Five years, three different iPhones and I wouldn’t have it another way. My journey from a 4-inch device to a 6-inch one has been about discovering the iOS ecosystem to getting completely swayed by it.
The latest addition to my list is the people pleaser iPhone 11 which is arguably the most sought after iPhone in the current line-up, largely because of all that iPhone goodness it offers at a fairly competitive price. The iPhone 11, which released in September 2019, came along with two elder siblings iPhone 11 pro and the iPhone 11 pro max. However, among the lot, the iPhone 11 was the most affordable one with the price tag of Rs 64,900 for the 64 GB variant while the other two were priced around Rs 1 lakh.
Now, for most of the Apple users who are still on the iPhone 7, or something older, the iPhone 11 Pro and the iPhone 11 Pro Max are too expensive. For me -- and I was an iPhone 7 user -- the Pro phones were definitely too expensive. So, after months of contemplation, I decided to let go of my matte black iPhone 7 for an iPhone 11.
The iPhone 7 debuted way back in 2016 and it is quite a dinosaur in an iPhone 11 era. However, the phone was best in the segment back then and even today it is selling well due to first-time iPhone buyers. The device now costs Rs 24,500. Despite being an oldie, some buyers prefer the iPhone 7 over Android device that tend to have too many features crammed into them for their own good. This is the reason why when I went to an Apple store to get the iPhone 11, I found many people checking out the iPhone 7. I almost had second thoughts about giving up my old phone.
But it was done. The iPhone 7 was out, the iPhone 11 was in. I brought home the pastel purple iPhone 11. Not only it took my smallish hands to adjust to the large iPhone 11, which has a 6.1-inch display. I was used to the iPhone 7 and its compact 4.7-inch screen. But adjusting to the ergonomics of the larger phone was my only issue, and soon I realised that the upgrades that the iPhone 11 offered more than compensated for this issue.
But before the upgrades a couple of other points. While using the iPhone 11, it took me days get used to the absence of the home button. If not a button, I had expected a fingerprint sensor (Touch ID) but the iPhone 11 doesn’t have that. It uses effective Face ID, which is good enough. But I still missed the Touch ID. Also, for privacy and security reasons because I find trusting the Face ID hard, decided not to rely on it. Instead, I went back to the good old passcode.
Now, the upgrades. They are lovely, particularly the new camera on the iPhone 11. The iPhone 7 uses a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 7-megapixel front camera whereas the iPhone 11 has a dual 12-megapixel camera at the rear, one of which uses an ultra-wide lens. On the front, there is a 12-megapixel camera.
The photos that the iPhone 11 can click, compared to what the iPhone 7 can manage, are phenomenal. The portrait mode in the iPhone 11 can give the DSLRs a run for their money and with the effects that have been added to it, you would probably not need Photoshop to give your portrait a professional touch. Then there is the super-efficient night mode. The images captured in the dark are crisp and clear and even surpass the ability of Google Pixel which was earlier hailed as the king of night photography. After a month's usage, I am more than happy with the photos I get from the iPhone 11 camera.
Back in the days, when I had the iPhone 7, its battery was clearly one of the reasons why I had considered switching to Android. Like 1000 times. At a time when Android phones were coming with 3000mAh and 4000mAh batteries, the iPhone 7 had a small 1,960mAh battery. It nearly turned me -- and countless other iPhone 7 users -- into a maniac, who would locate a plug point before everything else, in any place at any given point of time.
During my iPhone 7's final days, I had to charge my phone several times a day. When I upgraded to iPhone 11, out of habit, I continued plugging my phone to the charger as soon as I saw a plug point. But soon I realized that the iPhone 11 battery is a different matter. It doesn’t require constant feeding.
As most reviewers have said, the iPhone 11 is the successor of iPhone XR, with a better camera and slightly better battery. The XR was credited with having the best iPhone battery and the iPhone 11 has very clearly inherited that gene from the XR. The iPhone 11 works easily last one full day on a single charge and if you optimize your usage, it can last longer. There is one nagging issue though with the battery of the iPhone 11: you cannot see the battery percentage in the battery status icon. To see the percentage, you have to swipe up and down to check it in the quick controls. Or left and right, to check it through a widget on the widget screen, or plug it in because while charging the battery percentage is always shown.
Another gripe and this one is related to charging of the iPhone 11. When you upgrade from an iPhone 7 to an iPhone 11 you still get the tiny 5W charger in the phone's box. I am on my third iPhone and I haven’t seen a different charger, let alone an upgrade there. With iPhones 11 Pro, Apple is now giving a fast charger but not with the iPhone 11.
At a time when brands like Xiaomi are coming up with 60W and 48W chargers, Apple still provides a small 5W charger with its latest iPhone. I wish Apple had bundled a fast charger with the iPhone 11.
The display is another big update, and it is worth it. While the iPhone 7 has an LCD display with a resolution of 1,334 x 750 pixels, the iPhone 11 comes with an LCD display with a 1792 x 828 resolution. It's not an OLED display like what Apple has put in the iPhone 11 Pro, but it is a quality display. The bezels around it compared to the iPhone 7 screen, are slim and the overall area that you get for the content -- it's a larger screen -- helps when you are reading or watching something on the phone.
On the basis of one month's experience with the iPhone 11, I feel the upgrade is totally worth it. Yes, I paid over Rs 60,000 for it but compared to the old iPhone 7 my experience with my phone has also gotten much better. The battery improvement alone, and the peace of mind it brings, is worth it. Then there are the camera upgrades and display features, and that too helps me feel that I made the right choice to move to the iPhone 11. Not that I had many options. The iPhone 11 Pro, as I noted earlier, was too expensive. So the option was to either stay with the iPhone 7 and wait for something like the iPhone SE 2 -- nowadays called in rumors iPhone 9 -- or wait for this year's iPhones like iPhone 12 or just get the iPhone 11. I am glad I didn't wait. The iPhone 11 is worth the upgrade for people using an iPhone 7 or older phone.
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