Item: iPhone 11 Pro
Author: Mike Wuerthele and Malcolm Owen

The iPhone 11 Pro made its debut on September 10, 2019, at Apple's "By innovation only" event. It premiered alongside the budget-friendly iPhone 11 and the larger iPhone 11 Pro Max.

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Preorders began on September 13, 2019, and it shipped on September 20.

AppleInsider reviewed the new flagships shortly after launch, giving them a 4.5 out of 5. We revisited them a month later, reiterating that we preferred the OLED of the Pro models more than the Liquid Retina display of the iPhone 11.

iPhone 11 Pro Features

Colors and storage

Space Gray and Midnight Green

There are four iPhone 11 Pro colors: gold, Space Gray, silver, and Midnight Green. Gold and silver have stainless steel rims with a silver color, while the Space Gray and Midnight Green colors have darkened stainless steel rims. All options have black front-facing features.

This model has the same storage capabilities as the iPhone XS, available with 64GB, 256GB, and 128GB options.

Display

The Super Retina XDR display makes movies pop

The 5.8-inch, 2,436-by-1,125 OLED display of the iPhone 11 Pro has been dubbed the "Super Retina XDR display" by Apple. It has a pixel density of 458 pixels per inch. Its 2,000,000-to-one contrast ratio doubles what the iPhone XS and iPhone X displays provided. It has a brightness level of 800 nits typically and up to 1200 nits with HDR, whereas the iPhone XS has 625 nits.

Rear camera

The iPhone 11 Pro boasts a three-lens camera system on the back of the device. Apple has included a five-element ultra-wide lens with an ƒ/2.4 aperture and 120-degree field of view. It also has a six-element ƒ/1.8 wide lens.

A six-element telephoto lens with an ƒ/2.0 aperture has a 2x optical zoom-in and a 2x optical zoom-out.

The wide and telephoto lenses have optical image stabilization.

Ultra wide lens (left) and the standard wide lens (right)

On October 29, 2019, Apple released a feature in iOS 13.2 called Deep Fusion to the iPhone. The feature utilizes machine learning for image processing. Deep Fusion is not user-facing and works in the background automatically when certain criteria are met. Deep Fusion will not work if the user has enabled "Photos Capture Outside the Frame" within Settings > Camera, and it will not work if using the ultra-wide lens.

It is typically used for scenes with sub-optimal lighting. Optimal lighting scenarios will trigger Smart HDR instead.

When the right criteria are met, the iPhone will shoot nine images, and the A13 Bionic's Neural Engine combines them into a single photo, prioritizing detail and eliminating noise. This is used instead of the normal image capture and stacking modes and is an entirely new algorithmic photo system.

The iPhone 11 also boasts a new low-light mode that allows the user to take brighter pictures with reduced noise and improved clarity in low-light environments. This feature is limited to the newer models due to chipset limitations.

Night mode (left) and iPhone XS (right)

Each phone in the iPhone 11 series is capable of shooting 4K video at up to 60 frames per second and 1080p slow-motion video at up to 240 frames per second.

New to the iPhone 11 line was the audio zoom feature, which allows the iPhone's microphone to match the audio with the amount of video zoom. As a user zooms in closer to the subject, the accompanying audio gets louder as well.

All iPhones support panorama mode, burst mode, time lapse, facial recognition, digital and optical image stabilization, autofocus, and quad-LED flash.

Front-facing camera

The 12MP True Depth Camera System was introduced for all of the iPhone 11 models

The iPhone 11 devices received an upgrade to the selfie camera: It's now a 12-megapixel True Depth camera with an f/2.2 aperture.

The front camera features a portrait mode with advanced bokeh and depth control, Portrait Lighting with effects, 4K video recording, 1080p HD video recording, and next-generation Smart HDR. It also has cinematic video stabilization, wide color capture, Live Photos, burst mode, and auto image stabilization.

Like previous iPhones, the True Depth camera allows users to utilize Apple's Animoji feature.

The iPhone 11 line was the first to see the addition of a front-camera slow-motion mode. Apple had provided a demo video in which the company referred to the process as taking a "slofie."

Battery Life

The iPhone 11 Pro has a 3046mAh battery with a similar power draw to the iPhone XS. In our tests, we found that it was able to last 12 hours before the battery was depleted.

The pro models shipped with a USB-C power adapter, and a USB-C to Lightning cable. Fast charge was capable of charging the iPhone up to 50% charge in 30 minutes.

The pro models ship with a USB-C to Lightning cable and power adapter

Support for wireless charging was also included, providing a constant trickle of energy that can help extend the battery life of the iPhone.

Speed

Each handset in the iPhone 11 line used the same A13 Bionic processor, and they all come with 4GB of application RAM.

Using the GeekBench 5 benchmark, the iPhone 11 Pro got a three-run average single-core score of 1361 and a multi-core score of 3561.

iPhone XS (left) and iPhone 11 Pro (right) Geekbench 5 results

When testing with the AnTuTu benchmark, it received a cumulative score of 456760 across CPU, GPU, UX, and memory tests. That compares favorably to our results on our iPhone XS, which scored a total of 370618. It saw the biggest boosts in the CPU and GPU categories.

Wireless Connections

The iPhone 11 models offered Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, Bluetooth 5.0 support, NFC with reader mode, and the U1 chip for Ultra-Wideband.

The iPhone 11 series did not have 5G compatibility. Apple revealed its first 5G phones in October 2020, including the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 12 Pro Max, and iPhone 12 mini.

Apple's new U1 chipset allows the iPhone to determine its relative location in regards to other iPhones, as well as utilizing other sensors to know precisely where it is in space.