If there’s one factor the iPhone 14 Professional has to battle towards, it’s boredom. Boredom with the annual improve cycle, boredom with the shortage of radical updates. And tedium with Apple telephones being so persistently good yr after yr.
Alas, in case you’re determined to listen to that Apple has in some way tousled and forgotten what makes a smartphone nice, I’m afraid you’re going to be upset. The iPhone 14 Professional is all these issues talked about above after which some. It’s barely higher than the iPhone 13 Professional (£949) in all of the vital methods: it’s sooner, lasts longer and captures superior pictures and video than final yr’s cellphone.
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Apple iPhone 14 Professional overview: What it’s essential know
With all of these bins ticked, you’d have forgiven Apple for stopping proper there, pushing the costs up a contact and shifting on. In some methods, it appears to be like like Apple has accomplished simply that.
The iPhone 14 Professional is identical measurement and form as final yr’s cellphone, with a 6.1in Tremendous Retina XDR OLED show and a near-identical feel and appear. The digital camera bump is bigger, which suggests instances for the iPhone 13 Professional received’t match however, in any other case, there’s nothing new right here.
Nonetheless, the iPhone 14 Professional does arrive with a few new options that set it aside from latest fashions they usually’re fairly large ones. The Dynamic Island – probably the “most Apple” identify for a characteristic I believe I’ve ever seen – sees the much-maligned selfie notch shrunk in form and built-in into the notification system (extra on that later).
Apple’s At all times-On show, in the meantime, takes a characteristic a lot beloved of Android smartphone homeowners and makes it even higher, permitting customers to not solely show vital information on the lock display in standby but in addition – because of new show tech – pictures or background wallpapers.
And, whereas not apparent, the iPhone 14 Professional additionally presents an entire host of digital camera enhancements. There’s a 65% bigger, 48MP decision sensor for the principle digital camera. The ultrawide sensor is twice as massive, too, and it additionally has a wider aperture to permit extra gentle in. The selfie digital camera on the entrance now has autofocus and a brighter aperture as properly.
Enhancements to computational images imply the processing of low-light photos is best, whereas the iPhone 14 Professional positive aspects a model new method of taking pictures. Motion Mode, as Apple calls it, makes an attempt to simulate the graceful, shake-free video recording doable with one of the best motion cameras.
Different upgrades embrace the broadly anticipated transfer to the 4nm A16 Bionic chipset, automobile crash detection and a brand new satellite tv for pc emergency SOS system (though that is solely accessible within the US and Canada initially).
What Apple hasn’t accomplished this yr – once more – is introduce USB-C charging, with the iPhone 14 Professional nonetheless that includes a Lightning connector on its backside edge. The much-rumoured Contact ID sensor hasn’t materialised, both, whereas in Europe and the UK we nonetheless get a SIM tray. Solely US customers are shedding that this yr.
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Apple iPhone 14 Professional overview: Worth and competitors
On paper, then, the iPhone 14 Professional presents a reasonably vital variety of upgrades this yr. Sadly, Apple has additionally bumped up the value, with the 128GB iPhone 14 Professional costing £1,099 – that’s £150 costlier than the bottom mannequin was final yr. The 256GB 14 Professional prices £1,209, the 512GB mannequin is £1,429 and the one with 1TB storage is a slightly daft £1,649.
Even within the rarefied environment of the premium smartphone market, this can be a LOT of cash for a handset with a 6.1in display. It’s solely £50 lower than the Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely (£1,149), which has an even bigger 6.8in show, an extended 10x telephoto zoom and bundled S Pen stylus.
It’s about the identical value because the Oppo Discover X5 Professional (£1,049), too, which additionally has a bigger show (6.7in) and comes with an unique triple digital camera setup. The primary 50MP digital camera module has twin sensor/lens shift OIS to iron out hand shake, whereas the ultrawide digital camera has an unusually excessive decision, matching the 50MP decision of the principle digital camera.
And it’s truly costlier than Samsung’s entry-level clamshell folding cellphone, the Galaxy Z Flip4 (£999). In different phrases, there are many extra engaging options at across the identical value. If you happen to’re keen to make the transfer to Android, that’s.
Apple iPhone 14 Professional overview: Design and options
Bodily, there’s nothing notably outstanding in regards to the iPhone 14 Professional, however it will be churlish to criticise an excessive amount of. The iPhone 13 Professional was a good-looking factor and though we’re extra acquainted with it, this yr my opinion hasn’t modified.
All the important design particulars stay the identical. The flat-edged chrome steel band wrapping across the circumference remains to be in place as is the finely floor matte glass on the rear and the tremendous robust “Ceramic Defend” glass on the entrance. I can vouch for this, too, since regardless of utilizing an iPhone 13 Professional for a yr now with out a display protector, there’s not a single scratch to be seen on the entrance glass.
The digital camera bump is fractionally bigger and taller than earlier than, though that doesn’t have a cloth impression on usability. You’ll nonetheless want to purchase a case to suit, in any other case, it’s going to teeter from side to side while you place it on a flat floor. It’s barely taller (by 0.8mm) and a tiny bit thicker, too (by 0.2mm) and the cellphone is, because it was beforehand, IP68 rated, which suggests on this case that it may be submerged in as much as six metres of water for as much as half-hour.
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Apple iPhone 14 Professional overview: Dynamic Island and At all times-On show
In fact, the massive new factor this yr is that the outdated bathtub notch has been eliminated and changed by two, extra space-efficient cutouts: one for the infrared projector and digital camera and the opposite for the brand new selfie digital camera. The 14 Professional’s display surrounds them above, beneath and in-between.
That is Apple’s notorious “Dynamic Island”, so known as as a result of Apple has built-in the cutouts into a brand new notification and standing system. It’s an ingenious concept, too. As an alternative of easy lifeless area, the world round and between the cameras expands and contracts to replicate every little thing from music and timers, to notifications and even instructions from Apple Maps.
It’s interactive – you’ll be able to faucet the Island to entry the app in query or lengthy press to get a preview and even some fundamental controls – and it’s additionally open to third-party builders, which suggests it’s not solely core Apple apps which have entry to it. Cue up a monitor on Spotify and also you’ll see a tiny thumbnail of what’s presently enjoying to the left, together with a tiny animated graphic EQ to the appropriate. Lengthy press that and a bigger field pops up with a choice of controls, permitting fast entry to skip, play and pause buttons. You possibly can even scrub forwards and backwards on the timeline and ship audio to a HomePod or Apple TV.
It’s a small factor, fairly actually, nevertheless it quickly feels completely pure in day-to-day use and though it doesn’t have a big impact on usability, there’s a palpable sense of enjoyment the primary few occasions you see it in motion.
Apple’s At all times-On show is an excellent greater deal. Enabled by the brand new ProMotion adaptive refresh know-how constructed into the display, it may redraw what’s on-screen at a fee of 1Hz (one refresh per second), thus preserving energy necessities low and minimising the impression on battery life. And, in typical Apple vogue, it goes a number of steps additional than what you’ll see on rival Android handsets.
Not solely can it show the time, date and notifications so you’ll be able to maintain updated with out having to choose up your cellphone and unlock it as steadily as you do now, however it may additionally present a far richer palette of data. This consists of widgets for climate and your calendar, plus playing cards for background duties like timers and music.
Greater than that, although, it may even show wallpaper or pictures out of your library in full display and it’ll dim and brighten relying on the ambient gentle, preserving it simply shiny sufficient to be seen.
These aren’t, after all, the one modern new options coming to the iPhone 14 Professional. There’s additionally crash detection – the cellphone will use its sensors to detect in case you’ve been in a automobile crash, routinely name emergency providers and even play a recorded message to the operator for you in case you’re unresponsive – and one thing known as Emergency SOS by way of satellite tv for pc. The latter is just accessible within the US and Canada at launch however the concept is easy sufficient: the cellphone is ready to ship very quick SOS emergency messages by way of satellite tv for pc in case you get in hassle while you’re out of mobile contact. Alas, there is no phrase but on when, or whether or not, this characteristic will come to different territories however do not count on it to be free in perpetuity. Although there might be no price related to the service initially within the US, Apple plans to cost for it after that.
Apple iPhone 14 Professional overview: Show
Given how a lot work will need to have gone into the Dynamic Island and At all times-On show, you might need forgiven Apple for leaving the show enhancements at that. However that isn’t the case right here, with Apple beefing up HDR courtesy of elevated most brightness.
You might argue {that a} peak HDR brightness of 1,300cd/m2 was adequate however the brand new show can now attain a claimed 1,600cd/m2 in video playback. For the primary time, it may additionally blast previous that in regular use and go as excessive as 2,000cd/m2 while you’re utilizing the cellphone in actually shiny ambient circumstances.
In testing, I used to be in a position to hit these figures and a bit extra, recording as much as 1,629cd/m2 when viewing HDR video and a positively blinding 2,272cd/m2 most general. It must be famous that, simply as with HDR video playback, solely a part of the display will ever output at these ranges; in case you’re displaying an internet web page with black textual content towards a principally white background, brightness might be capped at round 1,000cd/m2. Barely counterintuitively, meaning the brand new iPhone is at its most readable in tremendous shiny circumstances while you change it into darkish mode.
Elsewhere, the show is completely good. It’s color correct, with a powerful Delta E of 1 versus sRGB, and it appears to be like completely phenomenal when enjoying HDR video materials, whether or not that be dwelling films shot on the iPhone’s Dolby Imaginative and prescient rear cameras or Dolby Imaginative and prescient TV reveals on Disney Plus.
However then the iPhone 13 Professional’s show was already wonderful. I put the 13 Professional proper subsequent to the 14 Professional and performed again an episode of The Mandalorian on the identical time on each telephones and, whereas there was clearly a distinction, it wasn’t an evening and day profit.
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Apple iPhone 14 Professional overview: Cameras
The identical applies to the iPhone 14 Professional’s digital camera system. In each day taking pictures, I haven’t seen an enormous quantity of enchancment in picture high quality over the iPhone 13 Professional. It definitely appears to be like good on paper and it’s typically higher however this isn’t an enormous leap forwards.
It’s clear that loads has modified when it comes to componentry, nonetheless. The primary digital camera has had a large decision increase from 12MP to 48MP and the sensor can be 65% bigger than earlier than, though observe that the aperture is a barely dimmer f/1.8 in contrast with f/1.5 beforehand. The 12MP ultrawide digital camera’s sensor is nearly twice as large, too, and Apple’s TrueDepth selfie digital camera advantages from each autofocus and a brighter f/1.9 aperture.
The one digital camera module that hasn’t seen any type of enchancment is the 12MP 3x telephoto. It nonetheless has an aperture of f/2.8, an equal focal size of 77mm and a sensor measurement of 1/3.5in.
There are different adjustments, too. The sensor-shift optical picture stabilisation system is now into its second era. Apple says it has improved the best way it processes low- and mid-light photos, by making use of its “Deep Fusion” tech additional up the imaging pipeline.
There’s an entire raft of recent and upgraded options on the video entrance as properly. Final yr’s Cinematic mode is now not restricted to 1080p and might now be captured in 4K decision. There’s the all-new Motion Mode, too, which applies motion camera-like stabilisation to video footage (extra on this beneath).
One factor to get out of the best way early doorways is that the 48MP sensor doesn’t produce 48MP photos by default. As an alternative, like most different smartphones that make use of high-resolution sensors, Apple makes use of pixel binning, combining 4 pixels into one to scale back the decision to 12MP and, in concept, producing superior picture high quality. You possibly can choose for your self by the samples beneath however the distinction in most circumstances is minimal.
In good gentle, I seen the iPhone 14 Professional captured colors that appeared a contact much less yellow and extra impartial however element ranges in good gentle and low gentle gave the impression to be largely the identical.
In some photos, nonetheless, it did appear that the brand new “Photonic Engine” processing had made a distinction. Within the beneath picture of the church, for instance, the iPhone 14 Professional has way more element within the grass within the foreground.
You see the most important distinction while you seize your photos in ProRAW format. To do that, it’s essential allow the characteristic within the digital camera’s settings menu, then faucet the RAW toggle button within the digital camera app earlier than taking {a photograph}. On this mode, the digital camera captures full-res 48MP photos and the distinction intimately seize is solely beautiful – simply have a look at the close-up comparisons beneath – the ProRAW picture, processed in Photoshop, has an enormous quantity extra high-quality element than the 12MP picture shot in default mode.
Even after resizing the 48MP picture right down to 12MP there’s nonetheless an enormous quantity extra element within the ProRAW picture. The one unfavourable is that the pictures do occupy far more area in your iPhone’s storage – at round 73MB per {photograph} in ProRAW versus a mere 1.4MB – and also you’ll solely get probably the most out of them in case you course of them your self fastidiously however in case you don’t thoughts doing that, then I can’t think about taking pictures in some other method on the iPhone 14 Professional.
The ultrawide digital camera reveals barely much less of a dramatic enchancment however there it’s higher, particularly in low gentle the place it captures barely crisper, cleaner and fewer noisy photos.
It’s the brand new selfie digital camera that reveals the least profit, nonetheless, although the flexibility to autofocus ought to enhance the ratio of hits to misses over time.
The iPhone continues to be one of the best smartphone round for video seize as properly. There’s no 8K seize – that’s not notably helpful for the overwhelming majority of customers, anyway – however the brand new Motion Mode is genuinely spectacular. I in contrast it instantly towards a GoPro Hero10 Black filming whereas I used to be strolling and operating, with footage trying simply as {smooth} as on the devoted motion digital camera.
This doesn’t flip your iPhone into an motion digital camera, after all (it’s not robust sufficient for that) and the GoPro can ship its ultra-smooth video on the a lot increased decision of 5.3K 60fps whereas the iPhone 14 Professional is capped at 2.8K 60fps. Nonetheless, it’s a powerful feat nonetheless and the truth that it information in Dolby Imaginative and prescient HDR means so long as it’s considered on an appropriate display, your video will look completely beautiful.
Apple iPhone 14 Professional overview: Efficiency
The iPhone 14 Professional comes, as you’d count on, with a brand new Apple chipset inside and this – the A16 Bionic – delivers efficiency positive aspects which can be exactly in keeping with earlier iPhone iterations. It’s a hexa-core processor with a pair of efficiency cores operating at 3.5GHz and 4 effectivity cores operating at as much as 2GHz and is constructed on a 4nm fabrication course of.
Apple says the A16 Bionic additionally brings 50% extra reminiscence bandwidth than the A15 Bionic, which supposedly helps with GPU efficiency, whereas a revamped ISP (picture sign processor) allows improved digital camera efficiency (see above).
Within the varied benchmarking instruments we use, the A16 Bionic delivers higher outcomes throughout the board however there’s nothing out of the odd right here. Final yr’s A15 Bionic delivered related enhancements in each GPU and CPU-related duties, as did the A14 Bionic earlier than that.
What’s maybe extra fascinating is that Snapdragon-based smartphones are lastly catching up relating to GPU efficiency. If not CPU speeds, the place – barely embarrassingly – the iPhone 12 Professional remains to be sooner than the quickest Android has to supply. That is presumably why Apple isn’t too nervous about leaving the non-Professional iPhone 14 on the A15 Bionic this yr – it’s nonetheless completely quick for most individuals.
Battery life hasn’t improved, per se, nevertheless it hasn’t no less than received worse. In our video take a look at, which we run with the cellphone in flight mode and the display set to a brightness degree of 170cd/m2, it lasted a decent 20hrs 40mins. Give or take a minute, this is identical because the iPhone 13 Professional final yr.
The At all times on Show doesn’t seem to have an effect on real-world battery life, both. I haven’t admittedly been utilizing the cellphone very lengthy however preliminary impressions point out that it’ll simply final a day and extra with reasonable use.
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Apple iPhone 14 Professional overview: Verdict
No two methods about it, the Apple iPhone 14 Professional is a powerful smartphone. By way of its digital camera, efficiency and options it’s a greater cellphone than final yr’s iPhone 13 Professional (£949) and it doesn’t get something badly unsuitable both, besides maybe the truth that it’s nonetheless caught with Lightning connectivity.
The worth has gone up, which you’d count on within the present local weather, however not by swingeing ranges, and Apple has launched a handful of pretty vital usability and security enhancements together with Dynamic Island, the At all times-On show, crash detection and SOS by way of satellite tv for pc (though solely within the US and Canada proper now).
In some ways, this makes it the very epitome of an iterative Apple iPhone launch. It’s boring, sure, and costly after all however the iPhone 14 Professional is, inevitably, one of the best iPhone Apple has launched thus far.
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