the iPhone 11.

Camera

This isn’t something we normally do, but we’re going to get right to the simple fact that the iPhone 11 camera is easily the standout feature on this handset.

Apple has doubled the number of lenses on offer here: where the iPhone XR had one, porthole-like sensor on the rear, things are much more grandiose for 2019, with a whole window on the rear containing two 12MP sensors.

Apple’s clearly going for an iconic and uniform look with the iPhone 11 range, with the Pro and Pro Max packing the same square lens bump on the rear. 

It takes some getting used to, almost to the point of it being too obtrusive visually, with your fingers playing across it far more when you’re holding the iPhone in landscape, but it actually isn’t as obtrusive as the bump on 2018’s iPhone, thanks to being ‘layered’ up from the back – the glass housing around the lenses is raised a small amount from the rear glass, and the sensors themselves a little more.

It’s a wide-angle array – that’s to say you get the ‘regular’ camera you’ll find on every phone, plus an ultra-wide-angle lens that brings more of the scene you’re shooting into the frame.

It’s a setup that’s pretty easy to use: a toggle at the bottom of the camera interface enables you to move between focal length, and you can hold this down to activate a scroll wheel with which you can more smoothly zoom in and out.

There’s a slight judder when transitioning between the two cameras, and if you look closely you can see there’s a difference in the light sensitivity of the two sensors as well in the preview.

The overall output is quite different - you’ll get a far darker photo when zoomed out, so we’d suggest only using the further-out sensor in a strong, bright scene and relying on night mode for the rest of the time.

One thing that’s supposed to be simple is fixing your too-narrow photos when you could be using the ultra-wide lens. 

We saw in a demo how the iPhone 11 would be able to take a shot using the standard lens, but during our testing could not work out how to get access to the wider shot that’s supposed to be taken at the same time, so you can change the composition post snap.