Are the older iPhones still good?
The iPhone 14 is a couple of generations old at this point, but if you don’t particularly care about whether you have USB-C or Apple Intelligence (an underwhelming feature at this point), it’s a phone that makes a lot of sense. For most people, the performance that the iPhone 14 offers, whether that be when gaming or in the camera department, is more than enough for most of us.
Apple iPhone 14 and 14 Plus
The first phone we’ll look at is the cheapest iPhone 14 in the lineup. Available in Blue, Purple, Yellow, Midnight (Black), Starlight (White), and Product Red (Red), the iPhone 14 128GB retails at Rs 59,900 today.
It’s powered by the same A15 Bionic that powered the iPhone 13 Pro, leading to a slight improvement in gaming performance over the iPhone 13. RAM is 6GB and storage options range from 128GB to 512GB.
The iPhone 14 boasts of about 20hrs battery life while the iPhone 14 Plus with its larger battery manages 26hrs.
The phones both feature a dual 12MP camera array at the back (26mm normal + 120-degree ultrawide), support for 4K60 Dolby Vision video, 0.5x and 1x zoom modes, and a display that goes from a max typical brightness of 800 nits to 1,200 nits in HDR mode.
The design is largely unchanged since the iPhone X, and the frame is made of aluminium.
iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max
The iPhone 14 Pro, which has been officially discontinued, offers a slightly larger 6.1-inch display (0.14 cm larger) with a 120Hz refresh rate. The display is significantly brighter, managing 1000 nits sustained, 1,600 nits in HDR, and 2,000 nits in daylight. The Pro Max has a larger 6.7-inch display and larger battery, but everything is the same.
One major physical difference between the 14 and the 14 Pro is that the Pro was the first phone to come with a Dynamic Island in place of the Notch. The Dynamic Island supports a range of new interactions and notification types. Oh, and the frame is made of stainless steel and not aluminium.
The SoC is a significantly more powerful A16 Bionic, which is faster and more energy efficient than the A15 Bionic in the iPhone 14. RAM remains the same at 6GB, but storage gets an upgrade in the form of an additional 1TB option. Battery life gets a slight bump to 23hrs. The Pro Max’s battery life hits 29 hours when playing back video.
The cameras are also very different. The primary camera on the iPhone 14 Pro is a 48MP system that uses pixel-binning and advanced processing to handle that data. There is a similar 12MP macro camera as well, but this one has autofocus and supports macro photography. There’s also a 3x telephoto with a 12MP sensor on the rear, not to mention a LiDAR scanner for improved depth perception and 3D scanning.
Thanks to this LiDAR scanner, portrait mode works better and is faster. Plus, you can take portrait mode shots in night mode.
The OIS is better and you get ProRAW support for superior editing performance for those who love tinkering with their photos.
Things are comparable on the video front as the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max support the same video shooting modes as the iPhone 14. One addition is that the Pro models can capture video in ProRes formats at 4K30 or 1080p30 depending on storage. This is, again, a feature that’s very useful for professionals and people who like to tinker with their videos.
The iPhone 14 lineup is now old enough to be discontinued and we’d recommend going with the newer 15 or 16 models if you’re buying a new phone. If you’re looking at the second-hand or refurbished market, however, picking up an iPhone 14, especially the iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone Pro Max, is a great choice. You get the same performance as you would from the 15 but with more features and at a lower or comparable price.
