Apple iPhone 11 Pro vs. iPhone XS vs. iPhone X

Apple’s trio of iPhones for 2019 brought us a range of upgrades, as always, and they also marked a new naming convention. The iPhone 11 built on the iPhone XR, while the iPhone 11 Pro replaced the iPhone XS, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max replaced the iPhone XS Max. If you’re shopping for a more recent iPhone, then you’ll be keen to know what last year’s iPhone has to offer compared to the versions from 2018 and 2017. Grab a drink, kick back and relax, as we unpack the differences between the iPhone 11 Pro, the iPhone XS, and the iPhone X.

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Specs

Performance, battery life, and charging

Apple upgrades its processor every year, making it faster and more efficient every time. The iPhone 11 Pro has 2019’s A13 Bionic which is superior to the A12 Bionic in the iPhone XS, which in turn is superior to the A11 Bionic in the iPhone X, and so on. The A13 is roughly 20% faster and uses 40% less power than the A12. Whether you’ll feel a big difference is debatable because the iPhone X has yet to find a game or app it couldn’t run, but if you jumped straight from it to the 11 Pro, everything should feel a beat faster. The iPhone 11 Pro and the iPhone XS have 4GB of RAM, so they’re more capable at multitasking than the iPhone X which makes do with 3GB.

Battery capacity is something Apple doesn’t reveal, but it claims the iPhone 11 Pro can go for four hours longer than the iPhone XS. This is likely down to the more efficient processor, rather than any increase in battery size. Both the iPhone XS and the iPhone X support fast charging at 15W, but they don’t come with the necessary charger — you have to buy it separately. Apple has thankfully seen fit to include an 18W charger in the box with the iPhone 11 Pro. All three support Qi wireless charging.

Winner: Apple iPhone 11 Pro 

Design and durability

The iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone XS, and iPhone X are clearly related, and you’ll have to look quite closely to tell them apart. Each has a 5.8-inch screen with slim bezels and a large notch at the top. They all sport stainless steel frames and glass backs. The square camera module on the back of the 11 Pro is all that sets it apart, though it’s also being offered in a new green variant, and it’s very slightly bigger and heavier than its predecessors. The iPhone XS and iPhone X are identical.

There have been significant improvements in durability. The iPhone X could withstand submersion in 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes without damage; the iPhone XS upped that to 2 meters, and the iPhone 11 Pro ups it again to 4 meters. Apple also showed off the new iPhone surviving a drop test, but we would still advise buyers to look at picking up one of the best iPhone 11 Pro cases to avoid disaster.

Winners: Apple iPhone 11 Pro 

Display

Apple first adopted superior OLED technology in its displays with the iPhone X and that 5.8-inch screen remained unchanged in the iPhone XS. The iPhone 11 Pro has the same size screen and the same 2436 x 1125-pixel resolution, but Apple increased the maximum brightness and bumped the contrast ratio up from 1 million-to-one to 2 million-to-one. You may notice a slight difference when viewing HDR content, but despite the huge number it’s not going to be noticeable in most scenarios and the display that’s in the iPhone XS and iPhone X is still great.

Winners: Apple iPhone 11 Pro 

Camera

If you’ve been looking for a significant upgrade in the iPhone 11 Pro this is where you’ll find it. The iPhone XS and iPhone X had identical camera suites combining a 12-megapixel main lens with an f/1.8 aperture and a secondary 12-megapixel telephoto lens with an f/2.4 aperture. They also both had a 7-megapixel camera around the front, paired with a time-of-flight sensor to enable Face ID.

The iPhone 11 Pro has a triple-lens setup comprising a 12-megapixel main lens with am f/1.8 aperture, a 12-megapixel ultra-wide lens with an f/2.4 aperture and a 120-degree field of view, and a 12-megapixel telephoto lens with an f/2.0 aperture. The new ultra-wide-angle lens will enable you to take much wider shots, potentially capturing four times more scene, and the larger aperture in the new telephoto lens will make for better low light performance. The iPhone 11 Pro also boasts a 12-megapixel lens in its front-facing camera now.

Winners: Apple iPhone 11 Pro 

Software and updates

The new iPhones herald the end of 3D Touch, in favor of haptic touch, but all of these iPhones run iOS 14, which means the software experience is going to be identical. They will all continue to be updated at the same time for the foreseeable future.

Winner: Tie

Special features

Our favorite thing about the iPhone 11 Pro is its camera, which produces photos that look like they came from a professional-grade DSLR. If you thought the iPhone XS and iPhone X captured good photos, wait until you upgrade. Not only this, but the model has a variety of other beneficial features that reign supreme in functionality. Maybe the most critical feature is the support for Wi-Fi 6, which enables it to download at lightning speeds if the network is available. Ultra-Wideband technology gives the iPhone 11 Pro a unique spatial awareness, allowing it to offer users “directionally aware suggestions” that can be AirDropped with iOS 13.1 (and later versions). Although many users do not take advantage of this cool feature, we are positive that it’s a giant step ahead of the rest and will become a crucial tool in the coming years.

Winner: Apple iPhone 11 Pro 

Price and availability

The iPhone X was the first on the scene, quickly succeeded by an upgraded version in the iPhone XS, which then introduced the latest iPhone 11 Pro model. While Apple doesn’t sell these models in their store anymore, you can find them online and unlocked so you can insert your own SIM card and start using them immediately. There’s a booming used iPhone market that you can check out. TheiPhone 11 Pro starts at $999, is supported by all the major carriers, and can be purchased from most big-name retailers. 

Overall winner: Apple iPhone 11 Pro

Instinctively, the iPhone 11 Pro is a superior phone compared to the iPhone XS or the iPhone X. Apple’s 2019 version came with an enhanced and increasingly versatile camera, a speedier processor, improved stamina, and a stable design. However, we don’t see any of these updates to be earth-shaking by any means. If you’re already using an iPhone XS or X, you might want to wait until a later model iPhone is released so you can take advantage of upgrades in addition to the camera.