iPhone 14 in-depth review: Well rounded powerhouse with some key improvements

If you are looking to buy a new flagship smartphone, what is it that you look out for? Is it top-of-the-line specifications on paper or an experience so smooth and reliable, that you never have to worry about tweaking the settings to make your device perform better?

Well, if you looking for reliability, Apple has personified the same, year after year with its iPhone series. This year, Apple launched four new models as part of its iPhone 14 series. The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are more or less the same phone, with the exception of the screen size and battery capacity.

Coming to the iPhone 14, the company claims that it has significantly improved the camera performance, added a new satellite-based SOS emergency feature, an all-new crash detection feature and introduced a slightly beefed-up variant of the A15 chipset. But how does the iPhone 14 perform in real-life? Well, I have been using the device for a week now and here is everything you should know.

Apple sent me the Purple variant of the iPhone 14 that looks gorgeous and basks in the glory of its exquisitely crafted metal-glass sandwich design.

While exulting in the technical marvel of its aesthetics, I noticed that the iPhone 14 was extremely thin at 7.8 mm.

It is pretty light as well, weighing in at just 172 g, which elevates the in-hand feel of the device to the next level. While handling the device, I could decipher the fact that Apple has used high-quality materials to craft the phone.

As expected, the iPhone 14 comes with an aluminium frame and features a glass back. While the display on the front comes with Ceramic Shield for added protection, the two cameras on the back are protected by Sapphire Glass.

As for button placement, the power button is located on the right-hand side of the phone. The volume rocker is located on the left-hand side of the handset, along with the physical slider, which is meant for switching between Silent and Ring modes.

The lightning port is located on the bottom end of the device, next to the opening for one of the speakers. On the top end of the device, the notch houses the selfie camera along with various sensors. The earpiece, which doubles as the secondary speaker for the iPhone, is located above the notch.

The iPhone 14 comes with an IP68 rating for added protection against water and dust. While compact, the iPhone 14 is structurally sound as it features an aerospace-grade aluminium casing.

Additionally, the new iPhone comes with an all-new internal design which will result in significantly lower repair fees if your back glass ever gets cracked. This is because the iPhone 14 can be opened from the back side of the device.

While some users would love to immerse themselves by consuming content on a device with exaggerated colours and extra saturation, other users would love to get their hands on a device that displays true-to-life colours. If you belong to the second sub-group of users, the iPhone 14 is one of the best screens out there for your needs.

The new iPhone 14 packs a 6.1-inch(2532 x 1170) Super Retina XDR screen which is basically an OLED panel. The display supports 800 nits peak brightness, a 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio and Dolby Vision. Additionally, if you consume HDR content on the iPhone 14, the screen can push the brightness up to 1200 nits.

Yes, it is a 60Hz screen and you may notice the same especially if you have been using a high-end phone with 120Hz support. Nevertheless, Apple'optimzation is solid and this translates to exceptional results in the real world.

Additionally, in some aspects, the iPhone 14s 60Hz panel performs better than even 120Hz screens found on high-end Android phones.

While scrolling through content on YouTube and Instagram, I noticed that the phone instantly loaded the thumbnails and pictures respectively, without any delay. This makes the experience extremely smooth and pleasant.

The iPhone 14 also comes with Apple's True Tone functionality, which adjusts the colour temperature of the display, depending on the ambient lighting conditions, for a uniform viewing experience.

At first, I was sceptical about consuming content on the iPhone 14 as I am used to watching videos on phones with larger screens. But boy oh boy, was I taken by surprise.

I usually watch TV series and movies, late at night all cosied up in my bed. In these situations, holding a large device while lying down can be uncomfortable and this is where the iPhone 14 shines. The thin and light design combined with a sharp screen elevates the experience. The screen is phenomenal at showing true-to-life pictures.

I tested the HDR performance of the phone on platforms including YouTube and Netflix and there was no room for any complaint.

Coming to the speakers, Apple really hits it out of the park. There are two speakers on the iPhone 14; while one is located near the bottom end of the device, the other speaker is located at the top of the phone. The speakers are loud, offer an unreal amount of bass for a phone, and the mids and highs are well-tuned too.

The iPhone 14 packs a 3,279mAh battery and supports up to 20W fast charging. The device also supports MagSafe wireless charging up to 15W.

While I would have loved to see support for faster wired charging speeds, the iPhone 14 more than makes up for it by offering spectacular battery performance.

With light to moderate usage, I was easily able to get between a day and a half and two days of battery life on a single charge. Even with heavy usage, that involved watching videos on Netflix, playing Call of Duty: Mobile and listening to music, the phone easily lasted for a day on a single charge.

I was impressed with the standby performance of the device as there was hardly any battery drain, which is common with Android phones these days. Charging the device from 0-100 percent took me around 2 hours, while using Apple's cable and a 30W charger. The call quality offered by the iPhone 14 is exceptional. Placing and receiving calls via third-party apps was a fine experience as well, free of any issues.

The new iPhone 14 offers top-of-the-line performance that is stable, even when you push the processing power of the device for long durations.

Under the hood, the iPhone 14 is powered by the A15 bionic chipset which was introduced last year with the launch of the iPhone 13 series.

But compared to its predecessor, the iPhone 14 does have some improvements with regard to graphic performance. Apple has equipped the A15 bionic chip on the iPhone 14 with a 5-core GPU as compared to the 4-core GPU on the iPhone 13. The implementation of the chipset on the new iPhone 14 is similar to last year's iPhone 13 Pro models.

Playing games such as Call of Duty Mobile and Genshin Impact at the highest settings was an incredibly enriching experience. Even when playing multiple sessions of COD: Mobile, the phone offered sustained high-end performance. Needless to say, performing basic tasks such as browsing the web and scrolling through social media feeds was smooth. The iPhone 14 is a beast as far as performance is concerned.

The iPhone 14 comes with a crash detection feature that can detect a severe car crash and automatically dial emergency services, when a user is unconscious or unable to reach their iPhone. The iPhone make use of a new dual-core accelerometer capable of detecting G-force measurements of up to 256Gs and a new high dynamic range gyroscope.

Additionally, the new iPhone 14 comes with an all-new satellite-based Emergency SOS feature, that will allow the phone to connect to satellite frequencies when users are in an area where there is no connectivity. The Emergency SOS feature is not available in India and Apple has confirmed that the feature is only coming to the US and Canada. Needless to say, I have not tested these features.

Still, it is comforting to think, that Apple is leaving no stone unturned to innovate in terms of adding new features that may help users in real-world situations.

iPhone 14: Software

The iPhone 14 runs on iOS 16 which comes with various new features. But to start off, let's talk about my experience. Apple's UI is simple, reliable and smooth and the animations are slick.

iOS 16 offers a reimagined Lock Screen experience. Users can now fine-tune the look and feel of the Lock Screen by customizing elements like the wallpaper and font, adding widgets, and using Live Activities to stay updated on what's happening in real-time.

iOS 16 will allow you to create a couple of different lockscreens, based on your preferences, and switch between them on the go (tap and hold, then swipe). Additionally, iOS 16 gets an improved Focus mode which will allow users to easily assign a Focus mode on each lockscreen preset.

The new iOS 16 also introduces Focus filters. With these filters, apps such as messages and mail can automatically filter their content as predefined by the user within the Focus mode.

Apple has improved the Mail app as well and users can also edit and unsend messages in the Messages app. Live Text now works on both photos and videos and it can easily recognize texts and photos and allows for Look Up straight away.

Users can now also choose an object from a photo/video, tap and hold on it, and then drag it to view the same on another app. All in all, Apple has introduced a ton of new features with the launch of iOS 16.

Cameras are one aspect where the iPhone 14 seems to have gotten quite a few improvements. To start off, the all-new iPhone 14 comes with dual 12MP rear cameras. The primary sensor gets an even larger f/1.5 aperture when compared to last year's iPhone 13 and it supports larger 1.9µm pixels as well.

The size of the sensor is larger than its predecessor as well. It seems that Apple has used the same sensor that it used on the iPhone 13 Pro last year. The 12MP ultrawide camera features a 120-degree field of view and f/2.4 aperture. For the first time ever, the 12MP selfie shooter of the iPhone 14 comes with support for Autofocus.

Additionally, Apple claims that it has developed an all-new Photonic Engine for the iPhone 14 series, which is basically Apple's latest HDR stacking technology.

Apple introduced Photographic styles last year with the iPhone 13 and we do get the same feature on the iPhone 14. With Photographic styles, users can swipe to select a colour profile that gets baked into the camera app. And this is nothing like a standard filter.

While a filter is applied to the entire picture after it has been clicked, affecting everything in the frame from a person's face to the sky, Photographic Styles will understand the separate elements and apply the preset style accordingly.

Photographic Styles do not negatively affect skin tones and other elements in the frame. Think of it as Apple's way of baking in various colour profiles, so there is something for everybody.

What this means is that; even if you love the vivid photos clicked by Samsung phones or the extra contrasty look in images shot by Pixel devices, you can choose your preferred colour profile from the iPhone's wide range of options. After trying out all the styles, I leaned towards the Vibrant colour profile.

The above picture which was taken during the day has ample amounts of detail and the colours are true-to-life with just a hint of saturation.

The iPhone 14 can click great-looking shots in a fraction of a second. The shutter button is responsive and in good lighting conditions, the phone wastes no time in clicking an image.

The above image which was clicked using the primary 12MP shooter looks sharp and the skin tones are true to life as well.

Coming to the 12MP rear ultrawide shooter, images taken in good lighting conditions with this sensor come out clean. Though the quality is not as good as shots taken with the primary lens. The colours are pretty consistent with the primary shooter though.

In low lighting conditions, the primary 12MP camera does a remarkable job. As seen in the image above, the phone manages to preserve an incredible amount of detail and HDR performance is great as well.

In some situations, I noticed a lens flare issue when clicking images at night. While this is not a dealbreaker, it is a point worth mentioning.

One thing that I really loved about the iPhone 14s primary shooter is that while it amply brightens up the subject, the images do not look as if they have been clicked during the day, which is the case with many smartphone cameras.

While using the camera at night when there is less than ideal lighting, the phone does take a few seconds to capture images.

In some complicated lighting scenarios, the HDR performance of the device does take a hit. As seen in the image above, the shadows have been crushed. But nevertheless, the images still come out sharp, contrasty and clean and are also pleasant to look at.

The iPhone 14 is also great at clicking shots in situations where there is less than ideal lighting. Below are some more sample images taken from the iPhone 14.

All in all, the primary camera is a beast and pictures taken from the same come out detailed and sharp in almost all lighting conditions.

Coming to the selfie shooter, images come out sharp and detailed. Even when there are multiple subjects in the frame, I did not face any focusing issues. This can be attributed to the selfie camera now packing support for autofocus.

While facial features are well represented, so are pimples and blackheads, which look pronounced because of the natural colour profile, sharpness and lack of beautification. If you lean towards true-to-life, detailed selfies, the iPhone 14 performs really well in that regard.

However, if you have been using a Vivo phone, you may not like the selfie shooter of the iPhone 14 as it will not add virtual makeup to your face.

As for videos, Apple has introduced an all-new Action mode which will allow you to get gimbal-like stabilization. It supports up to 2.8K resolution and 60 fps.

With the iPhone 14, users will also be able to shoot 4K videos in Cinematic mode. My experience shooting videos with the iPhone 14 was phenomenal and the video quality offered by the device is some of the best that I have seen on any phone.

The iPhone 14 features an exquisite design, exceptional display, top-of-the-line cameras and next-level flagship performance. On top of that, you get Apple's latest iOS 16 and the promise of constant software updates. Now coming to the big question, should you upgrade?

Well, the only reason for you, not to consider upgrading to the new iPhone, is if you already own the iPhone 13. But the same is true for almost all devices, isn't it? Upgrading each year to the new model does not make sense.

On the other hand, if you are currently using an iPhone 12, iPhone 11 or any other older model, the new iPhone 14 makes a lot of sense. The iPhone 14 features some vital improvements over the iPhone 13 even if they are not too apparent at the surface level.

The iPhone 14 comes with an upgraded camera system, offers slightly better graphic performance, packs support for an SOS emergency via satellite feature, an all-new crash detection feature, and a new design that will no longer make repairability an issue.

Even if you are planning to switch from an Android phone, the iPhone 14 could be a great bet, thanks to its flagship-level hardware and exceptional software. Additionally, Apple normally provides software updates for iPhones for around 6 years, so that's a major step up coming from an Android device, where even 2-3 years of software support is not set in stone.