Apple iPhone 14 series: Your biggest questions answered - Mint Lounge

The particulate has settled connected Apple’s telephone launches for the twelvemonth and unless you are a keen Apple follower, the mishmash of models—a regular 14, a caller Plus, and 2 Pros—might beryllium somewhat acquainted yet confusing. Having enactment the lineup done its paces, we tackle the biggest questions astir the iPhone 14 family, to sift selling from world and assistance you fig retired which iPhone 14 is champion for you—and whether you should bargain 1 successful the archetypal place.

Is the iPhone 14 overmuch of an upgrade?

On the surface, the iPhone 14 ( ₹79,900) feels a just spot of an aged wine-old vessel situation, what with the aforesaid 6.1-inch 60Hz OLED screen, aforesaid show notch and diagonal rear camera layout, and aforesaid level aluminium sides and solid backmost that consciousness indistinguishable successful the manus from the iPhone 13. Under the hood, the differences are again marginal—the iPhone 14 ships with the aforesaid A15 Bionic chip, with 1 further graphics core, and 6GB of representation that the higher-end iPhone 13 Pro utilised, which means gaming show volition beryllium somewhat amended than the 13, astir imperceptibly truthful for astir titles. Battery gains excessively are marginal astatine best.

What’s caller is the marquee Crash Detection exigency dialling you anticipation you volition ne'er person to use. The large improvements, though, are successful the cameras. The main 12-megapixel camera sensor is physically bigger, with claimed 49% amended light-gathering capabilities that payment further from entree to the caller image-processing pipeline called Photonic Engine. Photos successful borderline scenarios successful debased airy look to payment but astir daytime shots are hard to archer isolated from the iPhone 13. Selfies spot an betterment arsenic well, with a caller 12-megapixel beforehand camera with amended low-light show and autofocus. In addition, the iPhone 14 besides gets the caller imaging perks it shares with the 14 Pro series, specified arsenic a bumped-up-to-4K Cinematic mode (portrait mode for video, up from 1080p past year) and a caller Action video mode that lets you seizure super-stabilised videos successful agleam airy but struggles successful little than optimum lighting.

So, who’s the iPhone 14 truly for?

Clearly, anyone with an iPhone 13 with its A15 Bionic needn’t apply—last year’s spot has capable show headroom to guarantee astir users won’t announcement immoderate shortcomings for years to come; it helps that the iPhone 13 itself tin beryllium had for important discounts successful online sales. If you are upgrading from the iPhone 12 and prior, you volition spot large capable gains successful artillery and camera.

What astir the iPhone 14 Plus?

The iPhone 14 Plus ( ₹89,900) is technically the newest introduction to this year’s lineup, successful that it fits an iPhone 14’s psyche into a assemblage that’s the aforesaid size arsenic the iPhone 14 Pro Max, lone overmuch lighter—203g, compared to the Pro Max’s 240g and the Pro’s 206g, courtesy the value savings from the aluminium framework and 1 camera less. Everything you person work astir the iPhone 14 applies, with the other ₹10,000 getting you a bigger show and battery. The bigger 6.7-inch, 2,778x1,284-pixel OLED surface is agleam and beautifully tuned and the other existent property is simply a joyousness portion watching HDR contented connected OTT services. It’s inactive a 60Hz panel, truthful there’s nary of that 120Hz ProMotion slickness that the Pros and respective different Androids astatine this terms constituent enjoy.

The other abstraction affords the iPhone 14 Plus a bigger battery, which makes it a shadiness amended than the iPhone 14 Pro Max, easy lasting implicit a time of dense usage oregon astir 2 successful mean use. Fast charging is inactive constricted to 20W, dilatory by today’s standards. With the terms quality (in India) betwixt the Plus and the Pro acold exceeding the $100 (around ₹8,200) quality stateside, the Plus makes a beardown lawsuit for a big-screen iPhone, yet its pricing puts it successful the cross-hairs of premium Android flagships that battalion successful a batch more—zoom cameras, accelerated charging speeds and precocious refresh complaint displays—for the aforesaid price.

What does splurging connected the iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max get you?

While the regular iPhone 14s stock the improved autofocus cameras, enactment modes and clang detection capabilities with the pricier Pros, the Pro lineup ( ₹1,29,900/ ₹1,39,900 for the 6.1-inch Pro/6.7-inch Pro Max) differentiates itself successful 3 large ways…aside from the 2,000-nits highest outdoor brightness, smoother ProMotion 120Hz refresh complaint displays that person traditionally been exclusive to the Pros. The archetypal is the astir disposable change—an interactive notch Apple calls “Dynamic Island”, which allows enactment and souped up notifications astir akin to a multi-tasking bar. The Pros are besides the archetypal iPhones to get a long-overdue always-on display, positive a bump up to a 48- megapixel main camera.

Is the Dynamic Island a enactment instrumentality oregon is it truly useful?

Many had hoped Apple would bash distant with the notch successful the iPhone 14 bid but the Dynamic Island is Apple doubling down connected the notch, lone this clip successful an interactive, pill-shaped avatar. Say, you are connected a call, moving a timer, listening to euphony (or immoderate different persistent activity) and you spell to the location screen, the Dynamic Island expands the pill-shaped cutout connected the apical of the surface with a small icon to amusement that you are inactive connected the call, oregon the timer is counting down, oregon a opus is inactive playing. Tapping these icons opens the app, portion agelong pressing opens an overlaid widget to alteration tracks, intermission the timer—not lone are you interacting with the Dynamic Island, you are astir utilizing it similar a persistent 2nd show to multi-task betwixt unfastened apps.

At different times, the Dynamic Island expands to amusement you erstwhile your AirPods are connected, oregon if your wireless blistery spot is active. Most of the usage cases astir Dynamic Island initially came from archetypal enactment apps but astatine the clip of writing, Apple has released the iOS 16.1 update, which brings successful enactment for Live Activities, truthful that much apps tin fto you way sports scores oregon spot your taxi thrust accomplishment updates from Uber straight connected the Dynamic Island.  Full marks to Apple connected making bundle and an different boring camera cutout interact this fluidly with each other. The imaginable to interact with notifications and Live Activities without having to driblet into an app is appealing, adjacent arsenic app developers and Apple springiness the small pill much intent than it delivers today.

Androids person had always-on displays for years. Is Apple’s AOD that overmuch better?

Of course, Apple’s always-on show had to beryllium different, coming years aft the likes of Android. Instead of switching disconnected wholly and lone utilizing icons to bespeak unread notifications, Apple uses a operation of the caller LTPO show (which drops surface refresh rates down to 1Hz) and dimming the show truthful that your lockscreen wallpaper and widgets are inactive glanceable, successful afloat colour nary less, overmuch similar the AOD connected the Apple Watch. It’s a somewhat anxiety-inducing attack since, for the archetypal fewer days, 1 perpetually gets the feeling that the surface has brightened due to the fact that of an incoming notification, à la erstwhile iPhones—at slightest the always-on show turns disconnected erstwhile the telephone is placed successful a pocket, erstwhile debased powerfulness oregon Sleep mode is progressive oregon erstwhile a connected Apple Watch moves distant a definite distance.

Once you shingle disconnected the feeling of perpetually having to cheque for caller notifications, it’s a genuinely utile summation that unsurprisingly impacts artillery life, peculiarly connected the 14 Pro—anywhere betwixt 5-10% anecdotally, depending connected progressive widgets and ambient brightness levels.

Do the Pro/Pro Max’s camera improvements warrant an upgrade?

The always-on show and Dynamic Island are the astir disposable signs you are rocking a caller Pro iPhone but the astir meaningful upgrades—the crushed you should see a 14 Pro implicit a 14 oregon adjacent a 13 Pro—are connected the main camera sensor. The caller 48-megapixel sensor allows Apple to usage pixel-binning to clump 4 pixels arsenic one, allowing each quad-pixel to cod much airy and amended representation quality. Pro users astatine whom the Pro lineup is targeted tin besides power to the ProRAW mode to seizure afloat 48-megapixel shots for fine-grained power successful station processing, but the monolithic files it yields volition beryllium little absorbing for the mean user.

In existent satellite terms, photographs taken connected the Pro Max packed successful earthy colours and affluent detail, and tricky exposures were handled adeptly. Detail levels and colour reproduction successful debased airy benefited arsenic well. The caller Photonic Engine, which takes aggregate captures with each representation to amended wide textures, colours and item levels, some successful agleam and dimly lit conditions, results successful acold much information-rich exposures that the representation awesome processor tin whittle down into the last 12-megapixel images—images that are acold sharper adjacent erstwhile pitted against the fantabulous iPhone 13 Pro. Interestingly, compared to the erstwhile generation, adjacent the caller 3x telephoto produces little sound and much detail, and Apple offers a caller 2x optical magnification by cropping the centre of the 48-megapixel sensor, which works truly good for representation shots.  Even the ultra-wide is sharper astir the edges. Videos are, arsenic 1 has travel to expect from an iPhone, class-leading and the caller enactment mode and Cinematic Mode connection added versatility to trained hands that would beryllium capable to warrant penning the asking terms of the iPhone 14 Pros arsenic a concern expense.

Come to deliberation of it, a batch of the improvements this twelvemonth astir warrant the “Pro” naming—while astir radical tin get amended images and video, it’s the pros who tin eke retired the champion show from these highly analyzable shooters.

Tushar Kanwar, a tech columnist and commentator, tweets astatine @2shar.

Also read: Apple iPhone 14 Pro review: Is the caller show a ‘dynamic’ caller step?