Hands-on with the new iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, now with a new 48MP main camera

Like clockwork, we have two new “Pro” iPhones this year. Meet the new iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Visually, this year’s models highly resemble last year’s iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max. They have metal bodies with polished sides and glass backs. That’s not an entirely bad thing – these are still handsome phones – but I was kind of hoping for a new design. There is, however, a new colour and it’s called Deep Purple.

Though they may look like last year’s models, these new Pro iPhones pack a number of important new features. Screen size is unchanged – 6.1-inch for the Pro and 6.7-inch for the Pro Max – but it now has an “always-on” function and gets even brighter still (up to 2,000 nits outdoors). With an always-on display, the phone can now show widgets of information which can be handy especially if you just need to look up something real quick like the time, weather, or calendar information.

The notch is gone and in its place is what Apple calls the “Dynamic Island.” Essentially, Apple is doing some interesting things to the pill-shaped cutout that houses a smaller front-facing camera.

The space around it is animated so it looks as if the cutout changes shapes and sizes. And as it does, it’s being used to display things like notifications, shortcuts, and widgets. It looks like a very clever way of hiding the cutout so that it’s less obvious than the notch that we have become accustomed to on iPhones with FaceID. See how it works here, if the embed below doesn't show up:-

The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max also get an all-new chip called the A16 Bionic. It’s built on a 4nm process and has nearly 16 billion transistors. As usual, Apple is claiming class-leading performance and efficiency, which we have no reason to disbelieve given the stellar record of its A-series chips. 

However, it’s hard to test or say anything about the performance given the extremely limited time I had with the phone. It feels snappy, of course, but not any more so than my own iPhone 13 Pro. I’ll need more time with it to run detailed tests.

The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max also get new cameras. The big news here is the new 48-megapixel main wide camera. This new sensor is a whopping 65per cent bigger than the iPhone 13 Pro’s main wide camera. This main camera has second-generation sensor-shift image stabilisation and is paired with an f/1.75 lens. It also has a slightly different 24mm focal length (26mm in last year’s Pro iPhones). Another benefit of this higher-resolution sensor is that it lets users take true 12MP 2x zoom photos.

The ultra-wide camera has been improved too and now has a larger sensor, shaper lens, and more Focus Pixels. Apple says these updates will greatly improve the iPhone 14 Pro’s macrophotography capability. 

I took some quick snaps, and it did not disappoint. How much of it is because of the larger new sensor, the new brighter display, or simply because the venue was well-lit is hard to say, and I’ll need more time to take more shots to know.

With prices starting at S$1,649 and going all the way up to $2,629 for a fully decked-out 1TB iPhone 14 Pro Max, these are not cheap phones. But based on my first impressions, it is unlikely that the new iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max will be anything other than great phones for those who can afford them.

 Pre-order begins on Sept 9, 2022, 8pm Singapore time, before hitting the streets from 16 September 2022 onwards. 

This article was first published in HardwareZone.