Apple iPhone 14 and 14 Plus review: Good phones, but are they worth buying?

Note: This feature was first published on 6 October 2022.

Names can create expectations. That's why people expect a MacBook Pro to be powerful and an iPad Air to be light. So when Apple sticks a bigger number on their iPhone, naturally, we expect it to be different and better. And I’m not entirely sure the new iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are different enough or any better than Apple’s current iPhone lineup. Let’s take a closer look and see if we can uncover the truth behind these phones.

The TLDR version:



These are great phones on their own, but consider the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max, especially now when you can still find them new.



Read on to find out why.

What’s new, what’s not

We know by now that the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus are very similar to last year’s iPhone 13 and they share a lot of components from other iPhones. Let’s break it down and see what’s really new.

• iPhone 14 Plus is a new size to non-Pro iPhone lineup
• A15 Bionic with 5 GPU cores
• Improved main camera from iPhone 13 Pro
• Improved TrueDepth camera with autofocus
• Photonic Engine
• Cinematic mode up to 4K/30fps
• Action mode
• Slightly larger batteries
• Emergency SOS via satellite
• Crash Detection
• New colours 

Maybe it’s good to also list down the things that aren’t new.

• Design is the same, body oh-so-slightly thicker
• Display unchanged, still 60Hz refresh rate
• Ultra wide camera is the same
• Still just 4K Dolby Vision HDR videos at up to 60fps

The one truly new thing in terms of design is the size of the iPhone 14 Plus. Previously, if you wanted a 6.7-inch phone from Apple, you’ll have to step up to a costlier “Pro” iPhone.  The upside to this move is that you now have a cheaper large phone from Apple. And because the non-Pro iPhones have aluminium bodies, the iPhone 14 Plus feels light. It’s even lighter than the smaller iPhone 14 Pro.

And as for features, the most notable new ones are Emergency SOS via satellite and Crash Detection. Very briefly, the first lets you send SOS messages via satellite if you don’t have a cellular or Wi-Fi connection. The second uses the phone’s highly sensitive accelerometer and other senses to detect if you have been in a serious car crash. And if you do, it can automatically contact emergency services and your emergency contacts. I don’t think anyone will say that these are not nice features to have.

What’s most disappointing is that the display – the thing on the phone that you interact with the most – didn’t receive any updates. Even if Apple wanted to keep the always-on display exclusive to the Pro iPhones, they could have thrown us a bone and included ProMotion displays for the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus. Because even though the iPhone 14 is supposed Apple’s more affordable phone, it’s priced like a high-end phone – and most phones in this price range have high refresh rate displays. If it's any consolation, this still is a great display that's very sharp and vibrant.

Camera performance

The camera configuration of iPhone 14 and 14 Plus are unchanged from the iPhone 13. You have a single front-facing TrueDepth camera on the display and a dual camera system in the back. The TrueDepth camera still shoots at 12 megapixels but it has a slightly faster lens (f/1.9 vs f/2.2) and it now supports Autofocus.

The big update is to the main camera on the back. It has the same main camera as last year’s iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max. This means a larger sensor and a faster lens that Apple says can let it capture up to 49% more light. The ultra wide camera is unchanged, which also means you still can take macro photos (that’s exclusive to the Pro iPhones). 

All cameras also benefit from Apple’s new mid to low-light image processing pipeline that Apple calls Photonic Engine. Essentially, Apple is taking its Deep Fusion process and applying it earlier in the imaging pipeline on uncompressed image data. By doing so, Apple claims it will improve low-light photography significantly. 

We already know last year’s iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max take great photos so let’s see if it’s any better this year with the Photonic Engine image processing technique.

In well-lit situations, the main camera takes good photos. They look sharp, there's lots of detail, and colours are vivid but natural-looking. In fact, if you compare it with the new 48-megapixel main camera of the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, there’s little difference – particularly in landscape photos. In more close-up shots, yes, there’s more detail from the larger 48-megapixel camera of the Pro iPhones, but you have to be pixel-peeping to notice the differences.

The differences are much more obvious with the ultra wide camera. Remember, the ultra wide camera on the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus are unchanged from the iPhone 13 while the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max received substantial upgrades to their ultra wide cameras. Photos from the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus’ ultra wide camera are noticeably fuzzier, especially at the sides and corners. Even so, they are still good enough to share on your phones and social media. 

Night mode on the main camera is good. Compared to the Pro iPhones, I think photos from the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus look a little more true-to-life, whereas the Pro iPhones seem to brighten the scene too aggressively. However, photos from the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus also have the tendency to look over-sharpened, particularly in low and mid-light situations. And nowhere does the ultra wide camera show its age more than when shooting in the dark. Even with Night mode, the photo below looks pretty grainy and noisy.

Video performance

As for video, no, there’s no 8K video recording here. Instead, the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus still shoot 4K video and in Dolby Vision HDR and at a maximum of 60fps. Videos have traditionally been one of the iPhone’s strongest suits and it’s no different this year. The iPhone 14 and 14 Plus take excellent videos that are sharp, vibrant, and the image stabilisation is pretty good. That said, lens flare continues to be an issue when shooting at strong light sources.

There are improvements in other areas. Cinematic mode now goes up to 4K and at up to 30fps. There’s also a 24fps mode for those who want a more cinematic look. The mode most people will be excited about is the new Action Mode, which is supposed to give you a stable and smooth video even if you move about a lot. While you can still shoot in ProRES or Dolby Vision HDR in this mode, you are, however, limited to 2.8K resolution and at 60fps. 2.8K is still plenty, and really, the only time you’ll notice the drop in resolution is if you are viewing the footage on a 4K screen. The reason it shoots at a lower resolution is because it is over-scanning and advanced roll correction to help keep footage level despite your motion. In other words, it’s cropping and correcting your footage.

Play

It works but with one serious caveat. As I detailed in my iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max review, Action Mode gives you noticeably more stable and smooth videos even if you are only walking up steps and panning around. The caveat is that it requires a lot of light to work. By default, the feature will only work outdoors. However, there’s a lot-light setting you can turn on to boost its low-light performance, but even then, you still a well-lit environment for it to work.

As you can see, even when I broke into a slow jog, the video remains quite well-controlled. It doesn’t completely eliminate motion but at least the footage is fairly smooth and, crucially, not jerky. Colours and sharpness remain quite good, though it seems a little less vibrant than shooting normally. And as I said, I didn’t really notice much loss in sharpness unless I was reviewing the footage on my 4K work screen.

A15 Bionic? Don't I know you from somewhere?

Apple didn’t give the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus it’s newest A16 Bionic chip. Instead, these phones are powered by last year’s A15 Bionic processor, specifically the version found in the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max which have five GPU cores. I’m not going to write too much about it and if you want to know more details, you can refer to my iPhone 13 review  from last year.

Granted, it’s a bit of an omission but the fact is the  A15 Bionic is still one of the fastest smartphone processors in the market. Apple said so themselves during the unveil that it is “faster than all the competition.” Now let’s look at the benchmark results and see if it is really still as cutting-edge as Apple claims it to be.

Geekbench 5

Geekbench CPU is a cross-platform processor benchmark that tests both single-core and multi-core performance with workloads that simulate real-world usage. Geekbench 5 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 1000, which is the score of an Intel Core i3-8100. As a result, Geekbench 5 scores are not comparable against those of Geekbench 4, whose baseline score is derived from an Intel Core i7-6600 processor.

No surprises here, the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus’ scores were identical to the iPhone 13 Pro Max and not that different from the iPhone 13, apart from the slightly higher multi-core scores. And if you compare it to the current crop of Android flagship phones, you can see why Apple didn’t see the need to give its basic iPhone a more powerful processor. Even against the fastest Android phone we’ve tested, the iPhone 14 had over 30% faster single-core performance and over 20% faster multi-core performance.

The iPhone 14 and 14 Plus were also put to the test in Geekbench’s Compute benchmark which measures GPU performance. 

The Compute scores are interesting because even though the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus have the same processor as the iPhone 13 Pro Max, the latter somehow managed scores that were around 14% better. However, the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus both held a nearly 13% advantage over the iPhone 13.

JetStream 2

JetStream 2 is a combination of a variety of JavaScript and Web Assembly benchmarks, including benchmarks that came before like SunSpider and Octane. It primarily tests for a system’s and browser’s ability in delivering a good web experience. It runs a total of 64 subtests, each weighted equally, with multiple iterations, and takes the geometric mean to compute the overall score.

Again, the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus recorded scores that were nearly identical to the iPhone 13 Pro Max and a little better than the iPhone 13. It’s fascinating how the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max have significantly better scores thanks to their new A16 Bionic chips. Also fascinating is just how much faster iPhones are compared to even the newest Android flagships. Even the best-performing Android phone only managed about 58% of the score of the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus.

3DMark Wild Life Unlimited

3DMark Wild Life is a new cross-platform GPU benchmark measures graphics performance on iOS, Android, and Windows devices. This means you can compare scores of devices regardless of platform. On iOS devices, it runs Metal; and on Android and Window devices, it runs Vulkan. This benchmark comes at a good time because prior 3DMark GPU benchmarks for mobile devices (like Slingshot and Ice Storm) are woefully old and use outdated graphics engines and rendering techniques. The benchmark is ran in Unlimited mode which renders the test offscreen and maximises the performance of the GPU.

The iPhone 14 and 14 Plus performed within expectations and recorded the same scores as an iPhone 13 Pro. And it is here that we can see the extra GPU core being beneficial because the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus’ scores were about 15% better than an iPhone 13. Also, if not for that extra GPU core, the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus would have been outclassed by Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 and Oppo Find X5 Pro.

Battery life

Our standard battery test for mobile phones has the following parameters:

• Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email

According to Apple, the new iPhone 14 Plus has the “best battery life ever” in an iPhone. But if you pore over the spec sheets and footnotes, you’ll find that it's actually true only for audio playback. If you are playing only music, the iPhone 14 Plus will last for up to 100 hours – 5 hours more than the iPhone 14 Pro Max. The situation is reversed for video playback because the iPhone 14 Pro Max lasts for up to 29 hours while the iPhone 14 Plus lasts for up to 26 hours. Let’s see the phones’ actual battery capacities before looking at the results.

The iPhone 14 Plus has a marginally larger battery than the iPhone 14 Pro Max and our results were equally close. The iPhone 14 Pro Max lasted just 14 minutes longer than the iPhone 14 Plus, which is actually only just 3% longer. The iPhone 14, on the other hand, lasted 21 minutes or 5% less than the iPhone 13. In the real world, both phones will easily get through an entire day of normal use. You’d have to try very hard to drain these devices in a single day.

What do these phones cost?

Before we discuss buying advice and closing thoughts, let’s look at the prices of these phones. Despite being the more affordable iPhone, prices of the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus start at well over a grand. But if it’s any consolation, Apple hasn’t raised the prices of the iPhone 14. If you want the larger the iPhone 14 Plus, you are looking at paying a S$200 premium over the iPhone 14.

And as you can see from the table below, for the same amount of storage, an iPhone 14 Pro would be S$350 more than an iPhone 14, while an iPhone 14 Pro Max is S$300 more than an iPhone 14 Plus. I think Apple has priced these phones very strategically. 

Buying advice

If you are coming from an iPhone 13, there’s absolutely no reason why you should upgrade to the iPhone 14. They are simply not different enough to justify the cost. But if you really want a new phone, then you should look to step up to an iPhone 14 Pro or Pro Max. The new always-on display and 48-megapixel main camera are more worthy of your money. Yes, they cost quite a bit more, but I guarantee you it’s worth it.

For everyone else with an older phone, I think they would be remiss not to at least consider an iPhone 13 Pro or Pro Max, especially while you can still find them brand new at third-party shops or online marketplaces – Apple no longer sells them. One of the main reasons is because their prices have come down significantly down to the point where they cost about the same as an iPhone 14 and 14 Plus.

And although the two have the same processor and main camera, the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max have the advantage of a high refresh rate display, a better ultra wide camera, a telephoto camera, and an arguably fancier stainless steel body. Of course, the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus counter with its new safety features (Emergency SOS via satellite and Crash Detection), better video modes, and by virtue of being the fresh new thing.

Final thoughts

If judged solely on its own, the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus are good phones. The problem, however, is that last year’s iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro were some of the best iPhones we’ve had. In my review last year, I called them peak iPhones. This means the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus has huge shoes to fill.

One suspects if Apple did this intentionally to create more separation between the Pro and regular iPhones, because the Pro iPhones got even more “Pro” this year with their new always-on display, Dynamic Island, A16 Bionic chip, and improved 48-megapixel main camera – all the things the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus did not get.

It’s a bit tragic because the iPhone 14 and 14 PLus are not bad phones at all. Build quality is great, their displays are nice to look at, performance is class-leading, and their cameras mostly take very pleasant photos. But they just don’t offer enough to differentiate themselves from last year’s iPhones. If anything, it just goes to show just how good the iPhone 13 series was.

You can find the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus from the Apple Online Store, Amazon, the Apple Flagship Store on Lazada, or the Apple Official Store on Shopee.

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