IPhone 11 and 11 Pro Review: Thinking Differently in the Golden Age of Smartphones

Over more than a decade of writing about technology, reviewing a new iPhone has long been one of my simplest assignments.

Year after year, the formula was this: I tested the most important new features of Apple’s latest smartphone and assessed whether they were useful. Assuming the newest iPhone worked well, my advice was generally the same — I recommended upgrading if you had owned your existing smartphone for two years.

But with this review of the iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max — the newest models that Apple unveiled last week and which will become available this Friday — I’m encouraging a different approach. The bottom line? It’s time to reset our upgrade criteria.

That’s because we are now living in the golden age of smartphones, where the gadgets’ improvements each year are far from seismic. Devices that debuted three years ago remain zippy and more than capable. Those with the iPhone 7 from 2016, for example, still have a very good phone with a stellar camera and fast speeds.

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