Apple iPhone 14 Pro – 200 Hours Later: The Right Choice?
Andrew here – hope you’re well! With each generational iPhone release and well over 1 billion iPhone owners globally, we’re coming to expect more than just a camera bump from Apple and the iPhone 14 Pro is one of the more Innovative iterations in recent years but is the iPhone 14 Pro the right choice I didn’t want to rush this review out because I wanted to distance myself away from all the hype surrounding the phone and there’s a lot of hype so here is my honest review on the new iPhone 14 Pro after spending over 200 hours
with it since launch and I want to share my five or ten cents here on the dynamic Island the display the performance because there are some issues here that I feel aren’t talked about enough and I’ll also be comparing the 14 to the 12 and 13 Pro so as usual let’s start with the negatives you should carefully consider before you buy the first negative has to be the battery life for me personally anyway if you’re coming from the iPhone 13 be prepared for a slightly backward step with the iPhone 14 Pro’s battery on average I’m
getting 10 hours of use which is enough to last me the day but considering that the iPhone 13 Pro managed to juice out 12 hours of use on
the always on display which is quite interesting and I’ll dive into later in this review for most people who charge their phones at Night 10 hours of use is enough if you’re a power user or an avid traveler for example Apple you probably don’t want to leave the charger or power bank at home just yet also despite a number of rumors USBC is nowhere to be seen on the iPhone 14 which may bother some were stuck with a lightning port for another year but it’s likely at this point the iPhone 15 will launch with a
USB C Port considering the EU has voted in favor of forcing Consumer Electronic manufacturers like apple to adopt USBC in all mobile devices in case you’re wondering what the fuss is with USBC in the first place well the biggest reason for USBC is the fact that it’s a standardized cable that most people now have access to at home and it can power devices at up to 100 Watts with fast data transfer rates speaking of charging speeds we’re still maxed out at 20 watts wired charging with the iPhone 14 which is a tough pill to swallow
considering many Android phones are equipped with at least 45 Watts fast charging like the Samsung s22 heck even the OnePlus 10t even goes up to an insane 150 watts wire charging which gives you a full day’s charge within 10 minutes but no doubt Apple has their reasons for keeping the charging speed modest a big factor being battery health the lower wattage charging favors battery Health and Longevity over insanely fast charging which is arguably more important for your everyday user anyway the next negative and this will come down to Personal Taste is the iPhone’s aging design
it features the same squared flat Edge design seen in the previous two generations and it is aesthetically almost identical with the iPhone 13 here minus the colors of course I guess don’t fix what’s not broken right for iPhone 14s bought in the US though you’ll be missing the physical Sim slot which is currently an inconvenience for most especially if you’re traveling to third world countries where they heavily rely on the SIM card slot still The prominent visual design changes are seen in the colors the giant camera lenses and replacement of the notch with a pill
shape cut out and this is where things get much more interesting I’ve got here the new space black and the Deep Purple colors both absolutely beautiful in their own right the Deep Purple is similar to the new Macbook airs midnight color in that it’s not exactly purple rather a more darkish gray with a slight purple Hue that comes alive in certain lighting and angles it’s absolutely stunning in daylight the safe black is more of a space gray and graphite than it is a straight black but the railings and the camera cutout is definitely a nice
deep glossy black I’m still wishing a jet black or matte black iPhone is released to satisfy my minimalistic Cravings that’d be pretty nice let me know in the comments which color you think is best by the way it’s worth mentioning all iPhones are fitted with Apple’s ceramic Shield included ever since the iPhone 12 and if my iPhone 12 is anything to go by it’s going to stay scratch free with a little care despite even a few drops meanwhile sapphire crystal protects the camera lenses and this is a great time to take a look at the
absolutely stunning triple cameras here on the iPhone 14 Pros there’s a lot of goodies to go through here the camera is one of the largest changes this year aside from Dynamic Island which I’ll review in a moment we now finally have a new 48 megapixel camera at F 1.78 aperture new photonic engine features and a quad buyer color filter this translates into a powerful upgrade in the camera sensor where it’ll group every four pixels into a quad pixel to optimize what better light capture and Standard 12 megapixel photos when you turn on Pro raw mode
though this is where it gets really really fun you get access to the 48 megapixel sensor for much more detail ideal for cropping in or for prints the photo shot in Pro raw blew me away and it offers more realistic contrast especially in Shadows with less artifacts and artificial sharpening which is really really nice the ultra wide camera also features a new 12 megapixel true depth camera with auto focusing faster F 1.9 aperture for better low-light photos yes slow light photos is a focus this year they’re so much better even the selfie camera comes with
a brighter F 1.9 23 millimeter lens and supports autofocus with now Optical image stabilization something that Apple didn’t mention at the event but the various teardown videos have revealed later on there is so much to the camera this year and my inner photography hobbyist is super excited to shoot Pro Raw on my trips abroad so subscribe and stay tuned for a full review on the camera itself where I’ll take it for a full spin on an iPhone only photography and videography day before we move on one other design flaw with the camera I just have
to point out it sort of irks me to this day it’s the insanely large camera bump coming from an iPhone 12 Pro where it sits nice and flush on tables the 14 pro sits at an angle like a ramp and jiggles around as you can see here am I the only one who’s urged by this to get up to sit flush it will have to set camera facing up which defeats the purpose of the always on display and the new always on display may be a hit and miss for some but I’ve personally looked down
at it multiple times thinking to myself why is the display still on didn’t I just lock my phone it’s really that bright as much as it’s technically impressive I’m not sure yet if I’m the biggest fan and I’ll likely turn off the always-on display not only does it eat our battery life from what I’ve seen so far it’s just a big distraction having my phone screen win notifications on staring at me in the face while I’m working or socializing I mean I already have the Apple watch in that role you could also argue the point
of and always on display is to have most of the screen turned off so it doesn’t need our battery life that said it’s a nice feature to have but what’s more arguably impressive is the display itself the highest peak brightness of any smartphone with the increased brightness improving overall color rendering too with over 2000 nits of potential brightness this means we can now use our iPhones under direct sunlight even with a ton of glare and with sunglasses on pair this with this silky smooth adaptive promotion refresh rate of up to 120 hertz and you’ve got
a winner of a display the very noticeable difference on this display though is of course Dynamic Island it’s a great idea on paper but with personal use every day since launch over the last 200 hours or so I’m hesitant to say it’s the best change ever it has potential but it’s yet to realize in in Apple’s keynote it’s a feature that looks quite well Dynamic but from my personal use as an everyday user I don’t interact with Dynamic Island all that often if at all and that’s because I’ve seen a little third-party support for it
with the apps that I use currently when I do see it in use with face ID incoming phone calls and with Spotify they’re purely cosmetic then genuinely useful Integrations it also interferes with my beloved shortcut of tapping the top of the iPhone to instant scroll to the top of an app or web page I genuinely do hope that the usefulness of dynamic Island will change in future and it should when the live activities API rolls out later this year for developers to make use of but for now if you’re upgrading with the expectation that you
know dynamic Island will change your life it won’t not just yet anyway moving on to the performance the iPhone 14 Pros are the only Apple product to feature the new a16 bionic chip at the moment Apple claims it’s 40 faster than the competition but comparing it to the already powerful a15 chip shows a more interesting story running a geekbench 5 test here the iPhone 14 pro scored 1873 for this single core test compared to the iPhone 13 Pro that’s about 10 faster single and multi-core processing which is substantial enough but nothing too ground breaking so
in daily use the phone’s still as Snappy as ever as we’ve come to expect from an iPhone and it’s no different here the a16 chip is a winner in my eyes when it comes to sound though I haven’t seen many talk about the speakers on the iPhone 14 pro but it’s great thanks to the hybrid stereo speakers the phone now syncs the left and right orientation when held in landscape mode so I’ll switch the audio channels to match the way you’re holding it this means a great surround sound experience no matter the way you hold
it the audio is superbly balanced and the sound is Rich and deep and also loud enough to leave in your bathroom while you shower let’s be real guys before being there okay so is it all worth it and who is it for well all of these premium features will set you back 999 US Dollars and runs up to 1499 dollars for the one terabyte version this is the same pricing as the previous generation which is a win in this inflation world but by no means is it considered cheap especially when they’re almost on par with
MacBook Air pricing if you ask me though it’s a fair price to pay for one of the best phones if not the best phone in the market right now yes as a package it is rough around the edges more so than the hype reviews lead us to believe it’s left me wanting more particularly with Dynamic Island and its aging design all in all it’s an evolutionary phone not a revolutionary one and here is my recommendation if you’re tight on money or if you really want USBC prioritized battery life and charging speeds then you may want
to look elsewhere outside of Apple if you’re big on battery life take a look at the 13 Pro Max which Still Remains the Undisputed Battery King but on the other hand if you want the latest and greatest love mobile photography or just in need of an upgrade like I was from the 12 Pro this is the time to upgrade and the right choice for you with the 14 Pro’s incredible camera insane display and top performance if you made it to the end Drop The Code by comment triple camera and I’ll give it a like and
while you’re here I’ll share a video where I go over the 14 must change settings when you get the new iPhone 14 or update to iOS 16. there is a lot of changes and settings that you should set up when you update and migrate over to get the most out of your new phone so I’ll leave it right here for you to check out and as always guys thanks for watching and I’ll see you in the next video
