iPhone 14 Pro Max: One Year Later Review

the iPhone 14 pro is undoubtedly Apple's best iPhone yet I'm sure Apple actually said that at the keynote last year iPhone 14 pro and iPhone 14 pro Max the best iPhones we've ever created it is true although it's not perfect but it's currently the best option and honestly the best iPhone that I've been using for nearly a year and I know this title says one year later and it's technically only been like barely 11 months but new iPhones are coming out next month and so I think we're close enough so I'm gonna chalk this up as my one year later review for the iPhone 14 pro and pro Max I've been using the iPhone 14 pro Max since day one except for a few weeks of a weird experimental phase where I wanted to try the 14 pro but quickly I realized I like big phones and I cannot lie I also use my phone that was such a bad joke I also use my phones without a case so if you're wondering how well it's held up over the last year I'd say it's done a pretty good job there's a few scratches on the screen here and some good wear and tear around the edges especially like this edge here because well I've dropped it quite a few times but overall it's in really good shape and so if you're thinking about using your phone without a case get apple care for sure but also it's not that bad you should be fine this is also the space black iPhone 14 pro Max and in my opinion it's the best color option of the Pro Models I do also have deep purple and that's probably next on my list but I think the black one just looks the cleanest and so I'm putting this number one on my color list Apple also added a few new exclusive features for the iPhone 14 pro and pro Max last September when it came out so we're specifically talking about the dynamic Island the always-on display and that new 48 megapixel sensor so the dynamic Island that's a feature that got a lot of like praise when Apple first introduced it especially by me I thought it looked really really cool and I think it works really well uh but I feel like a lot of people either either love it and use it a lot and then the rest probably just like don't really care after you know a few initial uses of the dynamic Island I think it just becomes another thing and I fall into the latter I don't mind it I like that it's there but I hardly ever pay attention to it I don't ever specifically do something on my phone so that it's like in the dynamic Island except for maybe one specific thing and that's I use the flighty app when I fly and that has a dynamic Island like tracker for like what gate you're gonna be at and how long you have until your flight departure or how long you have left if you're currently in the air and those are really nice things to have in the dynamic Island and also I fly United quite a bit and so that recently got an update in the app to where there's also a live activity and I believe that goes in the island but I don't really remember but flighty for sure is my main flight tracking app if you don't know that app definitely check it out especially if you fly a lot even apps like uber and Lyft use the dynamic Island to tell you like how far away your ride is from picking you up or how much longer you have in your ride like those are really useful ways to implement Dynamic Island into your everyday life or at least into the times where you would really want to actually use it but really for me it's been travel and that's about it so Dynamic Island I wouldn't call it a bust but I wouldn't say it's like a feature that I would absolutely run out and go buy uh an iPhone specifically for also I thought Apple would have spent more time on it during the WWDC keynote and introduce some new features for dynamic Island But ultimately that didn't really happen this feature is expected to also trickle down to the entire iPhone 15 lineup so like unless Apple introduces new features when they introduce the new iPhone 15 um it's really just been ignored for this year so I'm curious to see if any new functionality would be coming uh in the next month or two or maybe we have to wait for iPhone or for iOS 18. now always on display has been excellent in my opinion and I do use it all the time I love being able to see if I have notifications or widgets that I need to interact with now now like having the time and date just kind of there at all times when you're on your desk and you're just like looking at your like I love it but I don't know how much of an impact it's having on my battery life and so we're kind of going to transition into what I don't like about the iPhone 14 pro and pro Max and that's just been battery um because battery life has been just downright terrible and I don't know exactly if my always-on display is impacting battery life and if it is then I gotta say it's another feature that I can maybe do without because I just don't want to have to recharge my phone uh before the end of the day there have been plenty of people posting some pretty significant battery degradation in the last 11 months so that's also concerning we're talking like 89 90 battery health for me I'm at 99 I don't know how but I am and I exclusively wirelessly charge my phone via max if don't know if that has a factor into it but obviously since installing iOS 17 that's been a thing but even before that I still noticed I'm having you know roughly 10 to 20 percent battery at the end of the day when it used to be around 40 to 50. uh obviously again iOS 17 has impacted battery but even before that I was noticing some pretty bad battery drain and it's just been getting worse over the last few months now the iPhone 15 should have a bigger battery so that hopefully will help out but on my Pro Max I can barely get through the day again uh and when I use the pro for those weeks where I want to try to do a smaller size I would have to charge my phone by like 1 pm so I do again exclusively charge via Mac safe every night I have all of the smart charging and optimization features turned on so yeah I don't know what it is but hopefully battery improvements uh are on the horizon with the iPhone 15. now before we get to the final main part of the iPhone 14 pro long-term review which is the camera I do just want to quickly touch on a few other things performance has been fantastic for like 95 of daily use but as temps get hotter outside or as my battery Reigns more and I'm needing to charge more I've noticed that my phone is getting hotter and when it gets hot the iPhone just doesn't know what to do with itself sometimes and it becomes an absolute nightmare to deal with it's not all the time but when it does overheat and thermal management isn't at its absolute best there's tons of lag it doesn't recognize touch input sometimes Etc it's just it's what you expect when your phone is overheating but I feel like lately it's been overheating a little bit more than normal obviously I'm outside more it's hotter temperatures and so I think that's contributing but it's also just a good reminder to give your phone a break a little bit sometimes especially when it's overheating just put it down step away come back in like 10 minutes and you should be fine but it's been happening at like the worst times and so you know you're noticing it a little bit more so something to keep in mind if you're overheating your phone quite a bit just like put it down give it a break but maybe better thermal Management in the iPhone 15 maybe that'll help who knows but another thing I wanted to point out otherwise again performance champ apps absolutely no issues besides just like random iOS 17 beta bugs but I did that to myself by just running with the beta since day one also shout out to the peak outdoor brightness of being like 2 000 nits in the summertime I'm outside I'm wearing sunglasses it's bright out there that extra just 2 000 nits coming in at the right time just chef's kiss it's amazing uh it does lead to your phone getting hotter so you know you don't want to be doing that for a long period of time but usually for me when it's doing the peak outdoor brightness of those beautiful 2000 nits I have had no problems so just an underrated feature that Apple introduced in the iPhone 14 pro and pro Max and I absolutely love when that kicks on it's a lifesaver I can actually see my phone outside all right so the cameras I'm gonna keep this short but the iPhone Still Remains one of if not the best cameras that you can get well the iPhone 14 pro and pro Max that is uh and so this year we got the 48 megapixel camera um and you know that leads to the ability of taking 48mp pixel Raw photos that's not something I did a whole lot obviously when I was testing it I did it a lot but I have not done it since then like not sometimes because I do like to edit photos using Lightroom and so being able to have Raw photos really makes the editing experience like a really good one and you can fine tune a lot of details and make your photos just even better but if you don't know how to edit or if you don't have any interest in editing like that then you don't really need to take 48 megapixel Raw photos but the images just in general have been amazing out of this new lens I'm obviously excited to see the improvements in the iPhone 15 pro and pro Max with the new Periscope lens so that's really been my only gripe with the telephoto lens um is that it's just been a 3X Optical for like forever now and so the rumored you know 6X Optical is going to be a nice step up obviously and with that said I'm not sure how much more the iPhone 15 is going to make you want to like say yeah I should totally ditch my 14 pro to go to the 15 Pro so it's probably not the correct to upgrade for you there are going to be some nice improvements and maybe it might sway you but ultimately if you want to be cost effective and just what I'm looking at here in terms of rumors I don't know that it's going to be like a massive upgrade for the pro Max to go to the 14 to the 15 but anything else yeah I mean 15's looking like a good phone but I'd even probably want to recommend the 14 pro and the pro Max because again I have just been absolutely loving this phone after one year of daily use but I would love to hear from you are you an iPhone 14 pro or Pro Max user do you agree do you disagree are you thinking about getting an iPhone 14 pro or Pro Max in 2023 here uh especially with the iPhone 15 pros and just the iPhone 15 in General on the horizon again let me know in those comments down below this has been down with macramers thanks so much for watching and I hope to see you around in the next video

Channel: MacRumors

Views: 179,878

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Id: qdU3LhZWjd8

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 02 2023