Design & Build Quality

Over the past few iterations of iPhone models, we are starting to see the slowdown of innovative features being added to iPhones. But we all know that having a new model out every year can be tremendous amounts of work and Apple devices often live in their own separated world and are seemingly immune to Android features. This year, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is barely any different from its predecessors. Starting off with the design. the 14 Pro Max features the same flat -sides edge of surgical-grade stainless steel, coupled with the stunning matte back glass etched in one of the four colours of Deep Purple, Silver, Gold and Space Black. Durability wise, the 14 Pro Max's IP68 dust and water resistance holds up against the elements. And just like before, the front Super-Retina XDR Display is covered with tried-and-true Ceramic Shield glass that has proven itself in the test of time. Typical drops at waist-level height on regular floors will not shatter the glass on both front and back. Meanwhile, at a higher head height, the Made By Apple cases would do great at protecting at protecting the phone from all angles, but the case would definitely see some damages. A proven formula that have kept Apple retaining the 14 Pro in two sizes of 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches for that enjoyable extra screen real estate. However this time, the some internal features have improved, namely the Super Retina XDR Display having 120Hz ProMotion high refresh rate for a smoother display and user experience and a low 1Hz refresh rate for the Always On Display. Now, what seems like a feature that should have been around for years back on Androids, is well now on IOS. But as a first attempt, I would say that more could have been done in future software updates. For starters, the Always On Display is hardly any dimmer than a regular screen set to the lowest brightness setting, and that means to say it can really bright in a totally dark room, especially for those who sleep with their phones next to them, Secondly, as expected this setting eats into the 14 Pro Max's battery significantly. Well, more often than not, I find myself turning on Power Saving Mode during the day to turn off the Always On Display and switch the Focus Mode to sleep in the night to conserve battery life. The experience is not too bad when you actually consider the aesthetics of what your iPhone's lock screen can do. IOS 16 now allows us to customise our lock screen and home screen in a set and I would say it is the best yet. From changing the clock fonts to adding widgets like weather, battery life statuses of your accessories, the wallpaper pops with great contrast with depth effect. Notifications hide away in many different forms in my chosen is list form. All this wouldn't have looked great with the display isn't the brightest and that's where the 2000 nits brightness of the screen truly shines in the iPhone 14 Pro Max, making the viewing experience the best in the industry when using direct sunlight. Putting user experience in the front and centre of the Apple design philosophy, we are now introduced to the Dynamic Island, a fancyu new notch that has left its top corner to becaome a useful element of sorts. First up, it takes up less screen space to giver your content that bit of showtime. However, I found it to be slightly distracting when watching videos or movies now since I can't seem to unsee the notch and can't help but take notice of the content that spills over to the gap. Well, inside the black pill, the front facing camera is located at the right alongside the smaller True Depth camera that is said to have improved for low-light performance. Combining software wioth hardware, the Dynamic Island strategically takes information from yout opened apps to display things like a voice recording, music playback, charging status, ringing or silent mode and much more. A simple press and hold dies bring the element temporarily larger for you to change its settings without switching between apps on the fly. A clever way for Apple to hide its notch and turn it into somewhat an interactive feature mimicking Stage Manager on MacBooks. 

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Performance

Moving on to performance, the 14 Pro Max utilises the latest and greatest A16 Bionic chip that helps the iPhone propel way ahaead of the competition. So let's dive in to the biggest one yet, its upgraded cameras. A 48MP main camera with a quad-pixel sensor intelligently adapts and read every photo captured tgo retain low-light detail and deep editing capabilities. Its zoom ranges from 0.5x on the ultra-wide to 2x on the main camera that zooms in optically using the middle of the sensor to 3x with the telephoto lens. Pro photographers will be excited to know that photos can be captured in ProRaw at 48MP so you can process and edit the photos later on a dedicated app like Lightroom and not lose its details. However, a downside is the fact that each ProRaw image captured can easily take a minimum of 100MB of space which can be uneconomical for both low storage or iCloud users. For videos, 4K ProRes video with the 2nd generation optical image stabilisation produces content that supports Dolby Vision HDR and close to action camera-like stabilisation. Action Mode proves itself that it is now indeed not such a big loss to capture video without a dedicated gimbal since the OIS really focuses on keeping the video in ready to watch condition straight out of camera. However, as with any OIS, do be prepared for some cropping action thst zooms the overall content closer than without stabilisation on. Computational photography takes Night and Portrait Mode to the next level, increasing the sharpness and overall natural look to an image captured in the dark without over brightening it to look overexposed, while Portrait Mode greatly enhances facial features with Portrait lighting and combining all of that imporvement to do Night Mode Portraits. By applying Deep Fusion, earlier in the processing of the image, the colours, subtle textures and data is retained in all types of image whether it may be a live photo or not. Taking cues from the film-making industry, a new Cinematic Mode lets you capture a 4K video in 30fps or 24 fps and smoothly transitions between subjects even after the video has been captured. Well, not to forget the LIDAR scanner that has being aroundfor a while now, that helps determine distance by measuring the distance of light that takes for the light to travel and reflect back that is greatly important for augmented reality apps like IKEA Place for fiurniture placement, the Measure app to take estimated dimensionsor even product ARs like the Apple Store app to perceive the scale of a particular device in your space. Last but not least, the newly-designed adaptive TrueTone flash is aranged in a LED array for even more even light distribution across different focal lengths. Now, no excellent videos can be captured if the mic pickup is terrible. So once again, the 14 Pro Max exceeded expections by capturing a wide array of sound nunances but yet filtering out voices to be crisp and clear. That only means to say that phone and video calls are very directed to picking up your voice while cancelling out the rest of your noisy surroundings. The speakers are now so much better too, with a balanced stereo output. Sparkling highs crisp mid-range and deep low-end are audible just from the speakers playing out loud even at maximum volumes. I could perceive distnict left and right channels and the depth of soundstage easily and I have say I was blown away time-and-time again by the audio engineering that Apple has achieved every time even when they are not a dedicated audio company. Back to everyday use, the A16 Bionic chip with its 6-core CPU is 40% faster at running intense apps like games and photography apps. With an accelerated 5-core GPU. you will be sure that graphics are bound to output smoothly in the most fast-paced games and movies. Of course, all these cannot be made to work in tandem if Neural Engine is lacking. That is why the 16-core counterpart helps put the 17 trillion operations to work. In my day-to-day use, I haven't got the 14 Pro Max to start lagging by stress testing with multiple apps, and that's its the beauty of IOS, you can never beat it regardless of how many intensive apps you try to run in the background. If anything, you will only feel the chassis of the phone heat up a little when recording long 4K videos or after long hours of heavy gaming. IOS 16 have proven itself to be the most user-friendly interface to challege its competition in the Android space. As mentioned, we have the customisable lock screen alongside some Apple imagery like the Weather or Astronomy wallpapers that detects day from night and rain from shine to change accordingly. Next, Focus Modes help you keep distractions at the bay by filtering out notifications that can disrupt your productivity. Whether it msy be as straightforward as Do Not Disturb Mode or others like Sleep, Driving or Work, each mode can be customised to block out unimportant notifications and have exceptions so you can respond to emergency or important messages and calls without losing touch. Notably, one of the most exciting features in IOS 16 is Live Text, With its smarts, it can recognise and extract the text from photos and videos regardless if its captured by an iPhone or not to copy and paste text, convert currencies, do a language translation or even create stickers which many of us have been having too much fun making funny and quirky stickers to tease our friends and family members. 

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Connectivity & Portability

In terms of connectivity, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is 5G mmWave capable supported with the latest Bluetooth 5.3 and Wi-Fi 6. And for US customers, they will now opt for eSIM that helps preapre for a portless and slot-free wireless iPhone. Personally, residing in one of the fastest 5G speed countries, Singapore carrier speeds have unlocked full coverage for speedy download and content streaming. Loading contents on the fly, I could hardly experience any waiting time in this bustling cityscape. If you do find yourself on the opposite side of the suburbs in a remote area challenging the elements, the iPhone doesn't leave you in a lurch either. Firstly, Crash Detection uses a internal dual-core accelerometer and high dynamic range gyroscope to detect G-forces, cabin pressure changes, loud crash noise and many accompanying factors to accurately pinpoint iof you are indeed stuck in a car crash and helps you dial emergenecy services immediately and automatically. These features work together with Apple Watch to make the process be in close proximity to the user. Another emergency SOS feature is via satellite which helps the user regains cellular coverage in areas with low bandwidth. Throughout the process, you will need to keep pointing your phone to the sky until a satellite connection is detected. Whilst in the process, vital questions will be asked to assess the situation severity that will eventually relay to the centres with Apple-trained specialists that can call for help on your behalf. This also works with Find My technology when there are no cellular or Wi-Fi connection too. However, this safety feature will only be available in the US and Canada for now and it willbe free for 2 years. The battery life of the 14 Pro Max is claimed up to 29 hours of video playback and an approximate of 4,323 mAh. So far, heavy workloads and long gaming hours have not been draining the battery too quickly, but long 4K video recordings or having the Always-On Display enabled does impact battery life. As with all batteries, only time will tewll if the battery health can last for years but for the near future, you will enjoy the strength of this immensely strong battery that wipes out all of the flagship Android that are on the market as of now. As ancient as it sounds, the 14 Pro Max still uses the Lightning port for wired recharging. MagSafe adopters need not worry as much as the current MagSafe accessories introduced 3 years back with the 12 Pro Max is still relevant and as efficient to recharge the 14 Pro Max. A recent lawsuit have past by the EU have forced Apple to switch all its electronics to USB-C charging to use none at all have let Apple top employees to come out to say that they would comply in future. However, the deadline is still far and rumour has it that we will never see a USB-C iPhone since we are gradually progressing into a port-free and truly wireless world. Well, kudos for better water and dust resistance I guess. In the package, there is a USB-C to Lightning charging cable but still no charging brick, so you will need to shell out a few dollars for a 20W power brick.

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PROS​

• Modern Design

• A16 Bionic Powerful Chip

• Ultra-wide Camera

• LIDAR Scanner for Augmented Reality

• Up to 1TB Storage

• P3 Wide Colour Gamut & True Tone

• IOS 16

• MagSafe Fast Charging

• 5G mmWave

• Bluetooth 5.3

• Wi-Fi 6 & LTE

• IP68 Waterproof and Dustproof

 

CONS​​​

• No Expandable Storage​

• No 3.5mm headphone jack

 

The Bottom Line

All in all, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is the phone made for Pro users in areas of photography , videography as well as productivity. It is built with the best of the best in all areas that are benefical to any use case. Whether that may be shooting a budget movie, winning an E-sports championship , producing or organising workflows on-the-go, you will be satisfied to know the the A16 Bionic chip with IOS 16 puts you ready for the next challenge. Alongside its intuitive Dynamic Island and smart Emergency SOS features, the 6.7 inch iPhone 14 Pro Max is offered in a range of storage options of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB and in 4 colours of Deep Purple, Silver, Gold and Space Black.