iPhone 14 Plus Review: Big Guy Less Noticed!

Introduction

The iPhone 14 Plus is a fantastic addition to Apple's iPhone line-up for many reasons, even though it lacks the Dynamic Island of the Pro versions to attract users. The biggest one is that we no longer have to pay Pro Max pricing to obtain a big display, a fundamental feature many of us desire and need on our smartphones nowadays.

The iPhone 14 Plus is the only iPhone a user needs if they are an Apple fan who wants a larger screen but doesn't want all of the features that the iPhone 14 Pro Max offers, which drives up the device's price by a little.

Don't anticipate any shocks, though; if one can ignore its dimensions and battery life, this new model is relatively uninteresting from a design and feature perspective and could've been a bit more intriguing than it is. It would have been lovely to have an always-on display and Dynamic Island. Still, unfortunately, the iPhone 14 Plus keeps things very, very basic.

Unboxing

Unboxing involves holding a tiny, minimalist retail box by the sides as the bottom gently pulls out to reveal the new electronic toy. This is standard procedure for Apple products.

A white Apple label, some papers, and a USB Type-C to Lightning connection are also included in the box. No charger is supplied, and if you live in the US, there is also no SIM ejector tool, as the new iPhones only support eSIM now. However, the venerable SIM ejector exists because this iPhone 14 Plus is an EU model.

For a little digression, let's go back to the lost charger. With flagship phones, at least, many firms are less likely to provide us with chargers "for free" any longer. The justification is environmental preservation. Reusing any old chargers, you may have sitting around is advised, but remember that they must be at least 20W to fully benefit from the iPhone 14 Plus' rapid charging.

Display

As we noted, the iPhone 14 Plus size is roughly the same as that of the 14 Pro Max and the 13 Pro Max, but its specifications have been reduced to reflect its lower price. A 6.7-inch OLED screen with a conventional 60Hz refresh rate will be provided. It is a Super Retina XDR display with a resolution of 2778 by 1284 pixels and a pixel density of 458 PPI (pixels per inch). The screen is clear. As should be expected from OLED screen technology, it is large and stunning, with deep blacks and vivid colors.

Some people had anticipated that this phone would gain the always-on display function. Still, as we may have predicted, that was only available for the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. So, the iPhone 14 Plus lacks an always-on display. However, HDR support is back, as well as True Tone.

Apple claims that our maximum brightness is 800 nits (1200 nits HDR peak brightness), which is less than, say, the Pro Max but is still more than bright enough for most customers. If a user is not planning a summer trip to the desert, they will find the brightness more than enough. In reality, the iPhone 14 Plus display is clearly visible even outside on a sunny day.

Due to its large, gorgeous display, the iPhone 14 Plus is excellent for online browsing, viewing movies, and doing almost everything else.

To determine if the bodies of the two phones are precisely the same size, one can compared them side by side with the iPhone 14 Pro Max. However, one can find a larger bezels surrounding the iPhone 14 Plus's display. The Plus features a slightly smaller display than the Pro Max while having a similar-sized chassis, taking into account the screen bezels.

Camera

The iPhone 14 Plus features two capable dual cameras, shown in our primary, ultra-wide, and night / low light images below. They are a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera with a 120� field of view and a 12-megapixel primary camera with sensor-shift optical image stabilization.

Despite the tendency for over-sharpening in daytime images, the bokeh effect is terrific in blurring background objects and making the subject in focus stand out. Even the night-time images appears respectably bright, clear, and detailed, by the way.

Flipping the phone around, there's a 12-megapixel selfie camera inside the notch. This one, like the rear camera, has Portrait mode, Night mode, and 4K, 60FPS video recording.

Portrait mode in selfies is better than ever, and it can even handle difficult images like the one above. Many phones with a Portrait mode would have struggled to recognize the small places between the frames of the glasses and the subject's head, potentially blurring the glasses or failing to blur the backdrop adequately. But the iPhone 14 Plus handled it admirably.

On the video side, the optical image stabilization (OIS) we mentioned earlier does come in handy. It's better than electronic image stabilization (EIS); with OIS, the camera sensor physically moves while the shooting a video to stabilize it. Meanwhile, EIS typically crops the video and uses software tricks to stabilize it, resulting in some image loss.

The iPhone 14 Plus can capture movies in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second (FPS). It's no surprise that 8K recording isn't available on any of the new iPhone 14 models, including the Pros. The 4K footage looks fantastic, as shown in the sample video below. The stability is strong, the colors are accurate, and the mic handled the loud surroundings admirably.

Audio & Haptics

As usual, Apple was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the speaker built into this iPhone. It's loud, powerful, and even a little bassy, which is a lot more than one would expect from a competition flagship.

This includes a down-firing speaker, as well as the earpiece, which serves as a second speaker, resulting in a good stereo experience while viewing movies or listening to music in landscape mode. The earpiece does not equal the speaker in terms of loudness and fullness, but for the sake of a stereo illusion, it suffices.

While on the issue of music, the iPhone 14 Plus lacks a headphone port, but it does use Bluetooth 5.3 to connect with all wireless headphones and speakers.

In terms of haptics, iOS now provides haptic feedback when typing using the on-screen keyboard. Although this is turned off by default, but one can usually allow it since the haptics are soothing and pleasant, as opposed to the hollow and unpleasant vibrations I've occasionally encountered from other phones.

iOS Version

The iPhone 14 Plus will be upgraded to iOS on 17th September, and the latest version of the operating system was introduced at Apple's WWDC'23 keynote. It makes several modifications to Messages, FaceTime, and other important iOS experiences and features.

The new iPhone 14 Plus comes with the new iOS 16, so there are some wonderful new features to discuss in addition to the usual smooth and dependable phone experience we all know and love.

Perhaps most noticeably, the lock screen is now customizable, allowing users to add Apple Watch-like widgets (battery percentages, reminders, etc.), modify the typeface of the lock screen date and time, or even browse a lock screen gallery and select something prefabricated to freshen things up.

Other significant iOS 16 innovations include Safari browser push notifications and Passkeys, which attempt to replace a user's multiple online passwords with something more clear, unified, and easier to manage; there are also a slew of smaller app, privacy, and security changes.

Lockdown Mode, a noteworthy new security feature in iOS 16, is as fantastic as it sounds. It's intended for "the minimal number of users who face grave, targeted threats to their digital security," since it tightens the iPhone's defenses and "strictly limits certain functions" that hackers may or may not hypothetically exploit. Think about people like Edward Snowden, rather than the rest of us. However, the sheer availability of this is more than welcome for individuals who respect their privacy and security.

Design & Colors

Unlike the more premium iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, the iPhone 14 Plus retains the notch that everyone has grown accustomed to. It is essentially a last-gen design that looks remarkably identical to the 2021 iPhone 13 Pro Max, except that the new Plus features a dual camera on the rear instead of three. And the bezels surrounding the display are significantly thicker here.

The greater size of the iPhone 14 Plus distinguishes it from the standard iPhone 14. Regardless, and despite being less expensive than the Pro variants, the iPhone 14 Plus has a quality Ceramic Shield front, a glass back, aluminum sides, lovely smooth corners, and a little camera bump on the rear. The Lightning port reappears at the bottom for charging and data transfer. On the front, some thin black bezels surround the nearly-7-inch display, and the notch remains unchanged from last year.

The iPhone 14 Plus is IP68 certified, which means it has been tested to withstand submersion in water at up to 6 meters for up to 30 minutes, so using it in light rain should be OK.

The biggest surprise for me at first was how light and classy the iPhone 14 Plus feels in hand considering its size and weight of 203 grams. Just keep in mind that a user will require larger hands to comfortably handle and utilize it. Its biggest selling point is its size; this beast will require huge hands and deep wallets. Here are the available color options:

• Midnight
• Purple
• Starlight
• Blue
• Product Red

Performance & Benchmarks

It is powered by the 2021 A15 Bionic technology, as opposed to the 14 Pro variants, which are powered by the new A16. Even if Apple is cutting corners again, the A15 is still a beast today.

Whether a user is pushing it with intense 3D gaming or video editing, they are unlikely to notice any stuttering. This is still one of the greatest cell phones available right now. A 6GB RAM option is sufficient for seamless app switching without the phone running out of memory and needing a restart.

Battery

Apple boasts that the iPhone 14 Plus has the "longest battery life ever" on an iPhone. This makes sense in theory: it includes a large 4,325 mAh battery, an older but extremely power-efficient chipset, and a 60Hz screen with no always-on display. Some aspects appear to be downsides, while others appear to be unambiguous advantages, but they all auger good for battery life endurance.

And Apple's claim of extended battery life is real - the iPhone 14 Plus' battery may easily last two days of typical usage or even longer if used sparingly. Apple promises up to 20 hours of video streaming on a single charge. Surprisingly, given Apple's boasts, while the iPhone 14 Plus does provide exceptional battery life, it isn't exactly miles ahead of the competition, and in some situations, it is even ahead.

One can opt for 20W wired fast-charge which charges with the Lightning connection on the bottom of the phone, which charges the phone from 0 to 50% in around 30 minutes. Of course, a 20W charger is not included and must be purchased separately.

When it comes to wireless charging, the iPhone 14 Plus supports up to 15W MagSafe charging, which drops to around 7.5W when using a generic Qi wireless charger. So, although a user gains the ease of fast charging without being tied to Apple's MagSafe, deploying it over Qi would give twice as fast wireless charging speeds.

Conclusion

The iPhone 14 Plus is a fantastic new addition to Apple's smartphone lineup with its starting price of $899. It has a large display and battery without charging Pro Max costs. However, bear in mind that it lacks Pro features like a 120Hz always-on display, a faster CPU, a telephoto camera, and Apple ProRAW video recording.

The phone may be hard to identify as a 2022 model since it is nearly comparable to earlier iPhones, even down to the notch. There is no Dynamic Island here. But, in the end, if a user wants a huge iPhone for comfortably watching content with fantastic battery life and don't need any Pro bells and whistles, this is the phone for to look for.