Apple iPhone 11 review roundup

[Dolby]

What do you mean by throttled?

By default, the Kirin980 runs 'slower' than it's full potential ... and this is actually fine for pretty much every scenario anyway. You can see it still opens Facebook or Netflix or Spotify quicker than the A12.

But if you're running a processor/speed comparison, it'd be good to at least mention this is at 'default' testing - or do both tests (default and performance), as it makes a difference. Antutu tested both ON (303,000) and OFF (272,000) - almost 12% difference.

 

[sand_man]

By default, the Kirin980 runs 'slower' than it's full potential ... and this is actually fine for pretty much every scenario anyway. You can see it still opens Facebook or Netflix or Spotify quicker than the A12.

But if you're running a processor/speed comparison, it'd be good to at least mention this is at 'default'- or do both tests (default and performance), as it makes a difference.

So it's not really throttled. It's running at its factory set default. So it's more accurate to say they could have done a comparison with it in its overclocked state?

Animations baked into iOS slow it down quite significantly. We've seen speed tests in the past where the animation bug was activated, removing animations and the results were significantly better.

But for the sake of consistency most of these comparisons are conducted with default settings across the board, as generally that's how the vast majority of people use their phones.

iPhone battery capacities are consistently lower than their flagship android equivalents but what about the mAh usage per minute? In one test I've seen a Xs Max gets around 360 minutes screen on time out of its 3174mAh battery. The P30 Max 440 minutes out of its 4200mAh battery. That would suggest the iPhone uses less power per minute but runs out much sooner owing to the lower capacity battery...?

EDIT: P30 camera is without peer. It may not be perfect but dxomark has to be the de facto when comparing camera quality.

 

[cerebus]

Interesting to note that the Kirin980 is throttled there as well ... not even running at full performance?
Is this the formal way of running iPhone performance tests?
I'm not sure if they do this on purpose, or if they just don't know the phone?

I don't know my iPhones ... Is that A12 going as fast as possibly it can ?
There's no mode to make it faster than this video? The final test as we see is a throttled Kirin980 vs A12?
And it the A12 still can't open Facebook, Starbucks, Word, Excel, Camera or Snapseed faster than a throttled chip?

Bizarre really.

Yeah yeah, and iOS 13 has 2x faster app loading times so I wonder how that test would look like now? Point is, a CPU shows its power under load, and most of the time we spend with a phone we’re not opening apps we’re using them to do work. I don’t even know if I’ve ever had to reboot my phone so maybe that’s just an Android use case.

Anyhow - this is your real world test ?
How an OS opens 50 apps in 2 minutes?
But you disregard when someone uses the phone?

Not opens - uses. Loads files and browses the web and plays games. Framerate and scrolling and graphical settings and video recording. Real stuff.

I'm not sure why yours is real, and mine isn't ?
We use the same IR dot system - and the M20P is actually quicker?

Face ID is better. It’s more secure. End of story.

 

[Dolby]

Yeah yeah, and iOS 13 has 2x faster app loading times

Twice as fast? Did they say that in the keynote ?
Did they say 50% more efficient and 4 x better too?
That's marketing aimed at you

Anyway - with 2 x app loading times, maybe then it can actually be faster than the Kirin? They have the 990 this year though ...

Real stuff

Uh huh - like your real world video or the Apple keynote or the benchmarks ... real stuff that real people do every day

No one actually cares about using the phone - it's all about the bench,marks and the numbers on the screen! Bragging rights right there!

Face ID is better. It’s more secure. End of story

I've just showed you it's not ?
It's slower and been hacked?
Or did you miss that?

C'mon you're usually so forthcoming with links and videos to back yourself up ... it'd be horrible if this time you can only say 'it's better because I said so!'

@cerebus We've been stuck on this processor and the fastest/slowest chip ... why can't we move to things like the battery capacity? The 40w charger ? The 16mm lens? Night photography? 3 x optical zoom ? In screen fingerprint sensor? There are a myriad of things that the iPhone slacks in ... you can choose anyone for our next discussion ?

I'm happy to follow you lead.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Right video - but open it in YouTube and read the user comments.

Many of those guys have come from iPhones and disagree'd with his comments on the Huawei. I'm also pretty sure that DXOMark listed that as #1 camera .... and EISA gave it Smartphone of the Year for 2019.

I've just come back from Europe and my family have iPhones (7 / 8 / XS Max) - none of them could take the photos of old churches because of lack of the wide lens. Inside the churches with low light, again - they battled trying to take. And at the end of the day, their batteries all died and I was designated photographer and Google Map person.

iPhone 11 is probably going to be better - but tryng to compare an iPhone XS to a P30P on either cameras or battery, is a little silly (I think)

You still fail to understand the concept that inside iPhone land nobody cares about anything else made by anyone else.

The only comparison is the rest of the iPhone line up, because nobody has any intention to move away from it.

The question isn’t what new phone should I get. The question is should I get the new iPhone or not.

There’s also a small chance your family might just be a little retarded and don’t know how to use their phones to their full potential like you do.

As for the wide lens comments; well that’s obviously resolved by the new range as they now have the hardware to make such a comparison.

 

[Dolby]

So it's not really throttled. It's running at its factory set default. So it's more accurate to say they could have done a comparison with it in its overclocked state?

Animations baked into iOS slow it down quite significantly. We've seen speed tests in the past where the animation bug was activated, removing animations and the results were significantly better.

But for the sake of consistency most of these comparisons are conducted with default settings across the board, as generally that's how the vast majority of people use their phones.

iPhone battery capacities are consistently lower than their flagship android equivalents but what about the mAh usage per minute? In one test I've seen a Xs Max gets around 360 minutes screen on time out of its 3174mAh battery. The P30 Max 440 minutes out of its 4200mAh battery. That would suggest the iPhone uses less power per minute but runs out much sooner owing to the lower capacity battery...?

EDIT: P30 camera is without peer. It may not be perfect but dxomark has to be the de facto when comparing camera quality.

Good point - either way though, there's a 12% difference in performance that a proper journalist should mention.

Regarding the animations, maybe that's what slows it down - I've heard so many different stories as to why it doesn't really perform . One guy told me it was purposely limited by Apple - but the animations seems more legit, I think.

And lastly, an end user doesn't really care about the mAh per minute or hour. They care how it lasts in the real world with actual use - where it generally comes last. Perhaps it's something Apple should address (and hopefully have in this new version). Maybe they can increase the wired charge speed too (I think they're half of most other phones) and the wireless (I think 15w wireless and the new M30P is 27w). That's faster than the latest iPhone wired, I think ?

 

[Dolby]

You still fail to understand the concept that inside iPhone land nobody cares about anything else made by anyone else

I fully understand - my entry into this debate was just saying that I don't think A12 smashes everything as claimed.

There’s also a small chance your family might just be a little retarded and don’t know how to use their phones to their full potential like you do

That's a bit harsh - the iPhone has a single lens and a shutter button?
I think the top of range has 2 lens, with not many settings?
And an average battery ?

I don't think that any human intervention is going to change that the hardware that's a bit limiting on previous models ...

As for the wide lens comments; well that’s obviously resolved by the new range as they now have the hardware to make such a comparison

... I said I'm glad it caught up with the wide angle and night photography!

 

[sand_man]

Yeah, their battery charging speeds wired/wireless are weak. I think most users are happy to get through the day on a single charge. 5 hours + screen on time? I think the XS/XS max achieves that...

mAh per minute is interesting to note though. The iPhone's are consumption efficient, more so than their competitors. A proper journalist would do well to make the analogy, that to compare a P30 Max's battery performance to that of a XS Max is like comparing a vehicle with a 15 litre gas tank to one with a 10 litre gas tank, apples and oranges...

 

[Dolby]

.

I agree ... I just think as a premium handset manufacturer, they should at least match their efficient A-series chips to a decent battery capacity to achieve the same number of hours as competitors. It seems with every iteration of the chip, they're keeping the same size battery, to their downfall.

Every test puts the iPhones at the back ... and like I said earlier, people care about the user experience.

 

[sand_man]

I agree ... I just think as a premium handset manufacturer, they should at least match their efficient A-series chips to a decent battery capacity to achieve the same number of hours as competitors. It seems with every iteration of the chip, they're keeping the same size battery, to their downfall.

Every test puts the iPhones at the back ... and like I said earlier, people care about the user experience.

I wonder though? I still think most pragmatic users are happy if their charge lasts till the end of the day. If you consistently left with 20-25% at the end of the day, you covered.

I’m sure a huge percentage of users charge overnight anyway. So maybe that’s the sweet spot, 20%?

I don’t think too many users are phased by YouTube shoutouts, where the iPhone comes last. If their phones were dead by lunch, different story...

 

[SauRoNZA]

I wonder though? I still think most pragmatic users are happy if their charge lasts till the end of the day. If you consistently left with 20-25% at the end of the day, you covered.

I’m sure a huge percentage of users charge overnight anyway. So maybe that’s the sweet spot, 20%?

I don’t think too many users are phased by YouTube shoutouts, where the iPhone comes last. If their phones were dead by lunch, different story...

Exactly this.

The concept of needing a phone battery that covers multiple days is just a little bit silly as there is never an instance where most people don’t have a charger available at the end of a day.

My XR has 50% battery by the time I go to bed on most days which is from 7am to 1am-ish usually that it was off charge with no charging in the middle.

I’ve never managed to run it dead in a single day of heavy use. Worst I’ve ever seen was hitting 5% by charge time.

On weekends where I use CarPlay it scores even more time there with the little trickle charges in between.

 

[SauRoNZA]

.



That's a bit harsh - the iPhone has a single lens and a shutter button?
I think the top of range has 2 lens, with not many settings?
And an average battery ?

I don't think that any human intervention is going to change that the hardware that's a bit limiting on previous models ...

Sorry it was meant to read as a bit of a joke not to be harsh.

My own family can be quite retarded with their phones when it comes to running them at full brightness for a lack of knowing better and leaving vibration and lock screen notifications on for EVERYTHING etc.

If your default answer to every question your phone asks is always Yes or Allow then it’s going to run pretty badly and inefficiently.

 

[sand_man]

 

[Dolby]

But that's a real world test ?
Real world is hardly relevant ?
No one cares how fast or slow an iPhone can do anything - it's really benchmark figures and what Tim Cook tells them, which is important here.

 

[cerebus]

I wonder though? I still think most pragmatic users are happy if their charge lasts till the end of the day. If you consistently left with 20-25% at the end of the day, you covered.

I’m sure a huge percentage of users charge overnight anyway. So maybe that’s the sweet spot, 20%?

I don’t think too many users are phased by YouTube shoutouts, where the iPhone comes last. If their phones were dead by lunch, different story...

I don't really agree, battery life is important to most users. Otherwise they wouldn't make it a focus during every keynote, and they wouldn't have sacrificed features like 3d touch on the 11 Pro to make room for a bigger battery. It's just that they've always tried to get the iPhones thinner and cram in more tech every year, and it means you just can't fit a huge battery inside the chassis. The XS battery is pretty good, I don't have complaints, but I'd consider the battery upgrade of the 11 Pro to be quite significant.

 

[Dolby]

I don't really agree, battery life is important to most users.

Well this is awkward - Cerebus and myself are agreeing ...

 

[Spizz]

My daughter picked up an iPhone 11 yesterday after 2 years on a Galaxy S8. iPhone 6s before that. Says she’s so happy to be back on iOS after her boyfriend coaxed her into the Android switch.

And I guess that’s the crux of the matter. People prefer one or the other OS and don’t really give 2 schits about an app opening 0.0001 second faster on one phone or the other.

 

[R13...]

My daughter picked up an iPhone 11 yesterday after 2 years on a Galaxy S8. iPhone 6s before that. Says she’s so happy to be back on iOS after her boyfriend coaxed her into the Android switch.

And I guess that’s the crux of the matter. People prefer one or the other OS and don’t really give 2 schits about an app opening 0.0001 second faster on one phone or the other.

Yeah as long as it's not noticeably laggy/slow or unusable the average don't care. It's the same with the customisation argument most people don't even update their OS.

The one thing I've noticed that is that a lot of ordinary people do think the p30's camera is awesome.

 

[Spizz]

Yeah as long as it's not noticeably laggy/slow or unusable the average don't care. It's the same with the customisation argument most people don't even update their OS.

The one thing I've noticed that is that a lot of ordinary people do think the p30's camera is awesome.

I’ve said before, I was a huge Android fan a couple of years ago and went through probably a dozen different phones. But I got so fed up waiting for updates and messing around with kernals etc just to stop your battery draining, that I changed to an iPhone and haven’t looked back.

User experience and satisfaction is all that counts here. Stats used to mean everything when I was messing around with an Android, but seriously, they mean nothing to me now. That’s another reason I jumped. Android is just a spec race with each other and especially with iPhone.

Yet iPhone users really don’t care about how much RAM they have, the size of the battery or how many dpi in the screen compared to last year. Because they work and look great regardless of those specs, and you get the same smooth user experience from the old iPhone 6s sitting in your drawer as you do with the latest and greatest.

 

[Dolby]

The one thing I've noticed that is that a lot of ordinary people do think the p30's camera is awesome.

What do you mean exactly ?