iPhone 11 Review: Fair enough

PROS

• Good value for money
• No compromise on performance versus iPhone 11 Pro
• Second camera makes a big difference
• Excellent battery life

CONS

• Telephoto lens is arguably more useful than ultra wide
• LTE and WiFi are slower than iPhone 11 Pro
• You should budget for a more powerful charger

A week after using the iPhone 11, you will conclude that this is the ideal phone. It's affordable in today's market, where $1,000/10,000MAD  phones reign supreme. It's a perfect size. It's fast. It has an ultra-wide-angle camera and another camera that can capture stunning photos at night. The iPhone 11 is, without a doubt, the best iPhone for most users. 

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CAMERA :

Looking at the iPhone 11 from the front, not a lot has changed compared to the iPhone XR. The notch is still there, centered on the 6.1-inch Liquid Retina LCD Display, with Apple's TrueDepth camera system that enables Face ID to unlock the phone.

The TrueDepth camera on the front of the phone now features a wide-angle mode. Instead of a 70-degree field of view, as is the case when the phone is vertical, the FOV is increased to 85 degrees, making it easier to fit several people in your selfie. Apple also improved the slow-motion capabilities of the front-facing camera.

The side button, volume buttons, and mute switch are all in their normal spots. A headphone jack is still missing on the bottom, and Apple's proprietary Lightning port didn't get replaced with a USB-C port. 

It's not until you look at the back of iPhone 11 that you begin to see a difference. Specifically, the iPhone 11's camera array is now square and features two lenses -- instead of one like the iPhone XR had. 

The second lens is an ultra-wide-angle camera with a 120-degree field of view. The added FOV means you can, essentially, zoom out on a subject, capturing more of the surroundings in the photo. This is a feature that many Android devices have added over the past few years.

Night mode is only possible with the wide camera on iPhone 11, so you shouldn't take ultra-wide-angle shots at night with any phone expect the same results. But here's how it works: You open the camera app, and it detects whether there's enough light for a normal photo. If so, you tap the shutter button and take your picture. 

PERFORMANCE :

The iPhone 11 is powered by Apple's A13 Bionic processor, has 4GB of memory, and comes in configurations of 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB of storage. While 64GB is a decent amount of storage, it's no longer enough. The starting point should be 128GB, if not 256GB. Battery life on iPhone 11 is superb. 

SOFTWARE :

The iPhone 11 runs iOS 13, which itself includes a ton of new features for the iOS platform as a whole. Apple Maps, Reminders, Mail, and Safari are just a few apps that have received significant upgrades with the update. 

TO GO PRO OR NOT?

The differences between iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro are the display and a telephoto camera. The Pro line uses Apple's Super Retina XDR OLED display. It's a much brighter screen, capable of displaying more colors at a higher resolution. 

Comparing the two screens next to each other, the differences are fairly obvious. Then there's the additional camera on the Pro. It's a telephoto lens that boasts a 2x optical zoom. It's another tool on your iPhone belt, so to speak, and for some, that's an important factor.