Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max Truthful Review
There is no doubt that Apple when they came in to the mobile phone business they created a phenomenon that continues to this day. While cellphones with Android sell many millions of phones, Apple and its IOS continues to seemingly rule the roost where premium phones are concerned. And there has to be a reason. Apple might tell you its their technology, their quality, their designs, or any one of a multitude of reasons why the iPhone remains a leader in sales of premium mobile phones.
While clearly, the iPhone has many followers and buyers in to the world of Apple, that fact alone could be the reasons for their continuing success... but is it? In these days where every penny counts, is the Apple iPhone one step too far? And at a retail price of £1199.00 in the UK can this iPhone 14 Pro Max stay at the top, and for how long? Check out our Truthful Review to see our unbiased opinion.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max rear end with those camera lenses on display
What's in the box?
- The iPhone
- An internal battery
- A charging cable
- A small notice for safety, disposal and Apple's limited one year warranty.
- A SIM card tool for removing the SIM card cover
Features
The list of features is extensive of course, and it can be very easy to read all of what's on offer and decide that this mobile phone is for you. But the fact remains that we can guess that the number of users that use every feature on any of the top mobile phones are few and far between. Everyone is guilty of that!
Below is a list of the features that many might use and excuse us if we miss off some of them otherwise this Truthful Review could otherwise be pages long.
- An always on display
- HDR display
- 2M:1 contrast ratio
- 1k nits max brightness
- 1.6k nits peak brightness in HDR
- 2k nits peak brightness when outside
- True tone
- ProMotion
- Adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz
- Wide colour P3
- Dynamic island
- Multiple languages and characters at the same time on screen
- Super retina XDR display
- 6.7 inch diagonal and OLED display - viewing area is less than this
- 2796x1290 pixel resolution @ 460ppi
- IP68 standard - a depth of 6 metres for up to thirty minutes
- Many more features and some mentioned and discussed below
The specifications over the years have increased dramatically and also improved technically and today (2023) the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max (and 14 Pro) offer some of the highest technology found in any mobile phone available. A summary of features and review comments follow:
- Processor:
This is the A16 Bionic chip that has a 6 core CPU with two
performance and four efficiency cores. This chip also integrates
a 5 core GPU and a 16 core Neural Engine. It would be wrong to
call the A16 chip the 'main processor' because everything has
moved on since older times when a processor was a measure of the
processing power. In some ways that would be true, except that
in the A16 new technologies includes efficiency and performance
cores that change the way these newer processing chips work - in
a good way. Also included on the chip is a GPU or graphics
processor unit and when it is integral to the main A16 chip can
offer increased speeds relating to graphics, and those
efficiency and performance cores move the technology forward in
ways that the older processors never could have. So what does
this all mean to the ordinary user? Well, you will have a very
fast device that responds very quickly in use and the graphics
quality and speed is exceptional. Over time of course this type
of chip will improve even further as seen in many Apple devices
and each device that uses this type of chip technology usually
gets a good boost in the performance area.
- Resolution: Screen resolution is moving
forward generally for each itineration of the Apple iPhone and
the 2796x1290 @460ppi really is offering an exceptional
resolution - and the iPhone wont suffer (as many other products
do) from slow screen refresh or that sort of thing. Linked with
the brightness that can be achieved, the HDR and other aspects
of the display there are few mobile phones that compete. Samsung
of course is always somewhere there in the equation so do bear
that in mind and read what we say about that brand later.
- Camera: The camera on the iPhone 14 Pro Max
and Pro offers a superbly high quality device and the
specifications go on and on. That's all good if you understand
them! Many iPhone users really don't understand the technical
gobbledygook, but some understanding is important when
considering whether to buy the iPhone 14 Pro Max (or the Pro) so
here are a few of the main points without being technical:
- The camera is a 48MP megapixel for the 'main' camera, and when using the ultra wide mode that drops to 12MP. In the 2 x telephoto lens mode that is also reduced to 12MP too. For 3x telephoto that too is 12MP. What this all really means is that once you use things other than the 'main' camera, the resolution of the captured image is 4 times less than in standard or 'main' mode. However, do bear in mind that many digital cameras have 12MP for their highest resolution! So having a camera with 48MP is really great for quality of image capture. Do bear in mind though that the images captured will be substantially larger than those at 12MP and will no doubt eat away at the storage memory on the device.
- Optical zoom is always important, mainly because once you use digital zoom then the quality of an image is reduced, so the optical zoom is usually paramount for a camera and this iPhone is no exception. There's a 3 x optical zoom in, and a 2 x optical zoom out. Overall a 6 x optical zoom range but the digital zoom can be up to 15% of the total zoom range. However the optical zoom on this 'camera' is good bearing in mind that these figures quoted could not be achieved just a few years ago. Technology moves on at a very fast rate.
- The camera features image stabilization too - which in simple terms reduces the camera 'shake' often found on cameras without this feature. As the zoom lens range increases you would normally find that the camera 'shake' will affect the images more but on the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max the image stabilization is very good and for ordinary users its a brilliant feature.
- There are various 'modes' of operation included in the camera. Things like Portrait mode that includes advanced bokeh and depth control. This can effectively change the background 'blur' and create the main foreground to stand out in the overall scene. There's a panoramic mode that actually has up to 63MP resolution which is a great feature that will get much use. Included are various photographic styles that can be used to 'enhance' the image being captured, and these types of enhancements are common on many cameras. Apple included a 'macro' mode so that you can photograph close up and whether you want to photograph insects or anything else that is small, then the macro feature is waiting to help.
- There are many other features relating to the camera some Apple proprietary, but in general its fair to say that the included camera is quite capable of excellent results for most types of camera work. But although there's the IP68 waterproof aspect of this iPhone its NOT recommended to use this iPhone camera for underwater photography unless other waterproof housings are purchased separately.
- Lastly image formats include HEIF, JPEG and DNG. Most regular users will be familiar with JPEG of course, but it's useful to have more than one format depending on whether the images are to be exported to other software.
- The Video recording also has a huge number of features! and without going in to those in any great depth below are a few of the things that are really great for video making but we have only listed a few as the features really are extensive.
- It's 4K resolution and can record at 24, 30 or even 60 frames per second or 'fps' as its usually abbreviated to. Of course the more frames the bigger the video files once again, and that can lead to using up volumes of internal storage. 24 fps is though perfectly acceptable for most everyday video creation and Truthful Review even use 24 or 25 fps in their video work. There's also 1080p HD video at 25,30 or 60fps that is far more manageable than using 4K recording. Lastly there's even included a 720p HD option at 30 fps. There is a 'cinematic mode' that can operate up to 4K HDR at 30 fps and even an 'action mode' that operates up to 2.8K at 60 fps.
- Other alternatives include HDR, ProRes, Macro, Slo-mo, Time-lapse and Quick-take modes that do add to the usability of the video camera. And note there is a cinematic video stabilization mode also included.
- An inbuilt image stabilization is included and always nice to see on anything where you might want to hold the camera as you shoot... and something as small as the iPhone 14 Pro Max (or Pro) this remains a useful feature.
- Optical zoom is the same as for the photo camera as mentioned above, but note that the digital zoom has changed to up to 9 times.
- Autofocus exists for video and is continuous, thus allowing for focus on the subject matter with the ability to 'flip' to other focus centre in the video.
- There's even an Audio zoom! and stereo audio recording and a number of other features.
- Truedepth Camera: this is a 12MP mode included in the camera that generally offers other features not found in the other video section, but because of limitation of space this is not covered here. However features abound in this Truedepth camera mode and for example it supports night mode time lapse, slo-mo and many other features worth checking out.
- Facial Recognition: This is enabled by Truedepth camera for face recognition features.
- Apple Pay: Apple pay has become far more relevant these days and you will see it used everywhere. With the slow but continuous background of moving to society without any 'real money' it will only gain further. If you don't use it currently, you will!
- Safety Feature: If you crash your car and are injured then the iPhone can communicate via satellite to the emergency services! There's also a 999 (or 911) service that operates similarly.
- Mobile and Wireless connectivity: It's already 5G also known as sub-6 Ghz mode that includes 4x4 MIMO07. Included is a Gigabit LTE with 4x4 MIMO and LAA7. There's Wi-Fi 6 which is also known as 802.11.ax supporting 2x2 MIMO. Bluetooth 5.3 is on board. There's a NFC chip with a reader mode, an ultra wideband chip for spacial awareness and express cards with power reserve. There are other mobile phone features that vary depending on the area where the iPhone is sold, but generally if you buy an iPhone through the correct channels you will have an iPhone suitable for your country - beware of the grey market suppliers or used iPhones in this respect.
There are an incredible number of features that Truthful Review are not including in this review, like video calling, audio calling, location features, audio and video playback, Siri, about the control buttons, battery operating times (they are long!), Magsafe, various sensors or the operating system or accessibility features, because some of the features are expected and known so creating a review with every last feature becomes really not worth the extra work - its important though to read the overall score and summing up sections of the review that should be helpful in deciding whether to buy this iPhone and whether it's for you or not.
Warranty
The standard Apple warranty is just one year! and that seems rather mean for a device that costs near enough £1200 to buy in the first place. There is an 'Apple Care' enhancement for warranty (we'll call it that), but that costs money and whether that option is for you would be subjective.
Overall Score
Some love them, some dislike them a lot. Whatever camp you fall in to, there is no getting away from the fact that Apple is an extraordinary company and it's sales are consistently high. Visit any Apple store and see for yourself that there are huge numbers of fans and their products are always in demand:
Typical Apple Store in 2023
Historically, Apple have not always been entirely forthcoming regarding warranty claims (from our UK experience) and we have heard of various issues where Apple did not cover products under warranty, and one case where their authorised repairer in the UK worked against the customer and for a company like Apple, with the current £1199.00 price tag on this device that should be taken in to account because warranty matters especially on any device that is used as a mobile phone is.
For this reason Truthful Review gives the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max an 8 out of 10.
Summing up & Conclusions
There is no doubt that the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max and the Pro are tremendous devices. They offer a lot, sadly for a lot! The price of these devices continues to go only one way, and there must be a point at which potential customers will start to consider alternative products - maybe from companies like Samsung and others that use Android operating systems (developed by Google) that in some cases can save a few hundred pounds off the price. Let's face it, how many customers use all the features that this mobile phone includes? Our guess is not that many. Some customers might purchase the less expensive Apple phones if they want to be brand loyal (for example) or have other reasons to stay on Apple and IOS (one reason might be the stopping tracking feature in IOS that stops companies like Facebook from tracking you.). Or maybe some customers might like those Samsung (and other) devices and be tempted by their whatever their reasoning, hopefully this truthful review can contribute to customers making an informed decision at buy time.
Whatever ultimately the outcome, mobile phones like most other technology devices have of recent times suffered from component shortages, and have even had production move areas of the world because of a number of reasons and that has according to press caused some issues with the supply of Apple iPhones. That can have an effect of increasing the prices from non-authorised outlets so its always a good idea to buy from trusted suppliers.
Thanks for visiting Truthful Review ® website and this review is
entirely © truthfulreview.com 2023.
All Rights Reserved. All
Trademarks Acknowledged.