Apple

Samuel Axon

Samuel Axon

Samuel Axon



CUPERTINO, Calif.—Apple on Tuesday announced the iPhone 11, the latest device in Apple's mega-popular smartphone series and the follow-up to last year's iPhone XR. The phone's price starts at $699.

The new device comes in an anodized aluminum and glass body that Apple claims is its most durable phone design to date. The iPhone 11 comes in six new colors: purple, white, yellow, green, black, and red. It comes with a 6.1-inch version of Apple's "liquid Retina" display and improved spatial audio with Dolby Atmos support.

The iPhone 11 also features a new and updated A13 Bionic chip. Unsurprisingly, Apple says the latter will include the fastest CPU and GPU in any smartphone—we'll have to benchmark that for ourselves, but given the top-shelf power of the existing A12 Bionic, the new chip should still be more than fast enough for most people's needs.

As months of leaks suggested, the big new feature of the iPhone 11 is its new dual-camera system. Apple included one 12MP wide camera and one 12MP ultra-wide camera, with the former supporting optical image stabilization and the latter having a 120-degree field of view. There's also a new Camera interface that lets you see outside the frame, making it easier for you to take photos in tight spaces where you can't physically back up.

The iPhone 11 will support Apple's next-gen Smart HDR as well, which uses mutli-scale tone mapping to treat highlights differently depending on which part of the image they are in. The camera duo also has a new night mode that will automatically brighten and reduce noise in too-dark photos.

The two cameras work together to shoot high-quality video as well. The iPhone 11 supports 4K video at 60fps with features like slo-mo, time-lapse, cinematic video stabilization, and extended dynamic range. You can also switch between the two cameras while shooting video using a new zoom wheel when you need to get an even wider shot.

Apple even updated the front-facing camera, the lens responsible for FaceID, to a 12MP camera that's also capable of shooting 4K and slow-motion video. The company claims FaceID recognition will also be faster on this new iPhone, likely due to the improved camera, upgraded A13 bionic chip, and other hardware and software improvements.

Since the iPhone 11 is technically an upgrade to the iPhone XR, it should have a similar battery life, but Apple claims that it's actually better—the iPhone 11 should last up to one hour longer than the iPhone XR, which was already the longest lasting iPhone in Apple's lineup. Another minor improvement is the iPhone 11's IP68 water resistance, which helps it withstand dunks in water up to 2 meters (the iPhone XR had a water-resistance rating of IP67).

The iPhone 11 starts at $699 and will be available for preorder starting this Friday at 5am PDT. The phone will be widely available in stores on September 20.

Listing image by Apple