Apple iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max review

Portraits

The Portrait mode uses the telephoto camera for the shots, but now you can switch to the main one and do portraits with it instead. When you are in portrait mode, you can choose between various Lighting effects and the blur strength (default is f/4.0 for shots from the tele and f/2.4 for shots from the main camera).

The new Neural Engine within the Apple A13 chip works for even better subject separation and Lighting effects. Now you can adjust the simulated light strength, and this will change the person's skin tone and smoothness the same way it would happen in a real studio. This is quite a niche option, but we have to say it works as advertised and will eventually find its fans.

So, we snapped a few portraits and they are indeed very good. The separation is great, the blur is convincing, and we think everyone will be happy with those. Just so you know, if the light isn't ideal, the detail levels drop drastically.

Apple iPhone 11 Pro/Max 12MP portraits

As we said, you can use the main camera for portraits, too, but the separation isn't as good. We can only guess that the main camera is used as a depth sensor when shooting regular portraits, and it helps for a more detailed depth map. And when shooting with the primary, you effectively cut out the depth eye and thus lower the quality of the final depth map that relies only on the NPU (as it was the case on the iPhone XR).

Apple iPhone 11 Pro/Max 12MP portraits taken with the main camera

The Portrait Lighting samples are pretty amazing, and the new High-Key Light Mono is quite stunning (with the white background).

Apple iPhone 11 Pro/Max 12MP portraits with Portrait Lighting effects

Selfies

The iPhone 11 generation finally brings an update to the selfie camera. It's now a 12MP snapper, still coupled with a TOF snapper. There are new wider 23mm f/2.2 lens, but Apple kept the option to shoot with the same FoV of the old 32mm selfie camera if you've grown to like it.

When in portrait orientation the new iPhones shoot in 7MP and this crop corresponds to the old 32mm lens. The landscape orientation crops nothing, and you get a 12MP image. There is a virtual switch to enable or disable the crop mode at your pleasure, of course.

The selfies use Smart HDR and their quality is top-notch. There is more than enough detail, they are sharp but not over-sharpened, with great dynamic range, and good but still a bit washed out colors.

Apple iPhone 11 Pro/Max 12MP selfies

And here are a couple of 7MP cropped selfies, if you wonder what those would look like.

Apple iPhone 11 Pro/Max 7MP selfies

Portrait mode is available on the front camera helped by the TOF snapper, and the subject separation is on par with the primary Portrait mode on the rear camera. The portraits are shot in 7MP, meaning the snapper crops and the FoV is narrower.

Apple iPhone 11 Pro/Max 7MP portrait selfies

Various portrait lighting effects are available, as well as adjustable blur.

Apple iPhone 11 Pro/Max 7MP portrait selfies with lighting effects

The Apple iPhone 11 Pro/Max selfie snapper supports all available video resolutions and framerates the main camera offers, and expanded dynamic range is available on all of those except 4K at 60fps. Cinematic video stabilization is available, too, and it works marvelously.

You can clearly see the better dynamic range on the 30fps sample, and while the resolved detail isn't impressive, it's still more than enough for a selfie cam.

The front camera can also do 1080p at 120fps slow-mo videos, which Apple called 'slofies'. Here is a sample.

Video recording

Apple iPhone 11 Pro and Max can capture all kind of videos in all kinds of resolutions and framerates with all three cameras and it can even do it simultaneously if you have the right app. If Crop Out of the Frame is enabled for videos, the phone will use the ultrawide camera to capture more footage and if you don't edit your videos, the extra footage will be automatically deleted after 30 days.

All videos are optically (except on ultrawide) and digitally stabilized thanks to the cinematic video stabilization. All modes, now including the 4K@60fps as well, feature expanded dynamic range thanks to the new Smart HDR. The slow-mo options max out at 1080p at 240fps, just like on the iPhone X and XS.

You can choose between High Efficiency and Most Compatible formats, as usual. The High Efficiency mode stands for H.265 HEVC, while the Most Compatible is H.264.

The iPhone 11 Pro duo captures wide stereo recording for the videos. This means spatial sound, just like some HTCs and some old Nokia phones did, and you should enjoy richer and deeper sound if compared to just regular stereo.

One other thing that the new iPhones can show off with is the smooth switching between the three cameras while zooming during video capturing. Thanks to the factory calibration and the same white balance and exposure settings that are passed across all snappers, you can use the new zoom wheel and zoom in and out without stutters while switching between the ultrawide, wide, and tele shooters.

Here is a sample where we played with the zoom wheel. It was shot at 4K at 30fps. It's not perfect, but very good it is.

The 4K videos captured both at 60, and 30 fps with the main and telephoto camera are virtually identical in quality. The picture is very good - plenty of detail and low noise, the foliage presentation is a bit average but not bad, the sharpness is spot on, and the colors are true to life and not washed out as on the still images. There are no focus issues or compression artifacts. And the dynamic range is nothing short of impressive thanks to the expanded dynamic range.

The 1080p videos, 30 or 60 fps, from the main or telephoto camera, are brilliant. Plenty of detail, great foliage, jaw-dropping dynamic range. Those are among the best 1080p videos a smartphone can do.

And here are the videos from the zoom camera.

The 4K footage from the ultrawide snapper is lacking in detail in both 30 and 60 fps options. Not only that, but the corners are very soft though not warped. Those would do when played on a 1080p TV or monitor, but in native 4K they are quite poor.

Then the 1080p footage from this snapper, taken in both 30 and 60 fps, looks better. The picture is sharp, while the corners are soft as before.

The colors and contrast, as well as the dynamic range are excellent on this camera, too.

If anyone can stabilize videos, it is Apple. It has been known for the great cinematic (EIS) stabilization and it simply excels on the iPhone 11 Pro. Whether the camera has optical stabilization (main and zoom) or not (ultrawide) - the picture is perfectly stable. Nice!

Finally, you can use our Video Compare Tool to see how the new iPhones stack up against the competition.

4K: Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max against the Apple iPhone XS Max and the Samsung Galaxy Note10+ in our Video compare tool