iPhone 11 Pro Max review
What is it?
The most expensive and capable iPhone.
Design & Construction
- The most obvious design change over the XS Max here is that new camera island. It’s big and has asymmetrically placed 3 lenses. The Apple logo is now at the centre of the phone and the back glass sports a new matt finish as well.
- On the front, the same rectangular notch is carried over from the older iPhone X/XS.
- Polarising design elements aside, the iPhone 11 Pro Max is superbly constructed. Its glass sandwich design, with a stainless steel frame, feels properly premium in hand.
Display
- The Pro Max has a 6.5-inch OLED screen with Apple’s XDR tech. The display is claimed to amp its brightness up to 1200 nits under certain situations!
- While we could not test the 1200 nits situation, we can assure that this display does indeed get really bright. Then, excellent colour calibration and great viewing angles ensure that using the Pro Max is a pleasant affair.
User Interface & Performance
- The iPhone 11 Pro Max is powered by Apple’s A13 Bionic chipset with 4GB of RAM. But iPhones are never about specs, and the Pro Max shines in the performance department because the A13 has got some real muscle to flex.
- Apps and heavy games run absolutely find on this phone. We tested out Call Of Duty on this phone and it had no problem playing it on maximum graphic settings. However, the phone does start getting warm under extended gameplay.
- On the software front, there is iOS 13, which brings some welcome additions to Apple’s mobile UI. the new system-wide dark mode is very much appreciated, and so is the positioning of the volume-level notifier (it finally comes on the side now).
- The initial versions of iOS 13 do come with a few bugs like app crashes and overly aggressive RAM management, but these should be fixed in future versions.
Cameras
- The Pro Max has a total of four 12MP cameras – three at the rear and one up front. The much-in-demand ultra-wide-angle camera has thankfully been added inside that odd-looking spherical camera island.
- The main camera takes excellent photos with loads of detail. The dynamic range here is extremely wide and the colours, as expected from an iPhone, are true to life. However, since there is no software processing, the pics can look a bit dull in certain situations.
- The other two cameras are very capable as well. Barrel distortion in ultra-wide photos is minimal. The colour profile among the three rear cameras is quite even and that’s an achievement.
- The new night mode on the iPhone is quite interesting. It can extract details out of some pretty dark scenarios. Therefore, nighttime photographs do come out to be very nice, but in certain situations, they can be quite noisy.
- iPhone’s night mode cannot be manually triggered, and it doesn’t work with the ultra-wide camera either.
- Videos are this phone’s strong point and they come out to be full of detail as well. Again, the colour profile is reasonably even between the three cameras here Stabilisation is the best we’ve ever seen on any smartphone, and the great thing is that it also works with the ultra-wide camera.
- Weirdly enough, the videos taken from the telephoto camera did come out to be quite shaky, despite this camera having OIS.
- The front camera consists of a new 12MP sensor which takes very striking selfies. All the usual range of portrait effects are still available here, but there’s a new wide-angle mode for group selfies here.
Camera samples from the Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max can be seen below:
Battery Life
- The battery life of the iPhone 11 Pro Max is spectacular. You can easily get 7 hours+ of screen-on-time with medium-to-heavy usage.
- This time around, Apple has also been kind enough to bundle a fast charger with this phone. It is rated at 18W and comes with a USB-C to lightning cable, so, its neither the fastest nor the most practical solution.
What Else?
- The Face ID has yet again been improved, and during our testing, it was super quick. That being said, a fingerprint scanner is still a more practical option.
- Apple’s decision to keep the Pro Max’s base storage at 64GB is utterly disappointing! If you use the phone’s cameras to their full potential, you’ll fill this space up in no time.
Verdict
- So, finally, while the iPhone 11 Pro Max is a very accomplished phone, the biggest thing that stops us from recommending it is the base iPhone 11, which costs around 40 per cent less than the former but still retains the powerful A13 Bionic SoC and those great wide and ultra-wide cameras.
- Therefore, Apple’s pricing strategy ensures that the Pro Max (and even the smaller Pro) is made for Apple loyalists who don’t care about the value for money quotient at all. It’s a fantastic phone, but that’s still not enough to justify that ~Rs 1.10 lakh starting price!
Watch our Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max video review:
iPhone 11 Pro Max
Rs 1,09,900-1,41,900 (as tested)
8.2
Pros
- Fantastic battery life
- A13 Bionic SoC is a powerhouse
- Great overall camera performance
Cons
- Price remains unjustifiable
- Base storage is still 64GB
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