All posts

iPhone 14 Pro 1 Week Later: A User Review

17:34 video

The iPhone 14 Pro is iterative. If you don’t look closely, you might mistake it for a 13 Pro or even a 12 Pro. That’s Apple doing what it does best, and I mean it positively: the iPhone gets iteratively better each year (with the exception of the regular 14), and this year those changes add up to a lot. ESR sponsored this video.

Design

  • Color. I went with Space Black to get away from the trendy colors of the year (Deep Purple now, Sierra Blue last year, and Pacific Blue before that, which was a lot better than Sierra Blue). It’s super dark, like Darth Vader’s helmet or the old trash can Mac, and the stainless steel is gorgeous except for the fingerprints. It also goes with any case color.
  • Size. This is the 6.1-inch model. It’s slightly heavier and taller than last year’s, but the weight difference is negligible, and you do feel the big difference between the 14 Pro and the regular 14. The camera bump is slightly larger, though not super noticeable unless you hold them side by side.
  • No SIM slot in the U.S. You have to move to eSIM. My move with AT&T was pretty much flawless, though I’ve heard some stories online of it not going so well.

Performance and battery

The A16 is a six-core CPU, five-core GPU chip on a 4 nm process, about 10 to 15 percent faster than the A15, with 50 percent faster memory bandwidth. I can’t tell the difference, and no app runs exclusively on it, but it’s incredibly fast.

Battery is hard to test in the first few weeks: the phone indexes, downloads mail and background data and updates your iCloud photo library, and you use it a lot. In the last week, my battery life has been similar to my iPhone 13 Pro after about a year (with a battery health of about 93%), though the always-on display may be a factor. Apple says up to 23 hours of video playback. Fast charging goes up to 25 W on the 14 Pro and 27 W on the Pro Max, using Lightning and a 30 W adapter, but I prefer to charge magnetically.

ESR charging and cases

ESR sponsored this video, with 20% off these accessories using the links and codes in the description, or by searching “ESR HaloLock” on Amazon:

  • HaloLock 3-in-1 charger with CryoBoost: charges an iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at once, and actively cools the charger and the back of the iPhone, so the iPhone charges fully in about three hours while you watch videos, compared to about 7 hours on a MagSafe charger. It also has a night mode.
  • HaloLock Kickstand Wireless Power Banks (5,000 mAh or 10,000 mAh): charge wirelessly attached to the back of your iPhone or wired through USB-C, with an adjustable kickstand.
  • Krystec Clear Case for a protective case with a clear view.
  • Classic Kickstand Case with HaloLock: has the magnets for MagSafe accessories, and a built-in kickstand where the camera guard flips out.

Display

  • It reaches up to 1,600 nits for HDR and up to 2,000 nits outdoors. That works well when you pull your phone out in direct sunlight, but only briefly: the display heats up and dims within about two minutes or less, and after a couple of minutes I almost can’t see it. A case may contribute, but it’s still not great, though better than in the past.
  • Always-on display. A first for the iPhone: time, date, widgets and eventually live notifications show without the screen being fully on. I like that Apple put logic into it (for example, it adjusts so it doesn’t mess up skin tones in a photo wallpaper), and it keeps music progress or Apple Maps directions visible (you tap to wake it for controls). But since I haven’t had this for the last 15 years, it messes with me thinking the phone is always on. I find it more distracting than useful and may turn it off; I’ll give it a couple more weeks.

Dynamic Island

I was excited when Apple turned something that should have been a negative into something fun and new. It expands and contracts for Face ID, Apple Pay, Maps and music. With maps and music, it splits into two apps; tapping and holding gives a small widget, while tapping takes you to the app. I’d prefer that swapped, as Nilay Patel mentioned on a podcast: one tap for the widget, a long press for the app. It will change as third-party apps integrate and Apple iterates.

My issues: unlike the notch, which faded away over time, the Island is always there because of the lit-up pixels around it, so I’m more aware of it. In some apps it’s fine, but in games, such as a first-person shooter, it blocks a lot of space and is kind of annoying. It’s delightful when it pops up to scan your face, and it almost feels alive, but it’s also kind of annoying.

Cameras

  • The main camera has a new 48-megapixel sensor, four times the size of the previous 12-megapixel sensors. Apple dropped a lot of jargon (Deep Fusion, the Photonic Engine, pixel binning), but what matters is that photos look good. I’m not a pro photographer, and in point-and-shoot use the photos aren’t much different from the 13 Pro’s: slightly different colors and contrast, both good.
  • 2x mode crops into the main 48 MP sensor for what’s essentially optical zoom, a great way to frame shots without using the third camera, which has never been that great.
  • ProRAW on the 48 MP camera: in a tree photo, the regular photo makes the bark a slurry mess when you zoom in, while the ProRAW file has real detail.
  • Action mode crops in on the sensor for crazy stabilization; I ran on a trail with it and it’s unbelievable. I think people with pets and kids will use it a lot, and some may choose it over another action camera.
  • The front camera has autofocus for the first time and better quality overall.

Verdict

It’s easy to say this is the best iPhone Apple has made. It’s like compound interest: not a huge year-over-year upgrade from the 13 Pro, but drastic the further back you go, so if you’re on an iPhone 11 Pro or older, it’s a massive jump. Are there enough changes for you to jump from your current iPhone?

Some links in this post are affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. See my ethics statement.

Watch on YouTube

Keep reading

Related posts