In the fall of 2020, Apple killed the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max: phones disappeared from the company’s online store. Once again, the former flagships did not fall in price by a hundred dollars, but were simply deleted from the current line of devices.
However, the world of shopping is not exclusively limited to the Apple website, the iPhone 11 Pro can be found on other networks. Judging by the reviews of familiar sellers, it is being bought, albeit not as actively as the new 12th series of iPhones.
I want to tell you what I liked about the phone and what I didn’t after several months of use. I upgraded to iPhone 11 Pro from iPhone XS. In general, I was completely satisfied with the XS, but after convincing reviews about the miracle battery and the incredible autonomy of the iPhone 11 Pro, I decided that this is it, a gadget-happiness. A comfortable phone that lasts an incredibly long time – what could be better?
Scratches, abrasions
Historically, I don’t like to use cases. You can choose beautiful, interesting ones, but at the same time they affect the size of the phone. There is also a wonderful carbon Pitaka, but the feeling from it is not to my liking either.
On the contrary, the wife uses an iPhone exclusively in a case, so we regularly update the “case” accessories park. I would like to recommend the branded transparent case. It is made of polycarbonate, durable and quite tough, of the minuses – over time, the material turns yellow. I tried a leather case, but the bright yellow accessory fell into disrepair in three weeks. The skin becomes greasy, blackens, the appearance deteriorates almost before our eyes.
Classics like silicone cases do not need advice: there are a lot of colors for every taste, so if you choose from Apple accessories, then I use both hands for silicone. Or a transparent case, but there you have to get used to the tight travel of the keys.
I like the iPhone 11 Pro case much better than the XS. No traces and prints remain on the matte surface, small scratches appeared on the steel frame, but in general everything is within the natural traces of use. The strangest thing is that the 11 Pro feels noticeably heavier in the hand than the XS, although on paper the difference is a few grams.
As much as I hate cases, I hate scratches on the phone screen. They do not affect the work in any way, nor do they affect the after-sale value of the phone, because I stockpile old devices and keep them for myself. But the scratched screen looks ugly, so you have to glue the protective glass. Collective farm? Yes, but no scratches. Here I look at my iPhone 12, where there is no glass, and XR, where it was not, and it hurts.
Like many other Apple phones, the iPhone 11 Pro is water and dust resistant. It is very convenient to film your daughter’s workouts in the pool, you are not afraid that something will happen to your phone. I do not strongly recommend swimming in the salt water, at my own risk and risk I went into the sea with the phone, but there were no dives.
Not so small screen
In my opinion, a diagonal of about 6 inches is more than enough for a comfortable life with a phone. But it all depends on how you hold it: on the 11 Pro you can easily type with one hand, but on the 12 Pro Max it is more convenient to do it with two hands. I don’t like this approach. For example, I type something on my phone every day, but not everyone edit articles or write long notes. And, on the contrary, they watch videos, hang out on Tik-Tok or Instagram – that’s really where the expanse for the big screen is.
I really like the display: my eyes don’t get tired of OLED, everything was perfectly visible on the street under the bright summer sun. The lack of 120 Hz doesn’t really bother me: this feature works on the iPad Pro, but I would not say that the experience of the device fundamentally changes. Although you can always get to the bottom of the phone in Internet disputes and say that others have, but here they do not.
Face ID
During the coronavirus scourge, when it is not customary to appear in stores and other public places without a mask on the face, the Face ID unlocking system has shown its vulnerability. With the iOS update, it became more convenient to pay, but at times I miss the good old button under the screen, this method was more convenient.
But I fell in love with Apple Watch even more, you can pay faster with a watch on your hand, you do not need to specify a confirmation PIN. But when you need to enter the application, you cannot do without it.
Performance
There are no questions about the speed of work – with each new generation, iPhones are becoming more powerful, which the company happily reports at presentations. Here are the periodic freezes in the menu, when you quickly start the camera, and in response there is a black screen. Or there are such cases when you go into the phone settings and nothing happens. You close the application, start it again – okay, it sags. But I’ll blame it on iOS 14 glitches, because the same problem is on the new iPhone 12.
About memory
Basic 64 GB is not enough for me, so I already bought the iPhone 11 Pro with 256 GB of memory. Videos consume the most memory – it’s a pity to delete, but they gradually accumulate. And I would gladly save everything in iCloud, but if you delete it from the phone, then they are also deleted in the cloud service. Alternatively, you can store only thumbnails in your phone, but this is not always convenient.
Therefore, I have to get out: I transfer from the phone via AirDrop to the poppy, I connect an external SSD to it and already transfer it to it. I see no reason to switch to a phone with 512 GB: memory will run out one day anyway, and it will be more difficult to clear the bulk of the rubble.
The first and last iPhone with normal charging included
For a very long time, Apple has been bundling iPhones with low-power 5W chargers. When she showed the 2019 Pro family in 11 and announced that the phones would get 18W power supplies in the box, I wanted to scream with joy. Finally, the corporation decided to add normal charging to the box with the phone, and even a USB Type-C cable to Lightning appeared in the set. Hurrah.
In 2020, Apple abruptly changed course and announced that from now on there will be no chargers in the kit, explaining this with concern for the environment. Buying a separate charger for a couple of thousand rubles is not a problem, but such an imposition does not look very nice. I understand that Apple, and after it other manufacturers, really want to make money on accessories, but it’s like selling sneakers without laces. Some, on the contrary, add several multi-colored sets to the shoe box, but here they have deprived of a useful component.
I wrote about suitable chargers many times, I will leave links to articles:
I recently got hold of the excellent Ugreen GaN charger: it is small, it produces up to 65W, while it has three USB Type-C ports and one USB Type-A port. Doesn’t beep while working, quickly charges – a great option for trips when you don’t want to lug several power supplies at once.
Battery-free
In terms of battery life, the iPhone 11 Pro did not disappoint me personally, but it didn’t really inspire me either. If on the iPhone XS I got about 4,5-5 hours of active screen, then here it is about 5-6 hours. It’s not that bad, but I didn’t feel anything record-breaking on myself.
Moreover, I tried all possible ways to increase the autonomy of the device. I was restoring from an old backup, then doing a full reset and setting up the phone from scratch. I deleted my iCloud account and set up a new one. Of course, at the same time, I turned off all sorts of services in the settings that require access to geolocation, and the always active Siri, which mercilessly consumes the battery. I also changed the SIM-cards of operators – in short, it was a long experiment with a boring result.
At times, a general reset helps, the phone works longer than usual for a week or two, and then everything returns to normal. Of course, no one will format the iPhone once a month, it is very lazy and dreary to re-configure everything.
Why I can’t get 8-10 hours of active screen on the iPhone 11 Pro, like the rest, I don’t know. And my wife’s iPhone 11 Pro has the same battery life, oddly enough. There may be some kind of curse. But it feels like everyone is happy with the phone’s battery, except me.
Triple camera unit
In terms of the quality of shooting after the iPhone XS, the differences are felt, but it all depends on the modes of use. The phone has become noticeably better to shoot in low light, the night mode is also worthy of a separate mention. In this case, the phone glues several frames into one, you just need to hold it firmly so that there are no blurry frames.
Night mode has become one of the features of the iPhone 11 Pro: iPhones could not do anything like this before, you had to use additional applications. However, the function turns on automatically, which is not always convenient. Moreover, if you enable the preservation of the preset camera modes in the phone settings and manually disable the night mode, it is still activated when you restart it. Likewise, I am pissed off by smart HDR, which often produces inadequate images, so I have to manually change the exposure.
I can’t say anything good about the ultra-wide-angle module, the shooting quality is at the level of inexpensive Chinese phones. This applies to both photos and videos. I used it occasionally, so even after I accidentally noticed a crack on the camera, there was no particular frustration. How I broke it, I don’t know, it is unlikely that the glass cracked by itself, perhaps the smartphone fell to the floor, this happened to him. As a result, if the sun shines directly into the camera, then glare appears. Therefore, it remains to either enjoy the new shooting mode, or choose a different angle.
The video recording quality is excellent, the picture is smooth, the focus is not dull, the sound is also good. But there are oddities: for example, when you shoot at maximum quality 4K and 60 fps, you cannot switch between cameras, instead the phone offers digital zoom with an inevitable loss of quality.
A telephoto lens is great for portraits, and the portrait mode with artificial bokeh still works awkwardly. Just as the phone did not know how to cut hair, glasses and other details on the face during the iPhone 7 Plus, so it does not know how to do it now. They say that the neural network learns over time and starts to work better, but I did not notice this on my phone. Therefore, I just take pictures without any blurring of the background.
The issue of money
I bought my iPhone 11 Pro with 256 GB from our friends at Big Geek, it cost about 90 rubles at that time.
After the announcement of the 12 Pro series in the fall of 2020, the 11 Pro line disappeared from the Apple online store, but the phones remained on sale, they can be found on other networks. At the beginning of 2021, the iPhone 11 Pro with 64 GB of memory costs 80 rubles, with 000 GB – about 256 rubles, with 90 GB – about 000 rubles. These are prices for official deliveries, “gray” phones are cheaper by an average of 512-105 thousand rubles, but they are not covered by a two-year warranty, like growth.
For comparison, the iPhone 12 Pro with 128 GB costs 100 rubles, and the iPhone 000 with 12 GB at the officials can be found for 64 rubles.
In the secondary market, prices for the iPhone 11 Pro start at 58 – 000 rubles. You can find cheaper options, but these are some kind of muddy offers from sellers with empty profiles.
iPhone 11 Pro or iPhone 12?
I talked about which phone is better to choose in a separate text. In my opinion, the basic iPhone 12 turned out to be very successful, and I really urge you to pay attention to it with all my might:
The final
The iPhone 11 Pro may not be perfect in every way, but I love it. Small, at the same time weighty, with an unmarked back and a convenient size. I was not ready to upgrade to the larger 11 Pro Max and got exactly what I expected from the 11 Pro. At the same time, the fresh 12 Pro did not impress me, the usual “two” I liked more, oddly enough.
Most likely, soon the 11 Pro will completely disappear from sale – judging by the sales statistics, it is not as popular as the new series, where the design has finally been updated. Some devices from Apple have been on sale for a long time and become iconic: take the iPhone 7 or XR, for example, but the iPhone 11 Pro has a short century, like the XS, but it does not get any worse from this. It was a good iPhone for the 2019-2020 season, which will quietly last a couple of years, if not chasing new products.
Thanks to the friendliest gadget store Big Geek for great prices on Apple appliances and more. Use the promo code WYLSACOM and get discounts.
