The iPhone 14 series hit the ground running, particularly thanks to the impressive performance of the iPhone 14 Pro models. In our view, it was hard to find a competitor to the iPhone 14 Pro. But while the iPhone 14 Pro models came out of the gate swinging, the same couldn’t be said about the iPhone 14, which received marginal updates over its predecessor.
In our full iPhone 14 review, we’ll see if the marginal changes Apple made to the iPhone 14 make it a worthy successor to the iPhone 13 and if it justifies the higher price tag. But before we get into the iPhone 14 review, it is worth noting that it features a starting price of Rs 79,900 in India, putting it in premium smartphone territory. Before we dive into our review, the iPhone 14 has been available at discounted prices on Flipkart several times since its launch in the country.
Design and Build
First off is the design, which is pretty similar to that of its predecessor. The camera bump on the back is slightly larger than that on the iPhone 13. Additionally, the phone is slightly chunkier, weighing two grams more and measuring 0.15mm thicker than the iPhone 13. However, these are the only differences on the design front, and they aren’t even standout ones, making it extremely difficult to distinguish between the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 at a glance.
Apple continues to use top-notch build quality on the iPhone 14, opting for glass protection on the back and its Ceramic Shield covering the display on the front. The frame of the iPhone 14 is made of an aerospace-grade aluminium, although it isn’t quite as strong as the steel frame on the iPhone 14 Pro (Review). But this does tend to make the sides of the phone less sharp. And finally, there’s the IP68 rating for dust and water resistance, which adds to the durability of an already well-built smartphone. Unfortunately, there’s no fancy notch on the vanilla iPhone 14. This is pretty much the standard iPhone design formula.
The mute switch and volume buttons are located to the left of the device, while the power button sits on the right. Lastly, there’s a Lighting port at the bottom as Apple is yet to embrace the USB-C standard. Apple has also introduced a removeable back panel on the iPhone 14, which should allow for better repairability. The iPhone 14 also leads the pack in terms of audio quality with its dual speaker system that supports spatial audio and Dolby Atmos. The audio quality here is excellent with no distortion at higher volumes and a fair bit of bass.
Display
Not much has changed up front, there’s a 6.1-inch Retina XDR OLED display with a 1170 x 2532-pixel resolution and a pixel density of 460 ppi. Apple continues to reserve is ProMotion 120Hz display for its ‘Pro’ models, leaving the vanilla iPhone 14 with a standard 60Hz refresh rate. This certainly isn’t the best smartphone display for gaming, but it does get props for HDR10+ and Dolby Vision support. The panel also supports a wide P3 colour gamut that displays vibrant colours that makes content, text, and app icons look great.
Additionally, the panel also gets plenty bright and is easily visible under direct sunlight with a peak brightness of 1,200 nits and a maximum typical brightness of 800 nits. The vanilla iPhone 14 also features a traditional notch, losing out on Apple’s new Dynamic Island from the iPhone 14 Pro models. Another downside is the lack of the Always-on display, which debuted on the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max. The Always-on display has become a default feature on most Android flagships since the past couple of years and it is disappointing to see it not make it to the iPhone 14.
Performance
The story is pretty much the same on the performance front with the iPhone 14 sporting the same A15 Bionic chip from the iPhone 13 series. However, the A15 Bionic SoC used on the iPhone 14 is slightly more powerful than the one used on the iPhone 13 series, opting for five GPU cores instead of four. On the other hand, the processor is the same. While Apple has faced justifiable backlash for the move, the A15 Bionic remains a top-tier chipset. In terms of performance, you won’t notice a major difference while gaming or navigating through the device, which remain as smooth as ever.
From Call of Duty Mobile to Diablo Immortal, the iPhone 14 handled every title with little effort, allowing us to max out both frame rates and graphics. In Geekbench 5, the A15 managed a single-core score of 1,801 points and 4,692 points. So while the A15 Bionic keeps pace with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip for multitasking, it is still a fair bit ahead of Qualcomm in single-threaded performance. The iPhone 14 also managed an AnTuTu score of 8,32,092 points and a 3DMark Wild Life Extreme score of 2,891 points. Overall, there was little to complain about in terms of performance, as the A15 Bionic is still one of the fastest mobile chips out there.
Cameras
Not much has changed on the camera front, either, with the iPhone 14 opting for a 12 MP primary sensor with a bright f/1.5 aperture and larger 1.9µm pixels and OIS support. The main camera is paired with a 12 MP ultrawide sensor with an f/2.2 aperture and a 120-degree field of view. There are subtle improvements on the iPhone 14’s main camera, although the ultrawide shooter remains the same. However, both camera lenses benefit from Apple’s Photonic Engine. Although the biggest improvement comes on the front with the new 12 MP selfie camera, which is the same as the one used on the iPhone 14 Pro.
In daylight, the iPhone 14’s main camera captures images with excellent levels of detail. Additionally, photos look quite natural with accurate colour reproduction and no over sharpness. Dynamic range was good, while noise was never an issue. The ultrawide camera does a good job keeping pace with the main sensor, delivering colour consistency and near-identical dynamic range. There’s a good bit of detail, although I did find that the camera did face some detail issues with trees. As expected, images were also noticeably softer on the ultrawide camera.
In low light, Apple’s night mode kicks in automatically and the iPhone 14’s main camera is equally as impressive, capturing sharp and detailed images. The phone also kept noise in check and managed to reproduce just the right amount of detail in darker areas of the scene. You can manually increase the exposure between 2 and 5 seconds, depending on how much light is available in the scene, or let the iPhone do it for you automatically. In most instances, the ultrawide camera cannot keep pace with the main camera at night. While the ultrawide unit does captures bright images at night with a fair bit of detail, darker areas in the scene aren’t represented as well.
The iPhone 14 can take 4K video at 60fps, while Apple’s Cinematic Mode has support for 4K HDR video at 30fps and 24fps. Apple has also added a new Action Mode that can record video in HD or 2.8K resolution at up to 60fps. This mode offers extreme levels of stabilisation with Apple claiming that it is a substitute for a gimbal. I recorded a video running with this mode off and turned on and the difference was night and day. The level of stabilisation this mode offers is excellent but whether it can replace a gimbal is anyone’s guess.
Additionally, Action Mode also requires a fair bit of light and is rather ineffective at night. Footage in Cinematic mode also looks great and adds that Hollywood movie effect. Additionally, standard video taken on the iPhone 14 is excellent as always with detailed and vibrant looking footage during the day and at night. The front camera on the iPhone 14 can also record 4K footage at up 60fps, although video quality isn’t as good as on the rear camera, particularly indoors.
The front camera on the iPhone 14 is the same as that on its Pro sibling and now supports Autofocus. Apple says the new TrueDepth camera’s faster aperture also helps capture better low-light selfies. Selfies captured in daylight have a fair bit of detail and look quite sharp with vivid colours. Contrast and dynamic range were quite noteworthy, while noise was handled very well. Portrait selfies look good with natural skin tones thanks to accurate edge detection and subject separation. The phase detection autofocus is yet another highlight of the iPhone 14. The upgrades to photo and video performance on the iPhone 14 are marginal but it is within those margins that the iPhone 14 does some of its best work.
Battery
Apple doesn’t disclose the battery capacity of the iPhone 14, although it is rumoured to be the same size as the battery on the iPhone 13. However, with every new iPhone, Apple continues to improve battery life, through software and chipset tweaks. And the iPhone 14 is no exception. During my time with the iPhone 14, I had zero complaints about the battery, with the handset delivering more than a day of battery life on a single charge under heavy usage. The lack of the always-on display is a blessing here as it helps improve battery life on the iPhone 14. While testing and daily driving the iPhone 14, I realised that battery life was slightly better than the iPhone 14 Pro.
Moreover, the iPhone 14 Plus is touted to deliver even better battery life than the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Don’t be fooled by its size, the iPhone 14 delivers some of the best battery life and can easily compete with Android flagships that sport significantly larger batteries. The one drawback on the battery front is that charging support doesn’t match the phone’s excellent battery life. The iPhone 14 only supports 25W charging and 15W wireless charging if you use a MagSafe-compatible wireless charger. Qi wireless charging is extremely slow at 7.5W. And considering there’s no adapter in the box, you’ll have to spend extra on a new charger, i.e., for unimpressive charging speeds.
Software
The iPhone 14 runs on iOS 16 out of the box with Apple’s class-leading software and security support, offering five years of each. Two of the biggest features on the iPhone 14 are car crash detection and satellite connectivity, although I’ve never found myself in a situation where I had to use any of the two features. iOS 16 also has a ton of cool features including editable and retrievable texts, live text in videos, and more. There’s a new lock screen that is easily customisable and the new app called Freestyle to pen down ideas.
iOS 16 also introduces Passkeys, a new Fitness app, and multi-stop directions in Maps. Face ID is as quick and snappy as ever. iOS 16 also has a new Focus mode. Moreover, iOS 16 brings tons of customisation to improve the user experience. iOS 16 is one of Apple’s biggest OS updates in a while. I still miss the always-on display feature and the added benefit of having the Dynamic Island, but there were no major complaints here. The overall software experience is still top-notch.
Verdict
When it comes to the iPhone 14 there’s not a lot that has changed from last year and some of the more critical aspects of the iPhone 13 (Review) are still very-much prevalent here. However, that isn’t to say that the iPhone 14 isn’t a good phone. In terms of performance, camera quality, viewing experience, build quality, software support, and battery life, the iPhone 14 is nearly perfect. In fact, the phone does very little wrong, ensuring that your experience is nothing short of premium.
If you are looking to make the switch the iOS, the iPhone 14 should be your default pick. On the flip side, if you are upgrading from an older iPhone, the ‘Pro’ models just have so much more to offer. The underlining criticism of both the iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 have been slower charging, 60Hz displays, and the lack of third telephoto lens. Those issues are still very-much present here. However, this time out, Apple left the same chip from the iPhone 13 series, a first since the inception of the iPhone.
On balance, the iPhone 14 is an excellent smartphone and is more-than deserving of the its ‘premium smartphone’ title. But the main drawback here is that it lacks edge. It is the same old boring iPhone with odd quality of life upgrades. Is that a good thing or bad? For someone looking for some edge in their devices, the OnePlus 11 5G, Xiaomi 13 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S23, Google Pixel 7 Pro, and Vivo X80 Pro are better options. But boring need not necessarily be bad and if you are looking for the safe bet, the iPhone 14 easily tops the list of premium phones I’d recommend.
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