11 vs 950: hardware

First of all, rather obviously, the iPhone is years newer than my last Windows phone, a 950 XL, so a direct comparison is a little unfair. Unsurprisingly, the iPhone is faster, better at pretty much everything, and comes with upgraded features.

Apple are notorious for producing high quality hardware. My iMac from 2009 is still running, and still receiving updates (just). My wife’s iPhone 4s is still working well, still perfectly usable, although no longer receives security updates. My 950 XL, which I bought three years ago, and is misbehaving, is about to receive its final update.

Apple have promised that the iPhone 11 will receive 5 years of updates. I have no reason to doubt this, given the company’s history of supporting their products. I am also pretty confident the hardware will keep going for many years, providing I don’t mistreat it.

My Windows phone had problems connecting to Bluetooth headphones, a Jabra model, one of those rare bluetooth headphones designed for people who aren’t flashing blue techno–tarts. Connections splutter for the first few minutes of listening, forcing me to go back to the music and start again. I wouldn’t dare take a phone call using my headphones.

The iPhone has absolutely no problem working with these headphones. I have never had a connection splutter. I have yet to make a call using them, but I don’t expect a problem.

The 950 XL had a pretty good camera for a mobile when it came out a few years ago. The iPhone 11 has a pretty good camera for a mobile when it came out this year. To be honest, I’ve not noticed the difference. Both cameras are unavoidable let down by the lack of glass, but both seem capable of taking perfectly good snaps. The thing is, I use a real camera, so have no real incentive, at the moment, to try and use the phone for photography (other people have done that).

My Windows phone, despite being three years old, is exhibiting battery problems. When the battery is fairly low in charge, the phone will spontaneously reboot. At times, it does this every few minutes, which is why I replaced it a month before I had to.

Indeed, the battery on the iPhone is immediately superior to the 950 XL, which was always significantly underpowered. Although the latter usually lasted the working day, provided I kept the battery saver always on, it often lost power completely if I had to go to some event afterwards. The admittedly new iPhone 11 battery has yet to dip below 70% after a day at work.

The only time I had an Apple product that failed when it was almost three years old, Apple replaced it. Now, this was an iMac, and I had purchased the extended warranty, and by chance the iMac failed three weeks before the warranty ran out, but Apple provided me with a new replacement. That’s the machine that’s now ten years old, and still receiving security updates.

In other words, in terms of hardware, Apple wins hands–down. Indeed, that hardware quality is why I will always consider buying Apple products.