The iPhone 11 is basically more iPhone XR for less. In case you missed it, or got somehow bamboozled by the repeatedly confused biz pub coverage, the iPhone XR was the most popular iPhone of the last year and, reportedly, the most popular single smartphone phone sold, period. So, taking a bestseller and making it even better also happens to make exactly the kind of sense that does.
The iPhone 11 is the same height, width, depth, and even weight as the iPhone XR. And I straight up love this size. I was a die-hard iPhone Plus-er from the 6 to the 8, but then I found the X's edge-to-edge display was big enough for me that when the Max rolled around, I stayed with the min. But, then, I got my hands on the XR and it was Goldilocks just right in the middle.
I also love that it has Display Zoom, which basically takes the next smaller interface size, in this case the one from the 5.8-inch iPhone Pro, and scales it up to fit its own 6.1-inch screen. That makes everything, every image, every word, just that much bigger, easier to see, and easier to read.
I don't need it quite yet but I have a lot of friends who do, and while it's available on the Max as well, it's not on the regular Pro because there's no even smaller interface than that to scale up. At least not yet.
The iPhone 11 has the same 6.1-inch 1792-by-828-pixel resolution LCD display as the iPhone XR and the same 326 ppi density as the original Retina display, the iPhone 4. Last year, some people gave Apple grief over those numbers, forgetting that unless you're strapping your phone to your face for VR, pixel quantity just isn't as important as pixel quality.
And Apple's quality is still some of the best in the business. Combine the higher RGB sub-pixel count to similarly-sized PenTile OLED displays, add everything from individually color calibrated and managed, wide gamut, True Tone ambient temperature matching, and what Apple calls Liquid Retina still looks terrific.
I do miss the inky blacks, high dynamic range, and peak brightness of the OLED iPhone 11 Pro, but I'm a display nerd. Anyone who thinks pulse width modulation on OLED phones gives them eye strain will really appreciate that LCD is still an option. At least for now.
Butโฆ I do think a bump here to honest-to-Plus-sized iPhone 1080p would have been better. It would have added that final bit of crispness for closer-than-Retina viewing. Especially if it could have also expanded the display just enough to delete what little's left of the bezel, which is still thicker on the LCD iPhones than the OLED Pros, which makes it look even more dated compared to the more recent, more expansive devices from the likes of Samsung.
I'd love to see the display just blasted all the way out into the antenna bands. That would be pure, screen-to-bezel ratio fire.
I also preferred last year's colors to this year's. Apple has tweaked the black and white, but not so much as I can really notice the difference. The new PRODUCT RED seems, I don't know, a little rosier if anything. It's fine. The yellow is paler, and while I don't like the shade as much, I like that the bands match way better than they did last year.
The purple and the greenโฆ I'm just not a fan. Again, personal opinion, but I've waited a long, long time for a purple iPhone and what I got was more like lavender creme than grape explosion. Likewise the green, which is more mild mint than zesty lime. They're justโฆ Miami Vice, but, you know, not even the Archer version.
If pastels are the trend and one of these will once again be Pantone color of the year, like coral was last, so be it. I'll be out back yelling at the swatch clouds. But, to me, they just lack a little punch, a little spice. Things Samsung and Huawei have been doing really, really well lately.
And, at the bottom, is the good old, increasingly old at this point, Lightning port. I'll talk about USB-C in the iPhone 11 Pro review but, for the very much mainstream iPhone 11, I think the very much mainstream Lightning port is still fine. Maybe not ideal, as more and more USB-C becomes available. But fine, same as it is on the mainstream iPads.