This is the iPhone 14 plus. It’s basically the big vanilla model of the iPhone 14 lineup. It’s for those who want a larger form factor but find the Pro Max out of their price range. The iPhone 14 Plus has a chipset and main cam which come from the iPhone XII Pro Max. However, this screen refresh rate is only 60 Hz instead of the 120 Hz we see on the more expensive models. At least this year does bring autofocus to the selfie camera, which is welcome except for the size. The plus is just like the regular iPhone 14. The design is the same, with a flat glass back, rounded corners, and a flat aluminum frame. There’s full IP 68 ingress protection too, with water resistance to a depth of 6 meters. A larger form factor means you get a bigger display than the vanilla model.
iPhone 14 plus Display
The OLED display is six by seven inches, the same size as the Pro Max’s and pretty much the same resolution too. You don’t have a high refresh rate here, though. This means that swiping and scrolling on this screen might feel a bit less smooth than on the iPhone Pro models or high-refresh-rate Android phones. Regardless, this screen is quite bright. We measured a maximum of around 800 nits with the manual brightness slider, the same as on the vanilla iPhone 14. There’s no extra boost available on top of that, but it’s plenty with a pixel density of nearly 460 PPI. Content looks sharp on this display, and you get the great contrast possible through OLED technology.
There’s support for HDR ten and OBI vision, and color accuracy is great. And while the notch cutout does eat into the usable screen space, it’s not as big of an issue here as it is on the smaller display of the vanilla model.
The other advantage of a large size is a bigger 4323 MaH battery, the same capacity as the Pro Max. For some reason, though, the battery life isn’t quite as great. The iPhone 14 Plus scored an endurance rating of 102 hours in our proprietary test. That is better than the vanilla model’s 90-hour
rating, but significantly less than the Pro Max’s 121 hours. As usual, you don’t get a charger with the phone, but with a 20-watt Apple adapter, we were able to charge the iPhone 14 plus from zero to 47% in half an hour. The rest of the package is pretty much the same as a vanilla model.
iPhone 14 plus Overall
There’s a pair of stereo speakers for your audio, and as you’d expect, they are great. They scored very well in our loudness test, and the sound quality is excellent. The chipset of the iPhone 14 Plus is not the latest A16 Bionic, but it’s the A15 Bionic from last year’s Pro Max, which makes it a version that has five GPU cores. It may not be the most exciting since we’ve seen it before, but it still provides excellent benchmark performance on par with last year’s iPhone 13 Pro Max, especially since they have the same 6GB of RAM. for storage. You get your choice of 128, 256, or 512 gigs on board. There’s no terabyte option like there is on the Pro models. Now let’s talk about the interface. Apple’s new iOS 16. It brings a handful of updates compared to the previous version, but nothing too groundbreaking overall. The lock screen here doesn’t double as the noise on display like it does on the Pro Max. It’s still quite functional, though you can check your notifications and add widgets. You can customize several different layouts too, and switch between them on the fly. The lock screen layouts can be linked to specific focus profiles, giving you a different look and functions depending on the situation. And now the focus profiles have the additional functionality to connect to your email and messaging apps to filter your messages and notifications right from the source. Plenty of apps have seen upgrades, including FaceTime and the Wallet app, and there’s a new region-specific satellite connection. You can use it to contact emergency services if you don’t have network coverage. Finally, let’s go over the cameras. Both the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus have a 12-megapixel main camera that comes from the iPhone XIV Pro Max, while the 12-megapixel ultra wide cam is identical to the one on the iPhone 13 this year. Apple also updated the HDR image stacking technology, now known as the Photonic Engine, which was previously known as Deep Fusion in Daylight.
The twelve megapixel photos from the main camera are great.
There’s plenty of detail, low noise, and natural-looking colors. The dynamic range is good but not too wide. The quality looks just the same as on. The iPhone 14 is pretty similar to all of the recent iPhones. Actually, that includes the over processed look you see in fine details like foliage. Portrait shots from the main camera are very good, with excellent subject separation. The twelve megapixel photos from the Ultrawide camera have a solid amount of detail, good contrast, and accurate colors. The dynamic range is again balanced, but not too wide. Unlike some of the other recent iPhones. There’s no autofocus on this camera, and this means you can’t use it to shoot closeups in low light conditions. The iPhone 14 plus will apply night mode processing automatically. The photos from the main cam are clean and detailed, with plenty of detail, preserved in shadows. Light sources are well controlled too. Low-light photos taken with the Ultrawide cam are also used in auto net mode. The images have balanced exposure and saturated colors, but they’re still a bit soft and noisy. On to the twelve megapixel selfies. The front-facing camera has autofocus. .
It’s quite reliable, and the photos have plenty of detail and nice looking textures and skin tones. There’s low noise, and the contrast and dynamic range are praiseworthy too. The iPhone 14 Plus can record video at up to 60 FPS with any of its three cameras, and all modes also feature an expanded dynamic range. As a result of the Intelligent HDR The 4K videos from the selfie cam are excellent. They have low noise and plenty of detail. The colors and textures look nice. The stabilization isn’t perfect, but it does a good job of ironing out bigger bumps and shakes. 4K video from the main camera has plenty of detail, true-to-life colors, and solid enemy range. We have no complaints
here. The 4K videos from the ultra wide camera are just as great. They’re among the most detailed we’ve seen from this sort of camera. Overall, the stabilization on the iPhone 14 Plus’s videos is excellent. There’s optional EIS for all of its cameras, and the main camera also has OIS. There’s even a new action mode, which offers an extra smooth effect at the cost of some resolution and a narrower field of view. So that’s the iPhone 14, plus you get the nice features of the iPhone 14 instead of a larger body with a bigger screen and battery. So, could this be a reasonable alternative to the iPhone 14 Promax? Sure, I’d say. You do save some cash here, but since this phone uses mostly last year’s hardware anyway, you could argue that the iPhone 13 Pro Max, which is still available, is an even better deal. For a 10% price premium over the iPhone 14 plus, you get an optical zoom camera, a 120 Hz screen, and better battery life, and you’d still be paying €200 less than the asking price of this year’s Pro Max. Still, if you’re not worried about the extra features and you’re just after a bigger iPhone and a simpler life, then the 14 Plus is certainly worth recommending.
