My iPhone 11 Pro's screen his holding up way better than my iPhone X. How's yours?

iPhone 11 Pro
iPhone 11 Pro (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • I've had my iPhone 11 Pro for around 5 months.
  • I noticed my first micro scratch the other day.
  • By this point, my iPhone X looked horrendous.

Apple launched iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro on Friday, September 20, 2019. And while I did end up with a phone on launch day, that isn't the one I have today. I've had this Midnight Green iPhone 11 Pro since the end of September, and I still think it's gorgeous. Even the screen, which is something that I couldn't say about my iPhone X around five months into its life.

By now, my iPhone X looked pretty bad. It had micro scratches everywhere, presumably from its life transitioning in and out of my pocket. None were bad. But they were there, and they drove me more insane than they really ought to. I was expecting something similar with my iPhone 11 Pro. Especially after reports of scratches started to circulate soon after launch.

Scratched iPhone

Scratched iPhone (Image credit: zero-or-one)

But I've been pleasantly surprised. I noticed my first micro scratch a couple of days ago, and apart from that, it's pristine.

Now, it's important to remember that scratched displays on modern phones are difficult to avoid. To make them less likely to shatter, Apple, Samsung, and every other company have to make them softer – yes, that's an oversimplification! That, in turn, makes them more susceptible to scratches. And it's just a physics problem that we haven't yet found a way around. Maybe in the future. Who knows?

But for now, scratches are a thing we're going to have to live with. Before launch, Apple said that iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro "feature the toughest glass ever in a smartphone". That sounds like marketing spin, but maybe Apple has a point.

So I want to know – how's your launch iPhone 11 or iPhone 11 Pro holding up?

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.