Hands-on with iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max: Dynamic Island, No Notch, 48MP Camera

Apple crammed a tonne of substantial changes into its Pro iPhone models.

 

At its “Far Out” presentation on Wednesday, Apple announced a new lineup of iPhones, but it saved the most significant updates for the more expensive iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max models. The absence of a notch on the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max is the new distinguishing characteristic. The revised TrueDepth camera unit for Face ID, selfies, and video calls is now housed in a small pill-shaped screen cutout in its place. Apple created Dynamic Island, a system of shifting alerts and notifications, to make use of the cutout rather than disregard it. Despite the odd moniker, the feature is interesting and stylish in person.

 

One way Apple expanded the gap between Pro and non-Pro iPhone models is by removing Dynamic Island from the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus. Another factor is cost. Starting at $999, the iPhone 14 Pro costs $200 more than the iPhone 14, which has a $799 starting price. The pricing of the 14 Pro is the same as those of earlier Pro iterations and the 2018 iPhone X. However, some customers may be turned off by the 14 Pro’s or the 14 Pro Max’s starting price of $1,099.

 

Display on the iPhone 14: Farewell, notch, welcome, Dynamic Island
The iPhone 14 Pro doesn’t appear all that different from the iPhone 13 Pro from last year when viewed from the back. In contrast to the notch on the 13 Pro, the display cutout on the 14 Pro looks modern and new from the front. When I picked up an iPhone 14 Pro, the iconic notch was no longer present. Comparatively, the pill-shaped display cutout is substantially smaller.

 

Apple’s Dynamic Island interface also performs admirably. I was listening to a song on Apple Music, for instance. When I closed the programme, the cutout had a minute thumbnail with album art on one side and a tiny waveform on the other. I was led directly to the song in the Apple Music app after tapping on the Dynamic Island.

 

The cutout is obviously only a small portion of the Super Retina XDR display, which can now reach 2,000 nits of brightness for improved vision in harsh light. The brightness limit of the iPhone 13 Pro is 1,200 nits. The refresh rate of the 14 Pro is reduced to 1Hz thanks to LTPO (low-temperature polycrystalline oxide) technology, which may assist reduce battery consumption and enable Always-On displays. The LTPO screen of the 13 Pro bottoms out at 10Hz.

 

A16 Bionic in the iPhone 14 Pro: The new processor for 2022

 

There is also the brand-new A16 Bionic chip, which is only available in Pro versions this year. The A15 Bionic chip featured in the iPhone 13 Pro from the previous year is used in both the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus. The A16 chip is more energy-efficient than the A15 chip and consumes 20% less power.

 

In contrast to the A15 chip’s 5-nanometer, the A16 chip has 16 billion transistors on a 4-nanometer technology. The increase in processing capacity from the 13 Pro to the 14 Pro may not be as large as it was from the 12 Pro to the 13 Pro, aside from the increased transistor count and new manufacturing method. Additionally, it’s unclear how much RAM the iPhone 14 Pro will feature because Apple has a history of keeping the amount of RAM in its phones a secret.

 

With a 50% increase in memory bandwidth, the GPU also receives an upgrade. Both the LTPO display and the Dynamic Island are powered by the A16 Bionic chip’s display engine. Computational photography requires a brain engine with the A16 Bionic’s 17 trillion operations per second, according to Apple.

 

The system animations on the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max appeared fluid, and iOS 16 felt lively in my brief time with them.

 

The iPhone 14 Pro camera now features pixel binning.
A 48-megapixel camera will be available on the iPhone 14 Pro. For enhanced light capturing, the quad-pixel sensor uses pixel binning to combine four pixels into one big pixel. Similar methods are used by Android phones, such as the Galaxy S22 Ultra, with their high-megapixel camera sensors. Photos may be taken using the phone’s Pro Raw mode at its full 48-megapixel resolution.

 

For improved colour accuracy and detail, Apple created a new computational image-processing technique to make use of the new pixel arrangement. Its name is Photonic Engine, and it doubles the performance of the iPhone Pro’s camera in low light compared to the iPhone 13 Pro. The 48-megapixel sensor on the 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max may also be used to “punch-in” a picture, simulating a 2x zoom with the middle 12-megapixels of the sensor.

 

The ultrawide camera also benefits from the Photonic Engine processing, with low-light images coming out three times better and telephoto and front-facing camera photos two times better.

 

Apple said that the iPhone 14 Pro will have Pro Video and Cinematic modes for video capture, which can now shoot at 4K and 24 frames per second. Additionally, Apple’s new Action mode video image stabilisation is included with both Pro models. In essence, the Action mode icon is located in the upper-left area of the camera screen when you are recording a video. When I used it, it proved to be effective at easing handshakes. When I got the video resolution set to 4K, I observed that Action mode would only allow for 2.8K.

 

iPhone 14 Pro compared. iPhone 13 Pro
Apple discontinued the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max together with the launch of the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max. Apple isn’t actively marketing the Pro models from last year, but that doesn’t mean they’re completely gone. The old Pro might still be sold by a number of independent merchants and transporters. Which model of the iPhone should you purchase, the 13 Pro or 14 Pro?

 

The iPhone 14 Pro appears to surpass the iPhone 13 Pro in almost every category, including features, hardware, and lifespan. Sometimes, though, the differences between the two phones are not particularly noticeable. It appears that upgrading to the iPhone 14 Pro is not essential if you already have an iPhone 13 Pro. But if you’re trying to decide between the two and have an older iPhone, I’d probably encourage you to go with the newer 14 Pro, unless you’re finding a phenomenal deal on the 13 Pro.

 

Battery life, cost, and other attributes of the iPhone 14 Pro
The iPhone 14 Pro, according to Apple, would have a longer battery life than earlier generations. It will also come with the recently disclosed capabilities included in the base model of the iPhone 14, such as Crash Detection, which alerts the device if you’ve been in a car accident, and Emergency SOS via satellite, a satellite-based method for communication in cellular and Wi-Fi dead zones.

 

The iPhone 14 range from Apple will ship with the future iOS 16 operating system.

 

The starting price for the iPhone 14 Pro is $999 (£1,099, AU$1,749). Price points for the 14 Pro Max begin at $1,099 (£1,199, AU$1,899). The base iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus devices start at $799 (£849, AU$1,399) and $899 (£949, AU$1,579), respectively. Both of Apple’s premium handsets are more expensive.

 

Preorders begin on September 9 and the phones go on sale on September 16.