iPhone 11 Thoughts

After turning my iPhone up to 11, I have some thoughts. Yes, it was the upgrade I wanted, substantial enough. All around, it’s a quality smartphone one would expect from Apple. Below are some things that stand out to me most.

Tap to wake

This is one of those quality of life features that seems small on paper, but in practice it’s huge. The ease with which I can now, finally, just tap the screen to see it display relevant or urgent info is so nice. I use it mostly to control audio in the playback widget. It's more convenient than before.

Yellow

Technically a superficial thing, yet it has deep impact. I LOVE the color of this iPhone 11 in yellow. I enjoy it every time I see it, often pausing to just look at it. My favorite color is orange; this is close. Even though the shade is a light pastel, it’s still great and feels more like an expression of my own personality. I do tend to be enthusiastic about tech.

Face ID

While I very much liked Touch ID, I find unlocking my phone by just looking at it to be kind of amazingly easy. It’s almost like the thing isn’t even locked when I pick it up. Also, it works in the dark. Not that I ever pick up my phone at night from the bedside table. Right.

Battery

Oh yeah, it’s way longer than was my 5 year old iPhone 8 Plus. I can go all day with moderate use and not worry one bit about charging up. It’s so good. Power to actually use your phone is fundamental to functioning. More battery is usually better. I love how long iPhone 11 lasts.

Camera

Oh snap! The camera is better, and the Night Mode and low-light shooting is much more improved than I expected. I’m truly surprised how iPhone 11 can get shots in little to no light and they actually turn out good looking. It’s super nice and enabling. Overall picture quality across the board is noticeably better too.

I’m also a fan of the ultra wide lens. Though its quality is a bit lacking in anything other than daylight landscape shots, it's super useful for indoors when you can’t back up, like a small room or dining table. Also, I can now shoot portrait selfies, and I’m vain enough to enjoy it, thanks. Speaking of, the front camera has higher resolution and can shoot wider, both of which make me extra glad.

Ultra Wideband

I have not tried this out yet, but I plan to get an AirTag in the near future and “accidentally” misplace something important to see if I can find it.

Miscellaneous

Overall performance is more fluid than my 8 Plus, as it should be. It feels a bit more responsive. The display notch is not a problem at all. The LCD display looks as great as ever. Fit and finish are Apple caliber. The two speakers are much louder and fuller than the ones on my iPhone 8 Plus, which surprised me.

So there a some things that I value in iPhone 11. It’s reliable, it has all the iCloud ecosystem features, iMessage, and it’s the best version of Apple’s smartphone I’ve ever had the privilege to own. Best of all, I snagged this from Apple’s refurbished store for a great discount on a practically new phone. Highly recommended.

It's not all rainbows and unicorns of course; there are a few imperfections with iPhone 11:

• It lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack
• It uses Lightning instead of USB-C to charge
• It is too big to easily use in one hand
• It lacks a microSD card slot for expanding storage
• It doesn't come in orange

Did you upgrade your phone in 2022? Will you upgrade in 2023?