iPhone 14 and 14 Pro review: A picture is worth a thousand dollars

whether we’re talking about iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Proor iPhone 14 Pro Maxthis year’s update focuses on cameras.

Yes, the Pro models have always-on displays and a very Apple approach to replacing the controversial display notch. But as stylish as these perks are, they shouldn’t be the reason you buy these phones.

Cameras are so prominent now that we’re starting to feel like we should call these devices “smart cameras” rather than smartphones, especially on Pro models.

this smart phone has been more or less perfected over the years; there are not many new frontiers to explore in this area. But Apple (along with its competitors) continues to find new ways to improve the amateur digital photography experience in ways both big and small.

All in all, the iPhone 14 models are some of the best smart cameras you can buy – though not a revolutionary upgrade over devices before them.

About iPhone 14

Since the iPhone 14 has been a modest update from year to year, we’ve put it together with the 14 Pro in this review. Most of the review will discuss the 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max, but we’ll briefly discuss the regular 14 in its own section here, and we’ll evaluate the phones together in the performance and cameras section of the review.

iPhone 14 is over 2021 but one step ahead iPhone 13. It has the same design and at least the same feature set at launch. It also features the same system-on-chip (SoC), A15, so it offers the same performance, although thermals are reportedly slightly better for sustained performance.

The most important advantages of iPhone 14 over iPhone 13 are battery life and photo quality. The iPhone 13 advertises up to 19 hours of video playback, while the iPhone 14 promises up to 20 hours. It’s not a huge leap (and we didn’t realize it) but hey, we’ll take what we can for a few hours. things are more important than battery life.

As for photo quality, we’ll look at some comparison shots in the camera section of this review, but here’s the brief: There’s a new TrueDepth front-facing camera with faster aperture and autofocus support. The main practical benefit of these improvements is that the camera should have better low-light performance.

The wide-angle camera on the back of the iPhone 14 has a larger sensor and faster aperture, promising 49 percent better low-light photography performance than its predecessor. Apple has slightly expanded the camera software package to offer improved low-light performance on all cameras on the phone. In other words, the regular iPhone 14 gets some of the benefits seen in last year’s Pro models.

When repair shop/publication iFixit smashed the iPhone 14, it discovered something Apple didn’t advertise: the iPhone 14 is easier to maintain and repair than other new iPhones, including its Pro sibling.thanks to the removable rear glass panel. For most users, this is not a big deal, but for some, it can extend the life of the device and save on repairs if you skip AppleCare+, Apple’s repair service subscription.

On October 7, Apple plans to launch a new iPhone 14 model called iPhone 14 Plus. It will be the same as the iPhone 14, with only a 6.7-inch screen (same size as the iPhone 14 Pro Max) instead of 6.1 inches.

This year, the iPhone 14 Plus replaces the much smaller 5.4-inch iPhone 13 mini in its flagship lineup, but Apple still sells the iPhone 13 mini for users who prefer one-handed phones at the expense of screen size and battery life.

In no way do we recommend upgrading from iPhone 13 to iPhone 14. We really wouldn’t even recommend going from 12 to 14—there were iterative improvements but didn’t even add up over several generations. up to something radical, especially on non-Pro models.

But if you’re on XS or earlier, here are some major upgrades; For more information about these iPhone 13 and 13 Pro review from last year. Almost everything said there about 13 applies here as well.

Features

The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are the first devices to use Apple’s new A16 SoC, the first iPhone chip built on the 4 nm process.

The A16 has the same number of cores as the previous model; that is, it has a 6-core CPU with two performance and four efficiency cores, a 6-core GPU, and a 16-core NPU called the Neural Engine – but Apple says it should offer up to 10 percent faster performance. The A16 has 50 percent more memory bandwidth than the A15, which is crucial for 3D games and somewhat important for computational photography features.

So the A16 isn’t a huge performance leap, except for the memory bandwidth part. But updates to this chip weren’t really focused on speed. Rather, they are about facilitating new features. Most importantly, the chip has a new ISP that provides some new camera features and added fidelity. It also has a new view engine. Display engine tweaks enable two of the most spectacular new features: the always-on display and the functionality of Dynamic Island, which replaces the notch.

Like the iPhone 13 Pro, the iPhone 14 Pro has 6GB of RAM.

Meanwhile, the iPhone 14 sticks with last year’s A15, which in most tasks is faster than any other phone SoC on the market. It takes a bump from 4GB of RAM to 6GB.

The screen sizes and screen resolutions of all three phones are the same as last year: 6.1 inches and 2,556 x 1,179 pixels for the iPhone 14 Pro, 6.7 inches and 2,796 x 1,290 and 6.1 inches and 2,532 x 1,170 for the iPhone 14 Pro Max. for. In terms of pixel density, all three run at 460 ppi. And all three use the OLED technology expected of almost all high-end flagship smartphones these days, and for good reason.

The iPhone 14 offers the same 800 nits typical maximum brightness and 1,200 nits peak HDR brightness as the iPhone 13.

The iPhone 14 Pro and its bigger sibling introduce 1,000 nits typical maximum brightness and 1,600 nits peak HDR brightness, as well as the new ability to reach 2,000 nits in sunny, outdoor scenarios. That’s better than even the best high-end HDR TVs, and better than any computer monitor except for the hardware used by video professionals. In fact, its peak HDR brightness of 1,600 nits matches Apple’s $5,000 Pro Display XDR.

Our tests largely confirmed these claims, and that’s pretty impressive. Regardless of the type of device we’re talking about, these will likely be the highest quality displays you’ve ever owned.

Last year, Apple introduced ProMotion to the iPhone, providing dynamic refresh rates from 10 Hz to 120 Hz. This is still offered here, but the feature can now drop down to 1Hz to support always-on display. (More coming soon.)

There’s also an additional light sensor on the phone that doubles the count.

Finally, there’s an updated sensor suite to enable a new collision detection safety feature. If it detects a crash, it will ask if you’re okay and ask for help if you’re not. The feature requires updated sensors, so it won’t be available on older iPhones, but it’s available on the iPhone 14 series as well as new Apple Watch models released this year.

Apple is planning another security feature: Pro models can send simple text messages and location data via satellite to emergency responders when you’re off the grid and need assistance. However, this feature won’t be available until November.

One thing we want Apple to improve is fast charging. All of these new iPhones charge much slower than some Android flagships, both wired and wireless, which is a pity. It’s the kind of little thing that can make a practical difference in users’ daily lives. We hope to see some improvement next year.

As always, there is only one port: Apple’s proprietary Lightning port. Like the rest of the world, we I wish Apple would switch to USB-C.

In any case, Apple is promising modestly improved battery life on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. We’re still running official battery tests, but anecdotally, we felt that the new phones offered pretty much the same battery life, maybe even slightly worse.