I've been using Apple's iPhone 14 pro maps for a few months now and I've
gotten pretty familiar with the new features and changes with some of them
really standing out to me this year While others not so much and to be
completely honest now that we're getting closer and closer to the release of the
iPhone 15 lineup I've come to the conclusion that most people should skip
this phone and wait for the 15 Pro Max now I've got a few reasons for it and
it's not just the massive leaks for the upcoming 15 models but it's actually a
few disappointing letdowns in terms of this one but before I get into that I
actually want to highlight some of my favorite features and changes of the 14
pro Max that I've noticed over the past few months of course I love the design
with the premium build quality as well as the thinner bezels on the display
this year and the larger camera bump that looks even more mean and
professional but of course it basically looks the same as it has for the last
three years except for the dynamic make Island which I'll get into in just a
minute but in terms of the real world differences that really stood out to me
the first one is that the display no longer randomly dims which used to annoy
the crap out of me finally it's gone it seems like apple nailed the efficiency
of the display this year so that it no longer gets too hot and has to dim down
to cool itself down now it wasn't that big of a problem with last year's model
especially not like it was with the iPhone 12 which had terrible display
dimming but now it's basically Flawless and I can enjoy some gaming or whatever
else like wireless charging without any dimming issues anymore but as a
disclaimer it will still dim outside if you're using it with auto brightness
which allows it to get insanely bright even brighter than the new s23 Ultra and
then in that case it could dim another positive is that now that we've had a
few months of software updates the battery life is back to being great
again just like it was on the previous 13 Pro Max so it's nice to know it's
fixed now even though it was a bit weird and hard to get used to at first the
always-on display now feels completely normal and natural just like it feels on
the Apple watch making it feel more premium like it's always there for you
along with the added benefit of seeing additional info like a timer running all
the time on the display as well as helping me stop my bad habit of missing
notifications when someone texts me and I forget to reply they're now always
there staring at me so it actually helps a lot now out of everything that's
changed my absolute favorite is the huge upgrades to video recording especially
the 4K cinematic mode that is mind-blowingly good now to match the
much better quality I rigged it up to our partner small rigs all in one video
kit for smartphone creators which takes your cinematography to another level
using the included dual handheld cage for smooth motion and precise control as
well as the on-camera mic and video LED light giving you everything you need to
quickly replace a pro camera with everything mounted easily to the cage
and it even includes a mini tripod for when you need a static shot so check it
out using the link below now back to what I like about the iPhone 14 pro Max
the speakers are definitely a lot louder and they sound better and I really like
how the new Dynamic island has finally gotten rid of the notch as well as how
it helped the bezels get Slimmer and the implementation of the animations as well
however it's nowhere near as useful as I thought it would be yes it is nice for
being able to see timers navigation sports scores at all times as well as
giving you a quick shortcut to your music or YouTube app but other than that
it hasn't really been game changing like I thought it would be at at least not
yet now everyone was super hyped for the Emergency SOS via satellite feature but
now it seems like most people have forgotten about it since it's only
really useful in certain cases I haven't even tested it out since I basically
just forgot about it but the fact is that it has already helped save lives
and same thing for the crash detection feature so it's nice to know that
they're there to help you in the rare case that you get in a bad accident or
get lost of course the lightning Port being limited to USB 2.0 speeds
absolutely sucks as well as not getting Wi-Fi 6E even though the less expensive
M2 iPad Pro and new M2 Mac Mini for 5.99 get it but to me it doesn't really
matter since I don't have a Wi-Fi 6E router at home like most people out
there and the whole SIM card removal thing sounds cool going into the future
but I had some issues with service the first couple of days after setting up
esim and it's already caused cell service setup issues for two of my
family members who were forced to go into the Verizon store to get their
service set up properly due to technical issues with esum and it's an even bigger
problem for those who like to travel and quickly swap out sim cards and as far as
the actual performance of the new a16 ship I haven't really noticed any
difference at all yes I know the CPU performance gains are there and it's
still more efficient than the Android competition but the GPU is literally
identical to the one we got in the a15 chip last year and yes geeker one on
YouTube confirmed this in a recent video and because of that the new Snapdragon
chip has taken the lead in terms of raw GPU performance so hopefully Apple steps
it up for the a17 chip which should be built on tsmc's three nanometer Tech and
hopefully with a new GPU design but now let's finish this review off with the
cameras where we have both good and bad news the good news is that the new 48
megapixel sensor is great now it's such that it forces you to shoot in Pro raw
but there's a shortcut you can create to instantly bulk reformat the photos into
heic to save space right within your photos app the quality is incredible and
I've been using it for things that are very important like group photos for the
extra 48 megapixel detail as well as thumbnail shots of the products I review
at home like the Narwhal Robot vacuum however my main gripe is at the 48
megapixel full sensor isn't being used in portrait mode which I basically use
almost all the time when taking photos of people which are the ones I care
about the most so over the past few months I haven't even really been using
the 48 megapixel Pro raw mode that much anyway so I'd really like apple to allow
regular photos and portrait mode photos to use the 48 megapixel a full sensor
but one side bonus and benefit that have actually been pleasantly surprised by is
the new 2x photo mode which is honestly so good now that it actually uses a full
12 megapixel crop within the 48 megapixel sensor instead of previously
using a digital crop of the 12 megapixels on the 13 Pro Max and older
models so this new way of doing 2x is so much better and I actually use it a lot
and this also means that the 2x portrait mode is finally back which is so useful
because previously you had to use either the 1X or 3x Zoom mode for portraits and
sometimes 3x was just too zoomed in and it messed with the quality so the new 2x
mode is great and speaking of the 3x lens it's one of the things that has
disappointed me this year since there's now an even more noticeable difference
between the main camera and the 3x lens specifically in terms of added noise
when you're not in a very bright environment so I basically avoid using
it a lot of the time but one positive is the ultra wide camera which is now quite
a bit better than last year especially in dimmer lighting situations as well as
selfies getting a noticeable Improvement this year and just like I mentioned
earlier my absolute favorite change is the video recording upgrade specifically
the new 4k cinematic mode which is amazing just look at this wake surfing
footage with the Cinematic mode getting a nice and pleasant background blur with
perfect blur edging it's so good that I've actually used it for family
memories as well as recording b-roll footage of the products we review on
YouTube I'm happy to say that for the first time ever the iPhone can actually
replace a digital camera for shooting b-roll footage and I've used both the
standard 4K and cinematic 4K footage for quite a few of our product review videos
and it passes with excellent quality literally no no complaints about it in
the comments this means I no longer have to bring a camera from the office back
home with me when I need to film b-roll or anything else the iPhone can finally
replace it and that's probably my favorite thing about the 14 pro Max but
to be honest if you don't really care that much about the subtle improvements
I noticed and enjoyed then I'd say that the 14 pro Max is probably the phone
that you should be skipping especially since the new 15 Pro Max is coming in
around half a year and it's going to have a ton of changes like I discussed
in my recent iPhone 15 leaks video but to keep it short the 15 Pro Max will
basically fix most of my gripes with the current model especially if they allow
the 48 megapixel sensor to work in more modes so because of that I would
recommend that you wait for the 15 Pro Max and just skip this one hopefully you
enjoyed this long term review of the 14 pro Max and if you did click the circle
above to subscribe for more videos like this one and definitely check out that
iPhone 15 leaks video right over there thanks for watching and we'll see you in
the next one [Music]