This Friday, September 16, Apple has put up for sale your new crop of iPhone. Beside of the iPhone 14, already at more than 1000 euros, the brand offers an iPhone 14 Pro that is supposed to meet all the requirements: a very bright screen, extraordinary power, an innovative design or even an ultimate camera. But all this has a price, also stratospheric, caused by the fall of the euro against the dollar. To afford the iPhone 14 Pro in the 128 GB version (the cheapest), you need 1,329 euros. It is 1,479 euros for the strictly identical Max version, but with a larger screen.
The strengths of the iPhone 14 Pro
Dynamic Island, the good idea
This is Apple’s finding to compensate for the missing notch and hide the iPhone 14 Pro’s new front-facing camera system. Now the TrueDepth camera, which is also used for facial recognition to unlock the iPhone, is wedged into two bumps on the screen, including one shaped like a pill. And to hide this unattractive element with respect to the criteria of the brand, the latter has invented a touch interface to make a visual disgrace useful.
The interface called Dynamic Island is like a kind of black shortcut bar, once you have started your music, for example, Apple Maps for navigation, it will be available while you are navigating the iPhone. A short press opens the app. With a long press, a small window appears with essential information, the possibility of stopping the function, hanging up, etc. Now information such as the connection of the AirPods or the light point that indicates that the front camera is active also appears in this bar.
An idea of impeccable use, although it must be admitted that it is not the most used area on a day-to-day basis. Before being essential, it is above all a little more so as not to leave a “white” area on the screen. At the moment, many home applications (Apple Music, Pay, AirPlay, Locate…) and functions (Recharge, Shortcuts, Concentration mode, airplane mode…) are supported, but also certain third-party services (YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp on call, Amazon Music, Spotify, Audible…).
Apple announces that, in the coming weeks, it will be possible to see the sports results, the focus of your VTC, the delivery of your food or your sports activities.
The screen is definitely luxury
If Apple has not touched the design of the iPhone 14 Pro that retains its straight steel edges and its resistant Ceramic Shield back, the screen has a new look, far beyond the disappearance of the notch. Two sizes (6.1 inches and 6.7 inches) are available for a screen called Super Retina XDR (Oled). But finally it is enriched with Always On technology to go into standby mode while remaining active. A technology that has already been in Apple watches for several years.
The screen no longer turns off when idle, it dims. If you can normally take advantage of a 120Hz image refresh rate for smoother browsing or even mobile gaming, this time drop down to 1Hz (one update per second) to save battery life and keep the main information visible. . And if the screen has widgets thanks to the customization of the lock screen offered by iOS 16they will remain dimmed.
The iPhone 14 Pro screen is also becoming more comfortable on the eyes, both indoors and outdoors. It now boasts a maximum advertised brightness of up to 2,000 nits in sunlight (1,600 nits in HDR), a smartphone brightness record, surpassing the advertised 1,750 nits of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. In use and compared to the iPhone 13 Pro Max, this feels outdoorsy, where the iPhone 14 Pro is much more visible in any sunlight conditions.
sublime chambers
The photographic section is one of the great advances of the iPhone 14 Pro compared to previous models. For the first time, Apple offers a 48-megapixel main photo sensor. If the number of megapixels is not at all a guarantee of quality in itself, this development, if well thought out, allows for more detailed shots. In this case, Apple uses these 48 megapixels to combine four pixels into one, in order to store more light and get much lighter 12-megapixel shots.
If it is impossible to disconnect the camera to obtain real shots in 48 megapixels in the classic format (JPG), the most experienced photographers can do it in ProRAW mode, which captures files without any compression. With, upon arrival, shots weighing around 70MB (compared to 25MB for 12-megapixel ProRAW photos).
Apple also uses this new definition of 48 megapixels to crop a photo without losing quality and thus offer a 2x digital zoom in addition to the 3x optical zoom, obtained thanks to the telephoto lens.
The quality of the telephoto lens is also improved, as is the ultra wide angle: the two complementary cameras provide brighter shots, with less noise and more details in low light conditions. The dynamic range is also extended: in an image with strong lighting variations (for example, with heavily shadowed areas), the iPhone 14 Pro perfectly compensates for the differences to obtain a homogeneous rendering, without being too artificial.
The increased computing power of the iPhone 14 Pro also improves portrait mode renderings, capable of more accurately distinguishing between foreground and background when applying blur. In general, the smartphone is a nice and comfortable camera. Thanks to its firepower, it shoots without latency.
Apple also improves the video part, in a more discreet way. The manufacturer has retouched what was already its main strong point: stabilization. Shooting a subject while walking (or even jogging) hadn’t been a problem for two or three years. Today it is even less so with the arrival of an action mode that can be activated to film a sequence in motion.
The iPhone 14 Pro continues to be equipped with the ProRes feature, which allows the most demanding videographers to shoot in the best possible quality, without compression. Please note that it is impossible to shoot in ProRes and 4K on a version equipped with 128 GB of storage, due to the large size of the generated files. Apple has also improved its Cinematic mode (a video portrait mode), now with 4K support.
power galore
The iPhone 13 Pro was already dominating the debates and the competition when it came to performance. The iPhone 14 Pro continues in the same vein with the arrival of the A16 Bionic chip, reserved this year only for Apple’s Pro range. The 5G smartphone is capable of everything and without fainting in the least. Start multiple apps in a row, play resource-intensive games like Fortnite or PUBG, watching streaming in high definition, editing 4K videos… nothing really puts it to the test and the use remains fluid, the manipulations very fast.
And not to spoil anything, the iPhone 14 Pro still boasts a long battery life that only its bigger sibling, the iPhone 14 Pro Max (and possibly the future iPhone 14 Plus) outlasts: count a day and a half in moderation. use and one day with intensive use.
Storage jumps to 1TB
Those who like to have thousands of photos and videos that they forget to sort will be delighted: iPhone 14 Pro now offers up to 1TB of storage without the need for an iCloud subscription. This will be especially useful for those who want to photograph in ProRAW quality or film in ProRes which gives very high quality files, but also very large (75 MB photo with the 48 MP sensor, one minute 4K video of 6GB). It could quickly fill the maximum space.
drawbacks
A price that skyrockets
The euro’s decline against the dollar is hurting tech giants, but especially European customers. The apple brand is the first to pay the price for the general public. With a variation close to 15% in a year, prices in euros skyrocket. The iPhone 14 Pro starts at 1,329 euros for 128 GB, in the iPhone 14 Pro Max version it costs 1,479 euros. But it is for the most ambitious that the bill hurts: for 1 TB of storage, you will have to pay respectively 1,979 euros for the iPhone 14 Pro and 2,129 euros for the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
A conservative charger
At a time when some competitors are announcing smartphone recharge times rapidly falling below 20 minutes to 100%, Apple stands firm and continues its slow life recharging The iPhone 14 Pro is still not lightning when it comes to filling autonomy (still with the Lightning port!) and the iPhone 14 Pro Max still takes almost 1h30 to reach 100%.
If wireless charging is present with MagSafe technology as a plus (which magnetizes the iPhone to the charging base and other accessories), Apple has not yet given in to the sirens of reverse charging that would allow it to recharge another device or just its AirPods. .
Also note that, as has been the case since last year, the AC adapter is no longer provided in the box, as are the headphones. And beware, the supplied Lightning cable requires a plug with a USB-C port.
conclusion
Once again, Apple has reserved the best for its iPhone 14 Pro range. Whatever the area, the Californian brand pushes the cursor a little further. In performance like every year, but now also in photography with finally an update of its sensors and the arrival of a 48 MP main sensor, added to the change in technology for its computational photography. Shots are more detailed, brighter, especially in low light and night photography, Apple’s new workhorse.
There’s nothing wrong with this iPhone 14 Pro that cleverly ditches its notch without compromising the power of its TrueDepth camera. He knows how to do everything and he does it well, even better than before. But this comes at a cost that is a serious blow to the wallet.
Source: BFM TV
