IPHONE 14 PRO AND iPHONE 14 REVIEWS
Apple’s iPhone is a cultural phenomenon – that’s why, when the tech giant revealed this year’s iPhone 14 you could read about nothing else on the tech pages of any publication.
I was lucky enough to get my hands on three of the four new phones ahead of their launch this week. Do they live up to the hype?
IPHONE 14 PRO
■ Always-on display: The Pro 14 models are the first to have a display that never goes off – when you send it to sleep you can still see the time and your lockscreen photo, as well as some customisable widgets.
It is, of course, beautifully done, and the info is there at a glance and you don’t even need to touch your phone to see it. It’ll change the way you use your phone.
■ Dynamic Island: The Pro models this year do away with ‘the notch’ in favour of the interactive Dynamic Island – a pillshaped cutout that houses the front cameras.
It’s very Apple to draw attention to this dead space – it’ll grow sideways to host an indicator to tell you the mic is being used, or to show you a timer is active.
It’s both playful and useful – you can keep an eye on info displayed and interact with it for more controls, while still using other apps.
■ Mega megapixels: A massive 48MP sensor in the main wide camera is new this year.
It can be used at that resolution, of course, but by default it’ll spit out 12MP images, grouping four pixels together to gather more light.
It also means you can crop later without losing quality.
The images the phone produces are spectacular, easily rivalling those of any pocket camera.
■ Faster, and with more stamina: There’s a new faster chip, but battery life is great, too… going all-day with juice to spare.
Also included are various sensors that can detect if you’ve been in a car smash – and then call the emergency services.
I’m happy to report I’m unable to tell you how well this
works.
iPHONE 14
The non-pro version of this year’s iPhone is not much of an upgrade on last year’s – it has the same design. There is an upgrade to the camera – a bigger sensor and a faster lens on the main camera, and it certainly improves the phone’s image output in low light.
The crash detection feature from the new Pro models is also included.
CONCLUSION
There’s enough in the Pro models of this year’s iPhone to make it a compelling device for those looking to upgrade – if you’re a Pro user you like to have the latest, and there are cool things about the Pro that you can’t get elsewhere.
For the 14, the upgrade bait isn’t there for users of recent phones – but then, standard iPhone users are not likely to upgrade every year anyway.
If you’re coming from an iPhone 11 or earlier, now is the time to pull the trigger, no doubt.
■ iPhone 14 Pro starts at £1,099, while the iPhone 14 starts at £849