iPhone 14 Reviews, Pros & Cons [Updated]

Here is another iPhone season. Rumors and predictions had directed us to the might be features of iPhone 14 lineup in past months. Besides a sleeker body design, "Dynamic Island" notch, a faster A16 Bionic chip, a sharper new main 48MP camera for Pro models, and 8K video recording ability, what we also learn now from news are the renounce of Mini models, purple color option, notch elimination, AOD feature, 120Hz promotion display, thicker camera bumps, etc.

Many iPhone 14 vs iPhone 13 tests have proved that iPhone 14 series deserve your waiting in terms of a price hike by $100. Should you wait for Apple’s iPhone 14, or stick to current models? To help you learn more about this series, we will list and review the new and important features from iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max one by one. Also, explanations about iPhone 14 pros and cons based on each feature are provided to help you make the final purchase decision.

Part 1. iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro & iPhone 14 Pro Max Features

1. "Dynamic Island" Notch

• One of the advantages of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
• iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will have the "Dynamic Island" notch design.
• iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will have a smaller notch design.

The iPhone 12 Pro models are planning to knock out the notch design in favor of a new design. Rumors indicate that iPhone Pro models will adopt a combination of a circular hole-punch cutout for the camera paired with a pill-shaped cutout for key Face ID components. As for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, there will be a smaller notch design.

For years, both the phone users and phone makers have been thinking about the design of the notch or hole-punch, as the two features are considered to be "ugly". Since iPhone X launched in 2017, Apple has tried to hide the notch, however, now it embraces the feature and makes the notch feature wonderful.

The smaller, aesthetically pleasing pill-shaped notch called "Dynamic Island" is added in the latest iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max to make the notch, which usually goes to waste, useful. You can see a host of live activities, such as timers and music playback. If you tap and hold these real-time notifications and they will enlarge into a mini app.

2. The Upgraded Front-facing Camera with Auto-focus

• An iPhone 14’s advantage to selfies.

Apple iPhone 14’s front-facing camera is surely one of the biggest upgrades in years. Before iPhone auto-focus, selfie camera lenses can simply capture everything in the scene as sharply as possible. Now, the autofocus camera is able to pick out specific subjects in a frame to be the only focal point, resulting a better-quality image. That’s really a big bonus to selfies lovers and helps improve focus adjustments during video calls as well. The iPhone 14’s front camera is also expected to have a larger f/1.9 aperture that will let more lights to pass through the lens to reach the sensor for sharper, crisper photos and improved depth of field. Thanks to the new TrueDepth front camera with autofocus and a larger aperture, you can also snap and flip over your sharpest, most colorful close-ups and group shots. BTW, this pro feature is available on all iPhone 14 models.

3. An All-new Rear-facing Camera with 48MP Resolution and 8K Video Recording

• A pro feature to iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
• iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will keep the same set of rear cameras with wide and ultra-wide lenses of 12 megapixels each as iPhone 12 and iPhone 13.

Both iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone Pro Max are equipped with a triple-lens rear camera system with an upgraded 48-megapixel Wide lens and 12-megapixel Ultra Wide and Telephoto lenses. This significant improvement enables iPhone to take full 48-megapixel photos in situations with good lighting. Also, if the lighting is bad, the iPhone will use the pixel binning process to output 12-megapixels images that are with more details and less noises. Technically the pixel binning process is called ‘four cell merge output mode’ which lets merge data from multiple smaller pixels on the camera's image sensor into one ‘super-pixel’ for improved low-light sensitivity.

The improved rear-facing camera also make 8K video recording possible, while the current iPhone 13 can only capture 4K videos at up to 60fps. 8K video recording is really a future plan suitable for video viewing on Apple’s AR/VR headset that is expected to launch next year, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said. He also said that 8K video recording is probably only available on iPhone 14 Pro models, which is really a bad news to users of iPhone 14 entry-level models.

Despite the disadvantages of iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus in this situation, thicker camera bumps for iPhone 14 lineup could be a good move.

4. iPhone 14 Plus Replaces iPhone 14 Mini

• An advantage to people who love big screen.

Because of the lackluster sales, Apple decides to discontinue the iPhone mini series. In iPhone 14 lineup, you will see 6.1-inch iPhone 14, 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus, 6.1-inch iPhone 14 Pro and 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max.

5. iOS 16 – The Most Powerful Phone OS in the World

• Definitely one of iPhone 14’s advantages.
• Also many iPhone models can own it, including iPhone 13, 12, 11, etc.

All iPhone 14 models will be shipped with iOS 16 – the world's most powerful phone OS. Unveiled at Apple WWDC 2022, iOS 16 has got much attention due to the added features compared to iOS 15. Customizable lock screen, Live text, duplicate photos deletion, iCloud family photo sharing, scheduled emails, editable messages that have already been sent, Apple Pay Later, CarPlay, etc., will help beef up your iPhone 14 model to be more powerful that you can’t imagine.

6. A16 Bionic Chip

• A pro feature to iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, they will feature an A16 chip inside.
• iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will continue to use the A15 chip.

A16 chip will continue to use a 5-nanometer fabrication process as the 4nm process is not yet ready. A16 is claimed to deliver seismic performance and battery gains over the 2021 A15, with 42% and 35% faster CPU and GPU performance respectively, compared to its predecessor. But Apple leaker Ming-Chi Kuo suggested that the potential performance upgrades seen with A16 chip could be "limited", if it is true, that’s probably why vanilla iPhone 14 models still use A15 chip. Allegedly, the A15 chip still deliver reasonable ~10% performance and efficiency improvements over the A14 chip.

7. New Purple Color Option

• iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus come in Midnight, Starlight, Blue, Product Red and Purple colors.
• iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max come in Space Black, Silver, Gold, and Deep Purple colors.

Though lots of people make fun of Apple’s selling point using colors, more color options satisfy more tastes. So far, news shows iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will come in Midnight, Starlight, Blue, Product Red and Purple colors. For the higher-end iPhone 14 users, they may get Space Black, Silver, Gold, and Deep Purple colors.

As a tradition, Apple would like to add at least one color that’s unique to every iPhone release, such as purple for the iPhone 12 and deep green for the iPhone 13. Now, we see a new purple color for the iPhone 14 lineup.

8. Always-on Display

• Always-on display is limited to iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
• Only iPhone 14 Pro Max has 120Hz refresh rate.

Apple fans are expecting that all models of iPhone 14 series could offer ProMotion display with refresh rate up to 120Hz, but it looks like a dream. Apple leakers have made it clear that the 120Hz refresh rate will be a feature restricted to the iPhone 14 Pro models. Such bad news. From iOS 16, we have learnt that the Pro models will come with Always-on display (AOD) for lock screen to save battery. With this feature, the majority of your phone’s screen remains off, not using any power, while a small portion of the pixels light up to show you information.

9. Bigger Batteries

• iPhone 14 series will get bigger battery expect the Pro Max.
• iPhone 14: 3,279mAh (iPhone 13: 3240mAh).
• iPhone 14 Plus: 4,325 mAh.
• iPhone 14 Pro: 3,200 mAh (iPhone 13 Pro: 3240mAh).
• iPhone 14 Pro Max: 4,323 mAh (iPhone 13 Pro Max: 4352mAh).

Based on rumors, Apple could increase the size of the battery for iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, however, it will slightly decrease the size of battery for iPhone 14 Pro Max, compared with iPhone 13 Pro Max. The new rumored iPhone 14 Plus will also have a quite big battery in this generation, say 4,325 mAh.

The improved battery will help make the charging faster and also add additional time for tasks on iPhone 14. According to some tests, the iPhone 14 Pro models will reach a 50% charge in just 16 minutes, while iPhone 13 Pro needs nearly 30 minutes. A bigger battery also gives iPhone 14 and 14 Plus 20 hours and 26 hours usage time respectively, and 12 hours and 16 minutes usage time on iPhone 14 Pro.

10. 2TB Storage

• iPhone 14 Pro models exclusive feature.

As the number of videos and photos climbs, we need more storage space for sure. The crucial factor is that videos and photos’ quality are getting higher and higher, so Apple have to increase the storage space on iPhone. According to rumors, Apple would like to increase that even further to 2TB along with the iPhone 14 upgrade. As of now, we guess that iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus’s storage will start from 128 GB, and iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max’s will start from 256GB.

11. Tempting Price Compared to iPhone 13 Series

• Pay $100 more, get a more powerful iPhone 14 Pro model.

The iPhone 14 lineup will likely be priced very similar to the iPhone 13 series, deciding $799 as the starting price.

12. Others

• USB-C probably won’t been seen in iPhone 14 models.
• A new vapor chamber thermal system will be applied to help keep the iPhone cooler.
• Apple is expected to use Qualcomm's Snapdragon X65 chip, the first 10-gigabit 5G modem with faster connectivity speeds and connectivity improvements.
• New satellite-based emergency features are likely to be introduced to let users send texts in emergency situations and report accidents with no cellular coverage.
• iPhone 14 series come with car crash detection feature to detect car accidents.
• The iPhone 14 models may launch without a physical SIM slot, but with eSIM-only design.
• Water-proof.
• iPhone 14 Plus has a supersized Super Retina XDR display.
• Cinematic mode automatically shifts focus to the most important subject in a scene, just like filmmakers do. And now you can record in 4K at 24 fps — the same frame rate you see in the movies.
• Action mode help fix the shaky action shots when recording sports videos.

Part 2. Pros and Cons Table of iPhone 14 Lineup