For the first time ever, Apple is selling two very large phones, the iPhone 14 Pro Max from 1450 euros and the iPhone 14 Plus for 1150 euros – available in stores since last Friday. And while there are obvious differences between the two devices, they might not be as big as you think. Here are six reasons why you should save $300 and choose the iPhone 14 Plus over the Pro Max.
Current best price: iPhone 14 Plus 128 GB Polarstern
The display is still excellent
Like the 6.1-inch iPhone 14 and 14 Pro, the iPhone 14 Plus and 14 Pro Max have an identical 6.7-inch screen size. However, they are not exactly the same. The iPhone 14 Pro Max offers some features not available on the Plus: Pro Motion with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz (vs. 60Hz) and an always-on display, at a refresh rate of 1Hz.
These are fantastic features that Pro Max users will love. However, if you’re coming from an iPhone 12 or XR, the Plus’s display will be just as good as your old phone, only bigger. You’ve lived without Pro Motion or Always-On for years, so you can’t know what you’re missing – and the iPhone 14 Plus’ display is still great.
The battery life is actually better
We all know that iPhones have fantastic battery life, but Apple claims that the iPhone 14 Plus has the best battery life of any iPhone. We’ll try it out for ourselves soon, but initial reviews confirm Apple’s claims. Testers report battery life of 20 to 21 hours in video tests, which is about an hour longer than the iPhone 14 Pro Max in similar tests.
In practice, you will probably be able to use the iPhone 14 Plus for several days. According to Allison Johnson of The Verge a day of moderate use with about two hours of screen time and a lot of time without Wi-Fi only drained the battery by about 25 percent. So if you’re upgrading from an iPhone 11 or even an iPhone 13, the improvement is staggering: you basically never have to worry about reaching for the charger again.
The cameras are still great
Aside from the Dynamic Island, the biggest difference between the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the 14 Plus is the rear camera. The iPhone 14 Pro Max has a 48MP main camera and a 12MP telephoto camera, neither of which are present on the 14 Plus. In fact, the iPhone 14 has an equivalent camera to the iPhone 13, with a 12MP wide-angle camera and the 12MP ultra-wide camera. That doesn’t mean you can’t take great photos with the Plus, though.
Apple
The processors are basically the same
Apple has split the A15 processor into two variants on the iPhone 13 – a quad-core GPU for the iPhone 13 and 13 Mini and a 5-core GPU variant for the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max – and is on the iPhone 14 gone even further. The iPhone 14 Pro models come with Apple’s latest A16 processor, while the iPhone 14 Plus comes with the high-end version of last year’s A15 processor.
While it may seem like a big change, it really isn’t. In our tests, the A16 was barely faster than the A15 – at least nothing that would be noticeable in everyday use. So if you buy an iPhone 14 Plus, it won’t feel any slower than an iPhone 14 Pro Max.
The dynamic island is not yet a must
The biggest innovation of the iPhone 14 Pro Max is not the hardware, but the software. The dynamic island – a feature housed in the new camera cutout – is by far the most interesting and intriguing feature of the new phone, and one that will feature prominently in iPhones for years to come.
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But she still leaves her potential untapped. Most of the time, the dynamic island is as lifeless as the notch, and even if iOS 16.1 is released with Live Activities, it will take time for developers to properly update their apps to take advantage of it. It’s going to be a few more months before that all happens, and until then we’ll all be looking at the iPhone 15 Plus, which will likely adopt the dynamic island as well.
It could save your life
Apple introduced two new iPhone features this year: accident detection and emergency SOS via satellite – the latter only starting in November, initially in the US and Canada. These two features could one day save your life – and they’re available on all iPhone 14 models, Pro or not.
Current best price: iPhone 14 Pro Max 256 GB in dark purple
Tag: iphone design, iphone 14, apple iphone, iphone release