Are the tiny upgrades over the iPhone 13 Pro make it worth buying?
The iPhone 14 series has had a great start this year and the striking innovation has been the dynamic island feature on the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Compared to the previous iPhone models like iPhone 13 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro Max (Review) brings some outstanding upgrades. The iPhone 14 Pro Max is made for users who want a larger battery and display but now we are considering the iPhone 14 Pro for review.
The iPhone 14 Pro brings a 6.1-inches LTPO OLED display, a powerful Apple A16 Bionic chipset, a 48MP triple camera setup, a 3200mAh battery with support for faster charging, etc. So is the iPhone 14 Pro worth buying and how good of an upgrade it is over the iPhone 13 Pro? Let's find out in the full review.
Apple iPhone 14 Pro Design:
In terms of design, Apple has made a significant design with Dynamic Island this time, which is a small cutout on the top that is pill-shaped instead of the notch we have seen on previous iPhone models. Talking about Dynamic Island is a smart way for covering the notch with different notification alerts and also other activities like while using Apple Music, this feature comes in handy.
For playing music using Apple Music and then switching to the home screen displays the black bar with small album art thus showing the gap between the selfie camera and the Dynamic Island. If you click on Dynamic Island, it will again show the whole application. There is also a separate secondary cutout that houses the selfie camera where FaceID works well.
Around the sides, there are almost minimum bezels which are very good. At the back, there is a squarish camera module that is slightly protruded and it houses the triple cameras with a LED flashlight and the lidar sensor. The back looks premium as it is made up of matte frosted glass with the Apple logo at the centre and does not catch many fingerprints or smudges.
Around the sides, the frame is made up of stainless steel which feels solid but the edges around the four corners do bite into the hands. The iPhone 14 Pro weighs around 206 grams which makes it quite heavier to hold in hand also around the sides, the smartphone feels thicker thus measuring a thickness of 7.9mm. (0.2mm thicker than the iPhone 13 Pro).
To the left side, there is the typical mute switch where you can control different volume profiles and also there is a single SIM card slot that accepts one SIM card and the other SIM card can be used as an e-SIM. On the right side, there are the volume buttons which feel tactile when clicking on them. The smartphone has an IP68 rating which means it is dust as well as water-resistant.
At the bottom, there is a Lightning port, a primary microphone and two cutouts for the speakers. At the top, there is only a secondary noise-cancelling microphone present. On the front, there is the Ceramic Shield glass made by Corning for protection which is very solid. Overall, the build and design feel excellent but it does feel slightly heavier to hold.
iPhone 14 Pro Display:
The iPhone 14 Pro houses a 6.1-inches XDR OLED display with a screen resolution of 1179x2556 pixels and a screen-to-body ratio of 19.5:9. Like the iPhone 13 Pro, here also you get a 120Hz ProMotion display where the display can go as low as 1Hz depending on the application in usage and can reach 120Hz while scrolling webpages or while playing games.
Coupled with the 120Hz ProMotion display, there is a 240Hz touch sampling rate for better and faster touch responses. Since this is an OLED panel, the colours come out punchier and viewing angles are very good. Apple has added the Always-On display feature this time which looks very good and there are a lot of customizations for it.
In terms of display brightness, the iPhone 14 Pro can reach a peak brightness of 2000nits which is the highest for any smartphone to date thus making it the brightest display under direct sunlight. There are different display modes which include True Tone adjustments and Wide Color. You also get the Haptic Touch feature provided by the Taptic Engine.
The display on the iPhone 14 Pro has support for HDR on YouTube and also there is Widevine L1 present which means you can stream HDR content on OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc. Overall, the display is one of the best when it comes to media consumption.
iPhone 14 Pro Performance:
The iPhone 14 Pro is powered by the latest and most powerful Apple A16 Bionic chipset which has 2x3.46 GHz Everest cores and another 4x2.02GHz Sawtooth core coupled with an Apple GPU which is having 5-cores. This chipset is built on a 4nm process thus making it very power efficient. Compared to the Apple A15 Bionic chipset, Apple brings some minor improvements with better power efficiency.
In terms of daily usage which includes tasks like scrolling between web pages, playing games, rendering videos, and other multi-tasking activities, the smartphone feels smoother to use. In heavy games like BGMI, you can easily run HDR graphics with Extreme frame rates and there is no lag or stutter as such.
But after long hours of gaming, the back of the smartphone does feel slightly warmer as you get a glass build. In terms of benchmarks, the scores are the best in class almost competing with the scores of the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset found on many Android flagships. In the CPU throttling test, the smartphone could maintain a sustained performance of 70-80 per cent which is good with minor thermal throttling detected.
In terms of network connectivity, there is support for good carrier aggregation and it supports all the bands of 5G which also includes support for mmWave also. The iPhone 14 Pro and the Pro Max are available in 6GB RAM with 128/256/512/1TB storage variants and this year Apple has upgraded the RAM to LPDDR5. Overall, the performance feels excellent on a daily basis.
iPhone 14 Pro Software:
The iPhone 14 Pro runs on the latest iOS 16 which is a very tiny upgrade over the iOS 15 found on the iPhone 13 Pro so the two new features have been the Always-On display and the Dynamic Island. The Always-On display is newer as you can have it with different styles and also the wallpaper is shown in the Always-On display.
The AOD also supports different brightness levels and turns off when the smartphone is kept inside the pocket. As discussed above, Dynamic Island is a cool feature here where you will see the camera, and mic indicators also while using an application like iMusic, it pops out when you click on Dynamic Island.
Other than that there are a lot of gestures and customizations present that do come in handy on a daily basis. In terms of software updates, you get a very good update cycle with both iOS versions and security patches on a timely basis. Overall, the software experience feels smooth on a daily basis and the addition of new features makes it amazing.
iPhone 14 Pro Cameras:
Finally just like Android smartphones, the iPhone 14 Pro and the Pro Max now sport 48MP main camera which is a good upgrade over the 12MP ones found on earlier set of iPhones. The iPhone 14 Pro houses a triple camera setup that includes a 48MP f/1.8 main camera with sensor shift OIS, a 12MP f/2.8 telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and another 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera.
On the front, there is a 12MP f/1.9 camera with OIS. The images from the main camera come out with excellent level of details and dynamic range is one of the best with no noise present in the background. However, things somehow look sometimes oversharpened but color saturation came out to be natural. All the images were default saved in 12MP format and in HDR,
You can also use the 48MP RAW mode where images come out with good level of details and the noise is also not present. The colors look saturated without any oversharpening in the background and the dynamic range is good. The main camera also takes 2x zoomed images with good contrast and dynamic range with almost no noise in the background.
At night, the images come out with excellent level of details that look sharper and dynamic range is just impeccable. The exposure is excellent and the images look brighter with no noise in the background. All these results take place with the Night Mode which turns on automatically whenever you use the main camera during night. The highlights in shadows come out very good.
The ultrawide camera takes images with sharper details and also around the edges, there is no distortion present. The 120-degree field of view is just amazing as it captures a wider image. The colors look natural and dynamic range is very good. At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with excellent level of details with good exposure in the background and also has good dynamic range.
The details look sharper but still in some areas it does look tad softer but you would not notice the difference. Now this year, the ultrawide camera on the iPhone 14 Pro also gets dual-pixel autofocus which means it can also double up as a macro camera and this works when you move the ultrawide camera closer to a subject.
The ultrawide camera can reach closer to an object as close as 4cm and this results in sharper details and excellent dynamic range in the images. The colors have good contrast and look saturated also with almost no noise in the background.
The telephoto camera does a very good job in terms of details that look sharper with natural colors in the background. The noise is very less with good contrast and dynamic range is excellent. Similarly at night, with the Night mode, the images have excellent level of details with good dynamic range and no noise present in the background.
In terms of portraits, the iPhone 14 Pro does an excellent job in terms of human skin tones that look natural and the dynamic range is also very good. Now with 1x and 3x portraits seen on iPhones in the past, now we get a mode for shooting 2x portraits. The edge detection is perfect and the bokeh effect in the background looks good.
These are the results using the 3x telephoto camera. Using the main camera, the colors look natural but sharpness takes a slight hit but still you get excellent level of background blur and the subject separation is also in par with that of the telephoto camera.
The selfies from the 12MP front camera come out with excellent level of details and dynamic range is very good. The skin tones look accurate without any oversharpening and this camera offers two modes - 7MP and a 12MP mode where latter one has slightly better sharpness and dynamic range. In terms of selfie portraits, the dynamic range is excellent with proper edge detection and background blur.
In terms of videos, all the cameras can record 4K videos at 60fps and all the cameras have sharper details with excellent dynamic range and have no noise in the background except that the main camera and front camera get OIS. Overall, the cameras are the segment best on the iPhone 14 Pro.
iPhone 14 Pro Battery Life:
The iPhone 14 Pro sports a 3200mAh battery compared to 3095mAh battery on the iPhone 13 Pro. In terms of normal usage that includes casual web browsing, streaming social media, playing casual games, and with Always-On display turned off, the smartphone easily lasted for two days and with heavy usage that includes playing games, rendering videos, etc. the smartphone lasted for one day with some charge left.
The standard screen-on time was around 6-6.5 hours which is good. The iPhone 14 Pro supports 27W fast charging and In terms of charging, like all the previous iPhone models, there is no charger provided inside the box so using any third-party 20W fast charger, the iPhone 14 Pro takes around 0 to 100 percent within 1 hour 30 minutes which is very much time consuming.
You also get 15W wireless charging also which is good but not the fastest compared to other flagship smartphones.
iPhone 14 Pro Audio Quality:
The iPhone 14 Pro sports a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds very loud and clear. The loudness levels at the highest settings are excellent and are segment best.
Verdict:
The iPhone 14 Pro is the perfect Apple smartphone that is a perfect all-rounder with a striking and premium design, a great display, excellent set of cameras both in photography and videography, top level performance and good battery life. However, there are some areas where Apple still needs to fix things like there is no charger inside the box and battery life could have been slightly better.
Compared to the iPhone 13 Pro, you get some new features like the new Dynamic Island (compared to older notch on the iPhone 13 Pro), the Apple A16 Biaonic chipset brings some minimal improvements over the Apple A15 Bionic chipset, and the 48MP main camera on the iPhone 14 Pro compared to 12MP one on the iPhone 13 Pro.
However, there is not such a difference and you can still consider the iPhone 13 Pro if you do not care about the Dynamic Island and the 48MP main camera because the camera performance is still excellent on the iPhone 13 Pro and also it provides great performance in daily tasks with that powerful Apple A15 Bionic chipset. Plus it is also cheaper compared to the iPhone 14 Pro now.
So it all depends on personal preference which one you choose between both but if you see the upgrades worth it, then you can go with the iPhone 14 Pro or else save some money and can get the iPhone 13 Pro.
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