Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max (128 GB) – Space Black

I use it for both business and personal through an esim and a physical sim. Both are a breeze

Phone is just awsome. Good packaging and on time delivery by amazon. Very mice phone and camera. Just loved it

Apple hasn’t made any bones about the fact that there are certain products it has that aren’t meant for everyone. Some of these — like the Mac Studio or even the Mac mini — are way too niche and will be sought by those who really need them. And then there are those that bring the best of Apple at an expensive — very expensive — price point but are desired by many. The iPhone’s Pro models have always been in the category — the coveted one, the desirable one, the one that makes you want to junk that financial prudence that has been drilled in you. The iPhone 14 Pro Max is very much that phone — the best of Apple and by now you know that it is an expensive phone. Rs 1,39,900 is the starting price and there’s little point in debating on why it’s so expensive and whether it’s value for money or not. It’s an Apple product, it is an iPhone, and it is the Pro Max variant — of course it will be expensive. Apple wants your money and the iPhone 14 Pro Max is that dangling proposition that may just want you to break the bank and get one.

DESIGN AND DISPLAY
Seen one? Seen all. If you have seen the iPhone 12 Pro Max or the iPhone 13 Pro Max then the iPhone 14 Pro Max has very little different to offer in terms of design. It’s a popular design with a stainless frame that looks elegant and the frosted glass back is still gorgeous to look at. Apple knows that this design is a hit and there’s no point in expecting it to change anytime soon. Generally, an Apple design lasts for years before a new one comes. Don’t believe us? Look at the MacBook Air, which followed a similar design philosophy for years till the M2 model arrived this year. So don’t expect Apple to make wholesale changes to the design every year, you will only get disappointed.

The one remarkable thing about the design of the iPhone 14 Pro Max is that yes, you have seen it before and yes, it hasn’t changed but it still looks great. But do keep in mind that this is a really big phone. If you aren’t used to a big phone then perhaps think twice before getting this or look at the iPhone 14 Pro instead. I wouldn’t call it unwieldy but yes, it is certainly not a one-handed phone. The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra felt really big but this one feels rather bigger in the hand. And yes, it is heavy as well at 240 grams.

The big size is preferred by many as it brings in a big display and it’s a compromise many would settle for on the iPhone 14 Pro Max. The 6.7-inch OLED display offers a resolution of 2796 x 1290 pixel and 460ppi pixel density. What’s that in common parlance? An excellent display that is great to look at, colour reproduction is accurate and the brightness levels are optimum. Apple claims that the iPhone 14 Pro Max offers the maximum brightness in a smartphone — 2000 nits of brightness in direct sunlight. We had zero problems reading on the iPhone 14 Pro Max even when it was really sunny outside.

The 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate works as smoothly as it did on the iPhone 13 Pro Max — no complaints or no changes here to see. The display is extremely snappy and a lot of it is down to iOS 16 as well as Apple does handle animations much better than most of its competition does.

If the refresh rate and other specs remain the same, then there’s something new in the form of the Always-on display. Better late than never, some may say. Apple is fashionably late but has arrived in some style. Now I am sure you must have read that some Android phone brought Always-on display first. Heck, even Google couldn’t resist the temptation to take a dig at Apple during its biggest hardware event of 2022. But Apple has created a perception that it isn’t in the rat race and that some features might not come first but they do come with a difference. Like the Always-on display.

Apple’s implementation of Always-on display is unlike any other smartphone. What happens on the iPhone 14 Pro Max when Always-on display is turned on is that the lock screen is dimmed. “Display, display on the phone, who’s the prettiest of ‘em all?” It’s the iPhone 14 Pro Max with the Always-on display. You can see notifications, lock screen widgets and everything else but it is subtly dimmed. If you have an iPhone and you use it for the first time, you might feel that was there a need for this? Not really but once you’ve used it, I bet you will not be able to use the iPhone 14 Pro Max without toggling on the Always-on display.

DYNAMIC ISLAND
Now generally we tend to keep all display features in one sub-head but we are making an exception for the Dynamic Island. After all it is the belle of the ball, the headline act of the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Or at least it’s the most-talked about feature on this year’s iPhones. And it does deserve a separate section as it is delightfully done. The notch was Apple’s gift to the smartphone industry. The first year after the launch of iPhone X — the first one with the notch — Android brands made a beeline to adopt the notch as if Santa Claus handed it out on Christmas. But then Android phone makers came up with their really good iterations of it and Apple stuck with the notch until the Dynamic Island arrived with the iPhone 14 Pro models. And man, it is so well done that you just keep fiddling with it only for the first few days — at least that’s what I found myself doing. The Dynamic Island is a different take on the notch and makes the use of that space which no one else ever thought of doing it before Apple. Not a fan of the name but this is a really cool feature to use and is not gimmicky at all.

For someone who uses Apple Music a lot more than one should, the Dynamic Island is a treat. It will show the album artwork along the playback controls, and the waveform, AirPlay — all in that tiny little space. If you are using any app and get an incoming call, then the Dynamic Island will show the alert and all the call controls. AirPods Pro’s battery life also appears in the Dynamic Island. Apple Maps directions also come on the Dynamic Island and so much so that at times I did ditch Google Maps for it because it looks really good.

Apple has always had a way of showing all these notifications but never had a ‘home’ — which is now the Dynamic Island. In a few months, here’s hoping that other developers take advantage of the Dynamic Island as it is a really fun and useful feature. Apple is expected to launch Live Activities API soon and that’s when we will really see the Dynamic Island thrive and it is something that should get a lot of people excited. Is the feature good enough to pay the difference between the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro price? It certainly is if you want the complete iPhone experience.

CAMERA
It has been well established that the iPhone cameras are one of the most consistent and versatile ones around. Apple seemed mightily reluctant to get in the megapixel race and remained steady with 12MP cameras. A case of better late than never yet again and once more Apple has done it differently. The primary camera now has a 48MP sensor, which produces some excellent images. All the images clicked from the 48MP camera have rich colours and look exceptionally vibrant and true to life. There are a lot of details captured especially in the images which were clicked using ProRAW. Like every other 48MP camera, Apple too uses pixel binning to give you 12MP images only but the ProRAW mode actually gives you 48MP images. And the difference is quite stark as more details are captured. But the trade-off is that images clicked with the 48MP camera consume a lot of space, like a lot. The photos we clicked ranged anywhere between 12MB to 42MB — so use it rather judiciously. Of course, ProRAW is meant not just for utilising the 48MP camera.

What works in the favour of the primary 48MP camera — with and without pixel binning — is the consistency it offers. You can be clicking in good lighting condition or not-so-good conditions, the iPhone 14 Pro Max delivers images that make you sit up and take note. Apple has certainly improved low-light photography as the iPhone 14 Pro Max does a wonderful job when the lights are dimmed. What the 48MP primary camera also gives is the option of 2x optical zoom lens — a nice addition to the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s camera’s arsenal.

The other 12MP cameras — telephoto and ultra-wide — also do a fine job of clicking images. Portraits clicked on the iPhone 14 Pro Max look great and bokeh effect is spot on. Apple’s computational photography has been a step ahead of others and on the iPhone 14 Pro Max you get the Photonic Engine. As per Apple, this is meant to improve colour reproduction and click better images in less light.

The lack of zoom on the telephoto camera now does rankle a bit. The iPhone 14 Pro Max offers 3x zoom at a time when the likes of Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra can go up to 100x. I do wish Apple brings more zoom capabilities on the next iPhone as it is perhaps the only feature that is missing on these cameras.

The Macro mode — enabled automatically — is a true delight on the iPhone 14 Pro Max. No one has done a better job with the macro mode than Apple as the results are truly excellent. Try capturing fabrics with the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the level of details is fascinating to see. You will find macro modes in so many smartphones’ cameras but the iPhone 14 Pro Max is a cut above the rest.

For the selfie/usfie/groupfie/whateverfie brigade, Apple has added a brand new camera. The 12MP camera now gets autofocus and it is really impressive. And it really shows in FaceTime calls or other video calls as well. There’s more clarity than there ever was on any iPhone. The front camera is a significant improvement on the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

Where the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s camera really shines is videos. Apple brought Cinematic Mode last year with the iPhone 13 Pros and with the iPhone 14 Pros, you get the all-new Action Mode. No, it’s not a gimbal or anything like that. What it does is it really it offers really good stabilisation and that’s because Apple has improved EIS (electronic image stabilisation). You don’t get 4K recording with this mode as maximum resolution offered is 2.8K but it is still very good. The footage almost always remained really stable. The Cinematic Mode still remains great fun to use.

Is this the best camera setup in any smartphone? Not exactly but it is certainly most versatile and consistent cameras in any smartphone. Almost every image is pleasing to look at and more than anything, the iPhone 14 Pro Max makes you want to click more images — something that I can’t say about any other smartphone, except the Pixel phones.

PERFORMANCE, BATTERY LIFE
This will be rather short and concise: the A-series Bionic processors on the iPhones have always been blazing fast and the iPhone 14 Pro Max with A16 is no different. The phone is a total powerhouse in every sense and handles all sorts of tasks comically well. You really can’t find any fault in the performance of the iPhone 14 Pro Max as it really is flawless. The iOS 16 experience is still getting refined so you might see a bug here and there but I expect Apple to sort that out soon.

The iPhone 13 Pro Max by far had the best battery performance I have seen in all the phones reviewed in the last 12 months. Expectations were lofty from the iPhone 14 Pro Max and it was a rather bumpy start. In the first few days, with just under 5 hours of screen time, the phone had consumed close to 84% battery — alarm bells did ring as Apple did tout the battery life of the iPhone 14 Pro Max. However after a few days normalcy was resumed as with six hours of screen time — with Always-on enabled — the iPhone 14 Pro Max still had 40% battery left. Does the Always-on display consume a lot of battery?Slightly but it’s not a battery guzzling feature. Overall, with a lot of streaming on Apple Music, Safari, WhatsApp, social media activities on a daily basis, the iPhone 14 Pro Max can really go on for a day — and then some — on a single charge.

VERDICT
Apple has made a habit of making excellent smartphones and the iPhone 14 Pro Max is no different. There’s no escaping the fact that the iPhone 14 Pro Max is one of the most expensive smartphones you can buy — starting at Rs 1,39,900 and goes up to Rs 1,89,900 (1TB storage variant). You might think that it will be a hard sell especially in a country like India. India still remains a vanilla iPhone island but the aspiration to go Pro is strong as ever.

This year Apple has really separated the Pro models from the vanilla ones with the iPhone 14 series. And there is still an audience that salivates at the thought of getting an iPhone Pro — perhaps they have used the vanilla and want an upgrade or they are the ones that just want the best of Apple. The iPhone 14 Pro Max gets the best of Apple in every sense. The display is a delight — Dynamic Island is great fun — and the cameras have been upgraded as well. Should you go for it? Without battling an eyelid as long as you can splash the cash The iPhone 14 Pro Max is one of the best smartphones money can buy.

This is my first apple phone and i have to admid why all world is crazy for iphone, quality is best all features are very useful design purposefully. Finally have entered apple ecosystem.Must buy phone if you have budget go for 14 promax….