Apple iPhone 11 review: forget the Pro, this is the iPhone you need
Picking an iPhone now feels a lot like picking a laptop. It used to be that the iPhone you’d be interested in would be “the new one”. Apple put paid to that whole idea years ago but now it feels like a legitimate exercise to line up all your options and compare the numbers. Or at least the features that matter to you. Because not only are there three new ones, including this iPhone 11, there’s also last year’s bestselling iPhone XR still on sale and cheaper than ever. So that’s four already.
Dual cameras come to the ‘cheap iPhone’
For at least three years, it’s been conventional wisdom that Android has raced ahead when it comes to phone cameras. That doesn’t take into account the fact that the iPhone has always produced very sharp, bright, balanced images in good light and has always been very capable for video. But it’s fair to say Huawei, Google and the rest have offered more technically superior, not to mention versatile, camera hardware and software to Apple recently. Now with the iPhone 11 series Apple has caught up... and then some.
Next to the £629 iPhone XR, which as we said should be on your shortlist, the iPhone 11 offers two big improvements that will cut through. It’s a dual camera setup, with a second 120 degree, 13mm equivalent ultra-wide lens and there’s a new auto night mode that works a treat. The thing that’s missing here is the third telephoto lens of the 11 Pro but there is decent 5x digital zoom.
The ultra-wide is fun if you like to experiment, it’s not too distorted and Apple makes the most out of it. Just tap the icon in the camera app to toggle between 1x (regular wide) and 0.5x (ultra wide) when shooting still photos or video.
There’s also the handy option to always capture shots with the ultra wide too, as a sort of backup if the main lens doesn’t get everything in the frame; the idea is they’re stored for 30 days in case you want to switch. Elsewhere, there's a few minor photo extras, such as the very stylised High Key Low Mono effect in Portrait mode and the slow motion selfies.