iPhone 11 Pro (very) Long Term Review
The phone that drew me into the Apple ecosystem.
I am nearing 2 years of ownership of my silver iPhone 11 Pro 256gb. I bought it early December 2019. I previously owned Samsung phones, such as the Galaxy S7, S8 & S10e. I was never really happy with them, however. None of them was as quick and snappy as I would have liked them to be, and their battery life left a lot to be desired. So, almost on a whim, I went out and bought an iPhone 11 Pro to see what all the fuss was about.
The first thing I noticed was how heavy the phone was. Its frame is made of stainless steel, rather than the standard aluminium, and you tend to notice that. It’s a chonker. With that weight came a feeling of prestigiousness, however. Thankfully that extra heft hasn’t resulted in me getting an RSI (repeated strain injury), so it isn’t too bad. I was generally impressed with the display. High-end Samsung phones tend to have rather good displays, so moving to an OLED iPhone was certainly no downgrade. The silence slider next to the volume buttons is a huge plus too. I think all phones should have that. Overall, I’m very happy with the design and build of this phone. I don’t believe phones should really be any larger than this. Unfortunately, the market doesn’t seem to agree.
The biggest difference for me was the software experience. Moving from Android to iOS did feel like moving from something hastily cobbled together to something coherent and stable. The time that I got this iPhone 11 Pro was when iOS 13 was released. In terms of general design, this was iterative. However, it did bring with it dark mode support. This was a massive plus for me. It was incredibly well implemented, and third party apps played ball with it. I did not have that experience with Samsung’s One UI. I found that few apps complied with their dark mode.
From my experience, I do believe it is true that third party apps are more polished on iOS compared to their Android counterparts. My experience of using apps like Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram were much better and less battery-consuming than when I used them on Android. I know developers spend a little more time and effort on iOS apps because it is easier to make apps for that platform, since you're only designing apps for one particular phone.
I was a bit miffed about certain aspects of iOS, that have only recently been addressed. I was very used to having an app drawer, and having a fairly spartan Home Screen, with only the essentials. At first, this wasn’t really possible on iOS, outside of putting lots of things on other pages or multiple folders. This is an aesthetic and usability nightmare. Thankfully, then came along iOS 14. This new software enabled you to delete Home Screen pages, and move apps to the ‘App Library’, which functioned just like the app draw on Android. Thus, I could create a fairly concise 2 pages of my most used apps.
iOS 15 brought fewer significant changes, but notable ones like Focus modes (which I haven’t really taken advantage of yet) and a redesigned Safari. I don’t mind the current iteration of Safari, with the bottom search bar. Initially, I wasn’t a fan, but I got used to it pretty quickly, and I think I prefer it now.
Moving on to battery endurance. On my Samsung Galaxy phones, they had respectably sized batteries, but not really the endurance to match. This was one of my key reasons to give the iPhone 11 Pro a go. I had heard from reviews that it was a battery life champion. And yes, this did bear out in reality. I easily got about 6 hours of on-screen time, and a phone I could happily consider to have 1.5 days worth of battery. Over time though, the battery life has gotten worse as the battery ages. It’s now sitting at 81% capacity, and I think by the end of this year or early next year I plan on replacing the battery. That way I will get another 2–3 years out of this phone, reliably. These days it’s still a phone that lasts me all day, but I wouldn’t mind a little more juice. I have been able to alter my phone usage habits a little bit by studying the battery usage monitor closely. Now I can easily get 3–4 hours of on-screen time. This is still satisfactory to me.
I have been absolutely spoiled by the set of cameras on this phone. We have 3 12MP cameras: a wide, ultra wide, and telephoto camera. There is one word for this camera system: dependable. I can 99.9% of the time rely on these cameras to produce a pleasing looking image, with appropriate levels of dynamic range, colour, and low levels of noise. The next set of photos will come from the cameras of my iPhone:
As you can see, it produces true-to-life images that are pleasing, and display appropriate levels of detail. The image of the opening rose and coffee were used with the Portrait mode, and do a respectable job of blurring backgrounds. The phone did have a little trouble with the edge of the coffee cup, but it is a respectable job nonetheless. You do have to keep in mind with these fairly small sensors and lenses that you really can’t cheat physics. The Night Mode has worked well for me, bringing higher levels of light and detail, without sacrificing noise. While I haven’t used the video capabilities very much, the videos that I have made with it have been very high quality, good dynamic range, and accurate colours.
A brief discussion on the Apple Ecosystem, and how I was suckered in rather quickly. The first thing related to my iPhone that I bought was the Apple Watch Series 5. These two are a dynamic duo, and the Watch has yet to fail me. Within a month or two of that, I bought AirPods Pro, and I believe these are the best earphones Apple has ever made. The sound quality is very acceptable, the comfort and fit works well for my ears, and I have found the noise cancellation to be very reliable. After this, in the next year I bought a MacBook Pro (Intel), iPad Pro 11", and an Apple TV (I really wasn’t pleased with inbuilt TV operating systems). All of these work out well together, and I’m kinda glad I bought into this ecosystem. It works, and its unobtrusive.
My final thoughts. I have it on good authority (myself) that the iPhone 11 Pro is quite possibly the best phone that Apple has made. They made big strides in speed and battery life, along with significant improvements in camera quality. the 12 Pro and 13 Pro are nice, but I don’t believe they offer enough for me to upgrade to either of them. I have truly been spoilt with the iPhone 11 Pro. I believe I bought into the ecosystem at the right time. I couldn’t recommend this phone enough as a relatively affordable second hand purchase. And with this experience, I can’t recommend enough the models that succeed this phone. They make small improvements on what is a near-perfect phone. It’s fast, it endures, it’s reliable, it has a strong camera, and it’s secure. What more could you want?
