Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max Review: Far Beyond Max

With the Apple iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max, the company nailed the formula for a great smartphone. Though it is similar to last year’s Apple iPhone 13 Pro duo, it is also simultaneously new. Let's have a deep dive and see if this is a phone for you or not.

How much will the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max cost?

The Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max price in India starts from Rs 139900, while there is also a smaller Apple iPhone 14 Pro which starts from Rs 129900.

While the iPhone 14 Pro will be available from September 16, the iPhone 14 Pro Max will start to ship in October.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max: Design

On one hand, when looked from the back. The Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max looks identical to the Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max. The only changes from the older device are the new Deep Purple and Space Black colours, and the slightly larger camera bump, which you have to look side by side to notice the difference.

On the other hand, the front of the 14 Pro Max is completely different from all other Apple iPhones before it. Gone is the Notch that was first introduced in the iPhone X, 5 years ago. The all new Dynamic Island (a pill shaped cutout) takes its place to hold the camera and the FaceID sensors, more on it later.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max comes with glossy Stainless Steel frame and matte finish glass on the back, similar to its predecessor. Compared to the iPhone 13 Pro Max, the 14 Pro Max has a very slightly smaller height and width, though the depth is slightly increased.

Despite the mixed reactions, I still like the design of the iPhone 14 Pro Max including the Dynamic Island. Though many will find the large size with sharp corners less ergonomic, if you are one of them the smaller iPhone 14 Pro will be a better choice.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max: Display

The iPhone 14 Pro Max continues to have one of the best displays currently available. According to Apple the new display can reach a peak brightness of 2000 nits. Well we were not able to test that, though the 1600 nits brightness was more than enough even in direct sunlight. Colour reproduction and accuracy of the display is also slightly improved.

Pro Motion is back and is even better than before. Now the display can clock down to 1 Hz to save battery which is required for the Always on Display. Yes, Always on Display is finally available on iPhone.

The smaller iPhon 14 Pro features all the same improvements as its bigger brother at a more one-hand-friendly size of 6.1 inches.

Dynamic Island

The Dynamic Island is interesting enough to get a separate section for it. Unlike most Android, it is not just a static cutout. The Dynamic Island is adaptive, it changes depending on the task you are doing, in addition to displaying animations for various system actions like unlocking and more.

If you tap it, it will open the corresponding app and with a long press it opens the widget for the app. This is best noticed when using any Music player that supports Apple’s Now Playing API.

There is also UI for all the live activities happening on the phone. Like an ongoing call, music playing in the background or Map directions. The coolest thing happens when you open multiple apps that support its API, because ten it becomes like an App Switcher by splitting the Dynamic Island into two. Here is a list of all the things the Dynamic Island can do,

Not only does the Dynamic Island look better than the Notch in the previous generations, it actually offers functionality.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max: Camera

Another major change coming to the iPhone 14 Pro duos is the new camera system. In fact, Apple used almost one third of the time talking about the camera while revealing the iPhone 14 Pro duo.

The biggest change in the iPhone 14 Pros Max’s camera system is the introduction of the new 48 MP primary camera. We are finally seeing a megapixel bump in an iPhone after 7 years.

In normal mode, the 14 Pro Max still outputs 12 MP images by using pixel binning. If you want full 48 MP images, you’ll have to use the ProRAW. Keep in mind the full resolution images are somewhere from 50 to 80 MB in size.

The 12 MP camera also saw improvements from the use of an all new sensor which is almost twice the size compared to last year. The telephoto lens is still the same 3x zoom unit. Apple also added a 2x zoom button in the camera app that basically just crops the 48 MP images.

Apple also introduced an all new Photonic Engine, which is not exclusive to the Pro models. This new computational photographic model incorporates Apple’s Deep Fusion technology before frames get compressed. The end product of the Photonic Engine is in the mid to low light scenarios, Apple also promises improvement in Dynamic Range and details in the images.

Not only the rear cameras but the selfie camera in the iPhone 14 Pro Max also saw improvements. For the first time, the selfie camera supports autofocus and with a faster aperture, the iPhone 14 series can take selfies faster.

Compared to its biggest competitor the Google Pixel 6 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, the iPhone 14 Pro Max takes more consistent and truer to life images. By no means the camera on the new iPhones is the best out there but it is among the best of the best.

One key area where the iPhone loses is the zoom. With only a 3x telephoto camera, iPhone 14 Pro Max can not even come close to Samsung’s 10x periscope camera.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max: Performance

The all new hexa-core A16 SoC is powering the new iPhone Pros. Though in benchmarks the CPU did not show any major improvements, the GPU however, scored over 22% compared to the iPhone 13 Pro Max. Instead of improving the raw performance, with A16 Apple focused on improving the efficiency of the chipset and added the new Photonic Engine and Display Engine (for the Always on Display).

In practice the A16 in the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max has more power than anyone might need. The good thing about it is having more headroom for the future.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max: Battery

Yesteryear's Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max wowed us with its incredible battery life, lasting way longer than most of its competitors. Because of that we had high hopes for the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Though the endurance was amazing, it was not as great as we hoped. The primary factor for it, according to us, is the Always on Display. Though we don’t have any concrete evidence of it.

Despite that, the iPhone 14 Pro Max easily lasted a day and more. It is possible to empty the battery within a day while playing games or doing other intensive tasks. On the contrary, if used lightly, the iPhone 14 Pro Max can easily last for two days, which is no small feat.

The major area where the iPhone falls short compared to the competitors is the charging speeds. Apple is still stuck with the same 20 W fast charging. With a MagSafe charger, the new iPhones can charge at 15 W speeds and 7.5 with Qi chargers.

Future software updates may improve the battery life, but given as it is we are more than happy with its endurance and would easily recommend it to others.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max: Software

Out of the box, the Apple iPhone 14 series comes with iOS 16. The changes brought in the latest version of the iOS have already been discussed by us, click here to read about it. With the new version, Apple has finally added lock screen customization, though limited it is a nice welcome. Though iOS 16 is available for many supported devices, to get the complete picture, you might want to get the iPhone 14 Pro duo.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max: Verdict

With outlandish performance and the best camera experience, we think that the iPhone 14 Pro Max is the best iPhone ever created by Apple. The versatility bought by the two sizes with same features and performance is also a plus point in our books.