‘Tis the season of iPhones and after having reviewed the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max last week, I was wondering how I’d experience the quintessential basic model — the iPhone 14. 

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At 6.1 inches, it’s perfectly compact and fairly lightweight. However, for someone who’s always admired Apple’s hardware more than any of its other features, it’s disappointing to not see design improvements.

Yes, the iPhone 14 is still an elegant, beautiful device, but it also feels like Apple’s just playing it safe. The vivid OLED display comes with up to 1,200 nits of brightness — more than sufficient for visibility outdoors — and is a treat to consume multimedia on. 

At 6.1 inches, it’s perfectly compact and fairly lightweight

At 6.1 inches, it’s perfectly compact and fairly lightweight

The vivid OLED display comes with up to 1,200 nits of brightness

The vivid OLED display comes with up to 1,200 nits of brightness

It’s disappointing to not see major design improvements

It’s disappointing to not see major design improvements

Camera 

The iPhone 14 has a new 12-megapixel main camera with a larger sensor and a new front TrueDepth camera. The improved depth perception between the subject in the foreground and a minimally blurred background makes for some nice portraits.

However, this is something that Apple has done fairly well even in the past, and other companies, too, do well now.

The iPhone 14 has a new 12-megapixel main camera

The iPhone 14 has a new 12-megapixel main camera

Photos taken outdoors at night were devoid of too much grain, probably because of the new Photonic Engine which drives low-light photography.

While overall, the photographs looked great, they are not stunningly different from what the iPhone 13 lineup is capable of. 

Here are some unedited photos taken with the iPhone 14.

Safety features

The iPhone is the cheapest phone with Crash Detection, a smartphone industry-first safety service. And, unlike other features that you might use more often, this is still a passive safety feature that you will find useful in the event of an emergency.

Apple also introduced an Emergency SOS function via satellite, which is completely unusable in India. 

Equipped with 6 GB RAM, there are no lags whatsoever and the model I reviewed comes with 1 TB storage. The iPhone has the same A15 Bionic chip as previous-gen iPhone 13 models but with a new 5-core GPU. On the AnTuTu benchmark, the iPhone 14 scores 8,50,910 points, falling a bit short of the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.

With a 3,279 mAh battery, this stayed on for more than a day only when I didn’t play too many games or videos on it. On the days that I did, I definitely had to plug it by night. 

Verdict

I racked my brains trying to answer who the ideal consumer for the new Apple iPhone 14 is. If you use an iPhone 11 or an earlier generation device, I can see how the iPhone 14 might be an upgrade.

But even with the slightly better battery life, new camera system, and Crash Detection, it still feels like a hard sell compared to the iPhone 13 lineup, which is available now at much better rates.

Price
  • ₹79,900 onwards
Pros
  • Compact form factor, decent battery life
Cons
  • Not enough value-packed upgrades
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