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.jpg "iphone 14 pro review: price, specs and features")
Introduction
The best phone under $1,000 is the iPhone 14 Pro. It's powerful, has incredible cameras, a stunning display, and the notch is gone. It's difficult to think of anything truly wrong with this device, and it's ideal for people who are tired of large handsets.
Sure, the iPhone 14 Pro isn't the game-changing upgrade you might have hoped for, but that's because the iPhone 13 Pro did so much right. The Pro series has reached a point where there isn't much room for advancement.
This year's models are the pinnacle of iteration: better cameras, brighter displays, a new design element, and more powerful hardware.
Price
The iPhone 14 Pro, like last year, starts at $999 for the 128GB model.
Rumors of a price increase were debunked, and you won't catch me complaining
about it.
The 256GB model costs $1,099, the 512GB model costs $1,299,
and the 1TB model costs $1,499. With all of the video features, you might
want the extra storage
— the ProRes video limit of 1080p for the 128GB version remains.
The Galaxy S22 Plus, in my opinion, is the best price comparison for the iPhone 14 Pro. Both start at $999 and have high-end screens, powerful cameras, and powerful processors. However, other top Android phones, such as the $899 Pixel 6 Pro (the iPhone's main photography competitor) and the $749 OnePlus 10 Pro, cost less than the iPhone 14 Pro.
iPhone 14 specs and features
Design
The Dynamic Island is actually quite fascinating. It is not merely a static pill (versus the hole punch on most Android phones). And Dynamic Island expands based on your actions, displaying animations for many system actions such as unlocking, playing music, setting timers, and so on.
If you tap and hold the Dynamic Island while listening to music, it will transform into a media player. You can then access media controls without having to open the Notification Center.
Screen cutouts are here to stay for the foreseeable future, at least until Apple develops under-screen Face ID and under-display cameras improve significantly. But, as someone who never got used to the notch and has despised it since its inception, I appreciate the Dynamic Island. Not only does it look better than the notch, but it also provides actual utility where its predecessor did nothing.
The stainless steel frame of the iPhone 14 Pro is complemented by a matte finish on the back glass, which is now removable for easier (but not cheaper) repairs. Apple's Ceramic Shield protects the screen by coating it. The phone weighs 7.3 ounces, which is a significant amount for such a small device. The iPhone 14 Pro, like the iPhone 13 Pro, has a massive camera bump that prevents it from lying flat on a flat surface. This means that if you try to use the phone while it's resting on a table or counter, it will wobble. This is where an iPhone 14 case can come in handy.
I'm still not a fan of the squared-off edges, which were first seen on the iPhone 12, but this isn't the iPhone 14 Pro Max. The smaller size of the iPhone 14 Pro makes those sharp corners less bothersome. The lighter weight also prevents it from digging into your palm.
Despite my dislike for the same-y back, I like the new front design of the iPhone 14 Pro. Apple changes things slowly, but this is the third generation of the squared-off look, which is less ergonomic than a curved back. I hope the iPhone 15 returns to that design, but for the time being, the iPhone 14 Pro is more of the same in most ways. I really like how the notch died.
screen & display
On their respective handsets, Samsung and Apple typically have the best smartphone displays. The iPhone 14 Pro continues in this vein. In fact, this is the best phone display I've ever seen. I've never enjoyed looking at a screen more than I do with the iPhone 14 Pro, from the vibrant colours to the insane brightness both indoors and outdoors.
| iPhone 14 Pro | Galaxy S22 Plus | iPhone 13 Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Display size | 6.1 inches | 6.6 inches | 6.1 inches |
| Refresh rate | 1-120Hz | 10-120Hz | 10-120Hz |
| sRGB (%) | 120 | 212 (Vivid) / 128 (Natural) | 117 |
| DCI-P3 (%) | 85 | 150 (Vivid) / 91 (Natural) | 83 |
| Delta-E | 0.25 | 0.35 (Vivid) / 0.23 (Natural) | 0.27 |
| Peak brightness (nits) | 993 (SDR) / 1448 (HDR) | 648 (SDR) / 1,150 (HDR) | 1,024 |
The iPhone 14 Pro's display outperformed the iPhone 13 Pro's in colour reproduction and accuracy. (Delta-E measures this, with 0 being perfect).
Even with powerful testing equipment, it did not reach the 2,000-nit peak outdoor brightness in our measurements.
The 120Hz ProMotion display is back this year, with the ability to clock down to 1Hz to save battery power. This is also important for the new always-on display.
cameras
.jpg "Iphone 14 pro review: cameras")
This year, Apple ensured that the iPhone 14 Pro received significant camera upgrades. The new 48MP quad-pixel main sensor is the most notable. While not unique to Apple's phones, the iPhone 14 Pro can take a 12MP image with the entire sensor that has been optimised for your lighting conditions, but with four times the detail thanks to the quad pixel setup. You can even get a full 48MP image in ProRAW if you want.
The 12MP ultrawide sensor received an upgrade as well, with a new sensor that is twice as large as the one found on the iPhone 13 Pro. The telephoto lens is still 3x. I had hoped for at least 4x optical zoom to match the Pixel 6 Pro, but Apple instead added 2x optical zoom to the main sensor. So you have four zoom options with the ultrawide's 0.5x, the main lens's 1x and 2x, and the telephoto's 3x. (You can also read about how the Pixel 7 Pro just embarrassed the iPhone 14 Pro with its new and advanced zoom capabilities).
The Photonic Engine is a new feature for iPhones this year, and it is available on all iPhone 14 models. It's essentially a new computational photography model that improves mid- and low-light photos by incorporating Apple's Deep Fusion technology earlier in the pipeline, prior to frame compression. Photonic Engine claims to improve dynamic range, bringing out detail even in low-light images.
The selfie camera on the iPhone 14 Pro sees some improvements, too. Autofocus now comes standard, a feature I’ve been wanting to see for some time now. Apple says the TrueDepth camera’s faster aperture will ensure better low-light selfies, which I put to the test below. The front-facing camera also gets access to the Photonic Engine.
Video Capture
To put it simply, I'm astounded. In action mode, the sway in my step appeared natural, rather than the jerky movements that the camera's image stabilisation attempted to correct.
Action mode supports up to 2.8K 60 frames per second and is compatible with Dolby Vision and ProRes. In addition, the iPhone 14 Pro has smoother zoom transitions in videos. Previous models could be jerky when switching zoom levels, but zooming on the iPhone 14 Pro appears to be much smoother.
Performance
The new A16 Bionic chipset, built on Apple Silicon's new 4nm process, powers the iPhone 14 Pro. It is equipped with a 6-core CPU, a 5-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. It improves on the A15 Bionic from the iPhone 13 Pro in many ways, including a new display engine (which aids in the new always-on display feature), a new image signal processor, and increased power efficiency.
| iPhone 14 Pro | Galaxy S22 Plus | iPhone 13 Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | A16 Bionic | Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 | A15 Bionic |
| Geekbench 5 (single-core / multicore) | 1891 / 5469 | 1214 / 3361 | 1733 / 4718 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Unlimited (FPS) | 74 | 60 | 70 |
| 3DMark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited (FPS) | 19 | 15 | 17 |
| Adobe Premiere Rush (Mins:Secs) | 0:26 | 0:48 | 0:26 |
Just look at the generational improvement in Geekbench and how far ahead Apple is of Samsung and its Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. The other test results mostly show minor improvements, though the iPhone 14 Pro got the same time as the iPhone 13 Pro in the Adobe Premiere Rush 4K-1080p transcode benchmark.
The iPhone 14 Pro is a poweruser's dream in practise. It has enough power to last for days, which is more than enough for most tasks. Gaming is easy, as the iPhone 14 Pro maintains consistently smooth frame rates in all of the games I tested. The A16 Bionic also excels at real-time video editing, including 4K ProRes footage. You can apply effects and edits while on the go, and the phone barely lags.
Though the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 has gotten closer to Apple — at least in terms of last year's Apple silicon — the Android competition has even more ground to cover now. I don't expect Google's second-generation Tensor to even come close to the A16 Bionic, but Google hasn't set out to win the performance crown. Tensor is the AI smarts leader, so it'll be interesting to see how the iPhone 14 Pro and Pixel 7 Pro fare in machine learning-focused applications.
I believe the A16 Bionic has more power than most people require, but
there's something incredibly satisfying about having more headroom than
you'll likely ever use. The iPhone 14 Pro gives me the same sense of
fulfilment.
If you want to see our complete results and how they
compare to other iPhones, check out our iPhone 14 benchmarks guide. In
fact, a teardown of the iPhone 14 Pro revealed memory and modem
upgrades.
One performance area that the iPhone 14 Pro doesn't excel in is storage capacity. The default is 128GB, doing up through 256GB and 512GB to 1TB if you spend extra. Considering how much space users need on their phones these days, especially when taking all those lovely high-res 48MP photos and 4K video, 128GB seems a bit stingy.
Plus the fact that many users appear to be speccing extra storage for their iPhone 14 Pros seems to suggest Apple could do with being more generous in future.
Battery life
The iPhone 13 Pro's battery life impressed me,
scoring 11 hours and 46 minutes in Technorizm battery life test. So
my expectations for the iPhone 14 Pro were high. So far, I have not been
disappointed.
However, the iPhone 14 Pro performed poorly in our
custom battery life test, in which we set a phone's display to 150 nits
and task the device to endlessly reload web pages over a cellular
connection. Here's what we discovered.
| iPhone 14 Pro | Galaxy S22 Plus | iPhone 13 Pro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Battery size | N/A | 4,500 mAh | 3,095 mAh |
| Battery life (Hrs:Mins) | 10:13 | 9:27 (Adaptive) / 10:26 (60Hz) | 12:18 |
| Charging | 20W | 45W | 20W |
| Recharge percentage (15 mins) | 30 | 37 | 25 |
| Recharge percentage (30 mins) | 57 | 70 | 53 |
Under the same conditions, the iPhone 14 Pro fell two hours short of the iPhone 13 Pro in our test. The battery capacity is unknown at this time, but Apple is said to have increased the size for the iPhone 14 Pro. The average we like to see is 10 hours, so the battery life here isn't bad, but it's not on the same level as last year — or on the same playing field as the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Anecdotally, I had no issues with the battery life of the iPhone 14 Pro. It lasted for hours and hours of photography, as well as many hours of idling and light use before I had to recharge it. That took two days, which is no small feat. iOS 16 could be interfering with our benchmark, so I'll retest it after Apple releases updates to address the update's battery life issues.
The main disappointment here is that Apple stuck with 20W wired charging for the iPhone 14 Pro, along with 15W MagSafe and 7.5W Qi. Apple claims a 50% charge in 30 minutes, but we'll put that to the test.
See how long all four new iPhones last on a charge in our iPhone 14 battery life tested roundup.
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