Wireless Capabilities and Battery
The iPhone 11 has the least-inspiring wireless capabilities of all of the new iPhones, but it's still a huge jump up from an iPhone 6 or even an iPhone 7, depending on what carrier you're using. As I found in my in-depth testing of the iPhone's LTE capabilities, the iPhone 11 is stuck with 2x2 MIMO LTE, which has half the maximum speeds of the iPhone XS, the 11 Pro, or most recent Android phones. But if you're coming from a much older iPhone on AT&T or T-Mobile, the presence of LTE bands 14 and 71 will greatly improve range and building penetration.
Wi-Fi is also fine. The iPhone 11 doesn't have the Wi-Fi 6 capabilities found in the 11 Pro or the Galaxy Note 10+, but those didn't seem to make a difference in our Wi-Fi tests. The phone also has Bluetooth 5 with Apple's quick-pairing W1 chip, and the mysterious U1 ultra-wideband chip, which is supposed to do something involving indoor positioning and location, but in my tests didn't do much of anything at all.
One advantage the iPhone 11 has over all non-iPhones in the US, though, is its support for dual SIM with eSIM. iPhones are still the only phones sold by US carriers that you can put two lines on; the first line can be from any carrier, while the secondary line can come from AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, or a list of roaming and international carriers. This capability, which is popular abroad but up until last year was practically banned in the US, is great for folks trying to keep personal and business lines on their phones.
In terms of calls, all of the new iPhones have the latest voice technologies, including Wi-Fi calling and the superior EVS codec (brought in with the iPhone 8, in case you're upgrading from something earlier). The speakerphone and earpiece are just fine, and I didn't find any difference between the new iPhones when it comes to making calls.
I'm still in the process of testing battery life. On one video rundown test I got 5 hours, 40 minutes, which is about in line with the XR, and far short of the 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max. One thing that's clear, though, is that the included five-watt charger isn't up to the task of filling the iPhone 11's juice box. It took 3 hours, 40 minutes to reach 100 percent with the included charger, as opposed to a mere 1 hour, 50 minutes for the iPhone 11 Pro with its 18W charger. You can get the 18W charger for the iPhone 11 as a $29.99 accessory, and you should. The phone also supports wireless charging.