The iPhone 11 Pro Max is Apple’s largest and most powerful phone ever, combining the best of Apple’s technology with an upgraded design, including a new matte back, three cameras designed to rival the best from Samsung, Google, and Huawei, and an enhanced battery that increases durability.
iphone 11 pro max: Display
The OLED panel, once again improved by Apple, now has a 6.5-inch screen area and uses True Tone technology to better match ambient light (white balance changes based on the lighting conditions used).
The new OLED screen appears to have a yellow tint when viewing white scenes or photos. This tint is likely a device calibration issue, as it is not present when viewing images on a computer screen, for example.
This tint is also noticeable when the 11 Pro Max is placed next to the 2018 iPhone XS Max, but it is slight and does not look bad when viewed in isolation from the image.
One of the key upgrades here is the ability to play Dolby Vision content, from HDR10 (the usual version of high dynamic range play back that most phones use to punch up the dark and bright parts of a scene and make everything more visually appealing). This may not sound like much of a step up, but it does make a difference.
Watching a movie is more immersive, details are more visible, and overall the video playback is more cinematic. This is because the iPhone can usually only display 800nits of brightness (a measure of how bright the screen is), which is still quite good, but playing a Dolby Vision movie is even more impressive (up to 1200nits, according to Apple).
Apple has created a virtual surround sound setup that makes the sound seem to move around you rears, although not as much as if you were listening to the same thing with decent head phones.
Again, this is nothing new for the smart phone industry, but it shows that Apple is still striving to provide the best possible media experience, even years after the release of the iPod.
iphone 11 pro max: Design
Apple may not have changed the design of the front of the iPhone 11 Pro Max (compared to the previous XS Max model), but the back is much improved. It has a new matte glass back and feels notice ably different in the hand.
The rest of the design is very similar to recent Apple models. The notch is intact, the sides are curved stainless steel, and the bottom of the phone has a Lightning connector and two speaker grilles (only one actually emits sound out ward due to symmetry).
Those who have used Apple’s Plus and Max in recent years will find the 11 Pro Max easy to handle on a daily basis.
The main new design element is the camera bump on the back, as already discussed. The edges are sharp, and this is created by cutting glass and wrapping it around the back of the phone. Note: Do not put this bump in your pocket with other devices, as it can easily scratch other screens.
After all, the iPhone 11 Pro Max design is almost identical to the iPhone XS Max. I even factory reset the wrong phone during testing (much to my annoyance).
The colors of the iPhone 11 Pro Max are attractive: midnight green, space gray, silver, and gold. Dark green is, in our opinion, the most attractive and the most obvious color to proclaim, “Hey, folks in town, I just bought a new iPHONE!” and it’s the most obvious color to proclaim.
iOS 13, iOS 14, iOS 15 and performance
When shipped, the iPhone Pro 11 Max runs iOS 13, but will be updated to iOS 15.
iOS 15 offers new Face Time features that focus on connecting with people more easily while improving audio and visual quality. 3D audio gives the impression that the recipient is in the same room with you. Voice Isolation focuses only on your voice, blocking out other ambient noise. There is also Wide Spectrum, which focuses on you and your surroundings.
There is also Share Play, which allows you to share music, watch TV shows and movies, and share your screen.
Messages have also been greatly improved, and notification scan now be easily hidden by Focus, which recommends which apps you want to hide at certain times of the day. This is essentially an enhancement to Do Not Disturb.
Face ID has also improved. Not its accuracy, but the field of view that the camera can capture. iPhone 11 Pro Max’s front-facing camera is not better at detecting faces than last year’s model, but it is easier to unlock when sitting at your desk, and messages are not as easy as they were on 2018’s iPhone XS Max. I didn’t have to pick up the phone to read them.
If you’re someone who switches between Wi-Fi networks or Bluetooth connections frequently, you can select your favorite network by long-pressing the relevant toggle in the Control Center (an option that appears when you drag the iPhone 11 Pro Max from the top right corner of the screen down).
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Previous high-end iPhones used 3D Touch, which allowed users to press hard on the screen to open other menus or activate the camera, but the new iPhone11 does not use this technology.
Instead, it has an upgraded tactile engine, a rumbling sound under the finger that feels even more like a mechanical button at startup, and a long-press system that activates other menus when you hold your finger down on an option.
This feels intuitive as soon as you start using the iPhone 11 Pro Max, but confusing when trying to rear range the icons on the homepage.
In terms of raw performance, the iPhone 11 Pro Max is the most powerful iPhone on the market and one of the most powerful smart phones.
Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
A quick look at Geek bench 5 shows a score of 3420, indicating that the 11 Pro Max is about10% more powerful than the iPhone 11 and 20% more powerful than last year’s iPhone XS Max.
We believe the Pro device has the most RAM of any iPhone, so it makes sense that the overall benchmark score is higher.
But these are just numbers. What about the actual performance of the iPhone 11 Pro Max in everyday use? You’ll rarely experiences low downs when opening and closing apps; the11 Pro Max is smooth at your fingertips, to say the least.
Apps take a second to load (and, as noted, sometimes freeze), and when shooting, the ultra-wide camera preview, which shows a zoomed-out shot outside the standard frame, does not appear instantly when the shutter button is pressed.
It takes a second or two to load the photo to be edited, and a second or two to save the image processing. I admit that there is a large amount of processing going on here, but I would expect it to be a bit mores nappy than having to watch a spinning progress wheel appear from time to time.
Also, the image sometimes freezes when trying to scroll through a downloaded film to get to a particular scene, which was frustrating when I was trying to find a bright scene to test the display’s quality.
In general, however, the iPhone 11 Pro Max’s power extends to its media capabilities; even with streaming services like Spotify, the sound quality is impressive. Sound through decent head phones felt rich and powerful, with more audio detail than one would expect from some smart phones.
iphone 11 pro max: Camera
On the image processing side, the new Deep Fusion technology uses the chipset’s neural engine and advanced machine learning to perform per-pixel optimization for better texture, lower noise, and wider dynamic range. Read the full review to learn more about how the new components work. (Learn more about the iPhone 11 Pro Max’s new image processing features, including are designed camera interface, seam less zoom in video, live bokeh, HDR preview, and more.)
Key camera specifications:
- Triple Camera
- Primary: 12Mp 1/2.55″ sensor, 26mm equivalent f/1.8 a perture lens, PDAF, OIS
- Ultra wide: 12Mp 12Mp sensor, 13mm equivalent F2.4 aperture lens
- Tele: 12Mp 1/3.4″ sensor, 52mm equivalent F2.0 aperture lens, PDAF, OIS
- Quad LED dual-tone flash
- 4K video, 2160p/60fps (default 1080p/30fps)
About DXOMARK Camera Testing For the scoring and analysis of DXOMARK smart phone camera reviews, DXOMARK engineers evaluate over 1,600 test images and over two hours of video, both in a controlled lab environment and in natural indoor and outdoor scenes using default camera settings.
What we have here is a regular wide-angle lens, a telephoto lens, and a new super wide-angle lens. The telephoto lens allows you to get up to twice as close to your subject, while the ultra-wide angle lens allows you to cram twice as much of the scene in front of you into the frame.
With the iPhone 11 Pro Max, you can crop and stretch without moving.
All three cameras have12MP sensors, which is very standard in most smart phones these days, balancing pixel size (to capture more light) and resolution (to capture more detail).
Video recording has also been improved, with the Pro Max now capable of shooting 4K at 60fps. This means more information is captured, resulting in smoother video, but it is worth remembering that the iPhone’s storage fill sup more quickly.
Much can be said about the iPhone camera, or any modern smart phone camera for that matter, because it is packed with so many features.
In other words, any brand that wants to make a market-leading camera phone needs to fill it with features, and that is what Apple is trying to do here.
Battery Life
Apple made a big claim about the improved battery life of the iPhone 11 Pro Max, which can last 5 hours longer than the iPhone XS Max.
The reason for this is curious: it is a significant improve men tin terms of the size of the power supply un it without affecting the thickness of the device. Could it be that Apple intended to introduce the rumored reverse wireless charging feature for the iPhone 11 launch, but could not get it to work to the degree needed?
Whether or not that conspiracy theory is true, the battery life of the iPhone 11 Pro Max is indeed long, and the results from the third day of testing are as follows.
I turned off the iPhone’s charge at 7p.m., watched a Dolby Vision-enabled movie with auto-brightness for nearly two hours, and then used the phone to navigate me home for about 50 minutes (while simultaneously streaming music via Bluetooth).
Overnight, things were quiet, and the battery only lost 5-6% over 7hours in standby mode.
Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max
After a day of hard testing, playing games, watching streaming videos, testing the camera, and running benchmarks (the latter option was particularly taxing on battery life), the iPhone 11 eventually ran out of charge before 6pm (battery save mode was not turned on).
This is a pretty impressive performance, and not an expected outcome based on the performance of last year’s iPhone XS Max. In other words, Apple’s claim of a more powerful battery certainly seems to be true.
Wireless charging (if you have a wireless charger for home and office use, we highly recommend investing in one.
We tested the iPhone 11 Pro’s charging ability from completely flat and it was indeed rapid. After only 15 minutes it was at almost 25%, more than enough to get somewhere in a pinch. It took only 90 minutes for a full charge, and the included high-speed charger definitely makes the high cost of the 11 Pro Max a little more bearable.
iPhone 11 Pro Max: verdict
The iPhone 11 Pro Max is the closest Apple has come to the perfect smart phone. The camera is truly a quantum leap forward and is a head of Samsung and Google-at least for now. And the bright OLED display is a cut above most other models. iPhone 11 Pro Max also boasts the fastest cellular processor with theA13 chip and the longest battery life of any iPhone we’ve seen.
While some may want to wait for Apple toreleasethe5G-enablediPhone 12 this fall, there is little reason to skip the iPhone 11 Pro Max if you want the best flagship phone right now. My only major complaints are that the included storage is 64GB (it should be at least twice as much) and that this phone is a bit heavier than the previous model.
There are a lot of great options when it comes to the cell phone landscape, but right now the iPhone 11 Pro Max is the pinnacle of cell phones.