Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max
MSRP $1,099.00
“The iPhone 14 Pro Max is the most effective iPhone — and the most effective overall smartphones — you may buy straight away. From a surprising display, premium design, and great cameras, it has all of it.”
Pros
- Exquisitely premium design
- Beautiful 120Hz display
- Dynamic Island is a joy
- At all times-on screen is gorgeous
- Incredible camera system
- Blistering performance
- Outstanding battery life
- Robust iOS 16 software
Cons
- One in all the heaviest phones you may buy
- Expensive
For the previous couple of years, buying Apple’s top-tier iPhone has meant needing to get the Pro equivalent. When you want the nicest cameras, display, and battery life, it’s the Pro iPhone you require. That’s no different this 12 months, with 2022’s best iPhones being the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Apple’s latest 48MP camera, always-on screen, and Dynamic Island are incredibly welcome additions to the newest Pro iPhones — something we highlight extensively in our iPhone 14 Pro review. The iPhone 14 Pro Max retains the entire 14 Pro’s excellence while also going a step further, adding a more immersive display and for much longer battery life. Those things do come at a value, but in case you can stomach the upper price and added heft, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is the epitome of a flagship smartphone. It’s big, premium, powerful, and complete overkill in all the most effective ways.
iPhone 14 Pro Max design
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
The iPhone 14 Pro Max’s design looks very just like last 12 months’s 13 Pro Max, which is to say, it looks loads just like the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Apple’s stuck with the identical general design language for the last couple of years, and while that will not make the iPhone 14 Pro Max a visible breakthrough, this tried-and-true design offers little or no to complain about.
The chrome steel frame is lush, the frosted glass back looks and feels incredible, and small details — just like the buttons and haptic feedback — are as exquisite as you’d expect. Most smartphones today have a pleasant fit-and-finish, however the iPhone 14 Pro Max still appears like a step above.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max still has a lightning port. Joe Maring/Digital Trends
There may be one design characteristic unique to the Pro Max equivalent of the iPhone 14, and that’s its size. Measuring 160.7mm tall and weighing a hefty 240 grams, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is one of the crucial substantial phones you may buy. As someone who generally prefers smaller phones and has spent the past 12 months using an iPhone 13 Pro, making the jump to the iPhone 14 Pro Max initially seemed quite intimidating.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max still appears like a step above.
After living with the phone for over every week as my go-to handset, I’m completely satisfied to say that the transition hasn’t been nearly as difficult as I imagined. Yes, the iPhone 14 Pro Max continues to be a really tall and really heavy smartphone. For some people, it’ll at all times be just too big to comfortably use. But, I’m personally at a degree where I’m used to its weight and have found ways to maneuver it with one hand.
iPhone 14 Pro Max screen
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
There are two essential advantages you get for putting up with the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s gargantuan size, the primary of which is an expansive 6.7-inch display. That display is an OLED one and has a resolution of 2796 x 1290 — understanding to the identical 460ppi pixel density of the smaller iPhone 14 Pro.
Just like the iPhone 14 Pro, the standard of the 14 Pro Max’s screen is superb. Colours are vivid and delightful, text is straightforward to read, and the screen is now brighter than ever. You’ll be able to expect 1000 nits of typical max brightness, but in direct sunlight where more light is demanded, the iPhone 14 Pro Max can go all the way in which as much as 2000 nits of brightness. Even on the sunniest of days, you shouldn’t ever have an issue seeing the phone outdoors.
The screen gets incredibly shiny. Joe Maring/Digital Trends
The iPhone 14 Pro Max also retains the 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate Apple introduced on the iPhone 13 Pro lineup, supplying you with ultra-smooth animations every time you’re interacting with the phone. Combined with the fluid nature of iOS 16, this creates one in every of the smoothest and snappiest phones I’ve used all 12 months.
And, in fact, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is one in every of the primary iPhones with an always-on screen. Pressing the ability button to show off your iPhone’s display now shows a dimmed version of your lock screen, complete with notifications, lock screen widgets, and the complete color of your wallpaper. I’ve never been the most important fan of always-on screens, but I do need to admit that Apple’s implementation is one in every of the prettiest I’ve seen.
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
From the subtle animation that plays when turning the screen on and off to having album artwork showcased when listening to music, it makes the lock screen feel more alive than ever. I don’t find the entire thing particularly useful as someone who wears an Apple Watch daily, but regardless, I’m glad Apple finally made the always-on jump.
Apple’s always-on screen is one in every of the prettiest I’ve seen.
These are all qualities you can even enjoy on the iPhone 14 Pro. The iPhone 14 Pro Max isn’t technically any different within the display department; it just gives you more of that incredible display to play with. From gaming, scrolling through Twitter, watching YouTube videos, and browsing sites on Safari, all of it feels greater and roomier on the iPhone 14 Pro Max. The iPhone 14 Pro’s 6.1-inch display actually isn’t tiny, but having a 6.7-inch canvas to make use of daily has been a treat.
iPhone 14 Pro Max Dynamic Island
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
What’s also been a treat is the Dynamic Island. Gone is Apple’s notch, and as an alternative is a solid black bar at the highest of the screen. Silly name aside, the Dynamic Island is one of the crucial exciting iPhone features I’ve seen in years and makes me enthusiastic about what Apple can do with it.
Listening to a song? Swipe as much as go home, and your music app floats into the Dynamic Island to point out the album artwork and a color-matching waveform of what’s playing. Start a timer, and the Dynamic Island displays a live countdown so you may easily regulate it. The Dynamic Island also shows incoming calls and call controls, Face ID prompts, device charging alerts, AirPods connection pop-ups, Apple Maps directions, and more.
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
These are all notifications which have at all times existed on the iPhone, however the Dynamic Island now gives them a cohesive place to live. Together with simplifying iOS’s many alerts, it gives them a fun, playful characteristic that’s just so rattling charming. The Dynamic Island isn’t at all times doing something, but when an app does reap the benefits of it, it’s a treat.
My only criticism concerning the Dynamic Island is that I wish it could do more. There’s currently not much utility for the feature beyond a number of system notifications and music playback. Nonetheless, that ought to be changing within the not-too-distant future. When Apple launches the Live Activities API with iOS 16.1 later this 12 months, third-party apps like Lyft, Uber, ESPN, Starbucks, and others will have the option to create their very own uses for the Dynamic Island. That’s when the Dynamic Island should get really exciting, and I can’t wait to see what that appears like.
iPhone 14 Pro Max cameras
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
Apple’s camera game has been on point for the last couple of years, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max improves things yet again. Apple’s stuck with 12MP camera sensors because the iPhone 6s, but with the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max, you get a brand latest 48MP essential camera with an f/1.78 aperture and sensor-shift optical image stabilization. Using the added resolution of the sensor, the 48MP essential camera can be used as a 2x optical zoom lens.
The essential camera is joined by a 12MP telephoto camera able to 3x zoom, along with a 12MP ultrawide camera with a 120-degree field-of-view. Also latest is the 12MP front-facing camera, which is the primary selfie camera on an iPhone with autofocus. And that’s just what you get on a hardware level. Software-wise, the iPhone 14 Pro Max utilizes Apple’s latest Photonic Engine image pipeline, offering “more lifelike colours and beautifully detailed textures in less light than ever,” based on Apple’s website.
All of it sounds very impressive, and looking out at photos captured with the iPhone 14 Pro Max, it’s comprehensible why Apple’s hyping up the camera a lot. Simply put, it’s excellent.
Whether you’re shooting in good or mediocre lightning conditions, the 48MP essential camera consistently produces incredible results. Colours are wealthy and vibrant but in addition do job of remaining true to life to what a scene actually looked like. I’ve also been impressed with the quantity of detail you get with the essential camera. While images from the 48MP sensor are pixel-binned to 12MP shots, you continue to see very fantastic details in pictures. One other great perk of the larger 48MP camera is the natural depth of field you get within the photos you’re taking. The photo of my dog sleeping on his bed might have been a throwaway shot, but due to how the camera naturally blurred the front of his bed and his body further away from the camera, it finally ends up looking really impressive.
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
The 48MP camera also shines even when the lights come down. Taking pictures in a dimly-lit room isn’t a challenge in any respect for the iPhone 14 Pro Max. It has no problem continuing to point out great colours, implausible detail, and natural bokeh. Even in near pitch-black scenarios, the iPhone 14 Pro Max brings in enough light for a completely usable shot. Extremely low-light images inevitably mean sacrificing detail, but that’s the case for even the most effective smartphone cameras — the ranks of which the iPhone 14 Pro Max actually belongs.
iPhone 14 Pro Max ultrawide camera Joe Maring/Digital Trends
iPhone 14 Pro Max ultrawide camera Joe Maring/Digital Trends
iPhone 14 Pro Max ultrawide camera Joe Maring/Digital Trends
What concerning the 12MP ultrawide camera? It’s also excellent! There’s an expected drop intimately for these photos in comparison with the essential camera, but in case you’re in an instance where you would like a wider shot that also looks great, it’s an admirable performer. Apple’s also done job keeping edge distortion to a minimum, ensuring there’s no unsightly fish-eye effect on these shots.
iPhone 14 Pro Max macro mode Joe Maring/Digital Trends
iPhone 14 Pro Max macro mode Joe Maring/Digital Trends
iPhone 14 Pro Max macro mode Joe Maring/Digital Trends
iPhone 14 Pro Max macro mode Joe Maring/Digital Trends
But it surely’s not only ultrawide photos this 12MP camera is able to. Get the iPhone 14 Pro Max close enough to something, and the camera app mechanically switches to a macro mode enabled by the ultrawide camera. The outcomes are phenomenal. Whether you would like a close-up shot of a flower or want to search out hidden details in a bit of material, there’s a lot versatility with the macro mode. Bad macro cameras are a dime-a-dozen on smartphones, but high-quality ones are much harder to return by, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s macro camera is amongst the most effective I’ve used.
iPhone 14 Pro Max 3x zoom Joe Maring/Digital Trends
iPhone 14 Pro Max 3x zoom Joe Maring/Digital Trends
iPhone 14 Pro Max 3x zoom Joe Maring/Digital Trends
iPhone 14 Pro Max 3x zoom Joe Maring/Digital Trends
I’ve also been impressed with the 12MP telephoto camera. On paper, 3x zoom doesn’t sound nearly as impressive because the 30x and 100x zoom you may get on a Galaxy S22 Ultra. But in practice, it’s proven to be a really welcome sensor. 3x photos from the telephoto camera get you much closer to your subject while still maintaining great detail and good colours. I also think 3x strikes a pleasant balance of getting you close up to a subject without it looking like a muddled mess. And the 2x zoom mode from the 48MP essential camera has also been a blast, getting you closer to your subject while still seeing a number of the background around them.
Last but not least, there’s the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s latest selfie camera. I’m very much not a selfie person, but I made a decision to make myself a selfie person while reviewing the iPhone 14 Pro Max, and it really did impress me.
iPhone 14 Pro Max selfie camera Joe Maring/Digital Trends
As expected, the 12MP selfie camera does an important job with accurate colours and pleasing details. But it surely’s the autofocus that basically makes it shine. Previous iPhones have all had a hard and fast focus for his or her selfie cameras, meaning that they had a set focus point that couldn’t be adjusted. But on the iPhone 14 Pro Max, you may adjust that focus to be much closer or further away than before. It’s a seemingly small detail, but it surely’s made the camera rather more versatile. I really like taking close-up pictures of my cats every time they jump on my lap while I’m at my desk. If I took these photos with my iPhone 13 Pro’s selfie camera, they’d come out horribly blurry, but they’re sharp and in deal with the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
I didn’t expect to go so in-depth on the cameras after I began writing this review, but I suppose that’s a testament to how good the iPhone 14 Pro Max is on this department. It’s one in every of those camera systems that makes me wish to exit and take more photos, and that’s perhaps the most effective compliment I can provide it.
iPhone 14 Pro Max iOS 16
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
Out of the box, the iPhone 14 Pro Max runs iOS 16. Apple’s latest tackle iOS is basically paying homage to iOS 15, though with a number of notable changes. As we’ve talked about extensively, the most important change for this 12 months’s update is the lock screen.
In iOS 16, Apple now gives you full control to edit your lock screen in a myriad ways. You’ll be able to change the time font, add widgets, and create multiple lock screens you may switch between at a moment’s notice. The interface for customizing this stuff may very well be improved, however the added functionality provided here is implausible, and all of it looks gorgeous when displayed on the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s always-on screen.
The lock screen isn’t the one big update in iOS 16. The Weather app now permits you to tap on forecasted weather and other stats to get much more information than before. There’s also an excellent photo cutout feature, a battery percentage option for the status bar, keyboard haptics whenever you type, edit/unsend options in iMessage, and a wholelot more.
And in typical Apple fashion, you may stay up for the iPhone 14 Pro Max to maintain getting latest iOS versions for years to return. While Apple doesn’t guarantee a selected number, we expect the iPhone 14 Pro Max to receive regular OS and security updates for 5 or 6 years past its release.
iPhone 14 Pro Max performance
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
Performance is never a degree of contention with the iPhone. To nobody’s surprise, that’s true over again with the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Each the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max include Apple’s latest A16 Bionic chip. The A16 has a smaller 4nm design in comparison with the 5nm architecture of the A15, making it faster and more power efficient than the previous generation.
The phone just does all the pieces I ask it to and does so flawlessly.
In my testing, the A16 Bionic has proven a performance powerhouse for each task I throw at it. Apps? They open immediately and run perfectly. Games? From Tetris to Call of Duty: Mobile, any title I’ve thrown on the iPhone 14 Pro Max has performed with out a hitch. And whenever you mix that with 6GB of RAM, multitasking becomes a smooth and reliable experience.
I almost forgot to incorporate a performance section on this review, just because it’s not something the iPhone 14 Pro Max has ever made me take into consideration. The phone just does all the pieces I ask it to and does so flawlessly.
iPhone 14 Pro Max battery life
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
It ought to be very apparent at this point within the review that the iPhone 14 Pro Max is an as outstanding smartphone. But how does its expansive feature set impact battery life? While the regular iPhone 14 Pro has produced fairly poor battery life, I’ve been quite impressed with the endurance I’m getting out of the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
My very first day with the iPhone 14 Pro Max began off on a not-so-great foot, going from 5:45 am to 11:15 pm with just 4 hours and 17 minutes of screen time and 15% battery remaining. That was with the always-on screen enabled. After a number of more days of use to let the battery settle in, I began seeing much higher endurance. With the always-on screen enabled, one other day saw me go from 7:45 am to 11:40 pm with 37% battery still remaining after 4 hours and 20 minutes of screen time.
Turn the always-on screen off, nevertheless, and battery life (unsurprisingly) improves. With always-on disabled, I had sooner or later start at 7:05 am and end at 11:26 pm and still had 37% battery left. That was with 5 hours and 45 minutes of screen time, plus over an hour of streaming Apple Music within the background. One other day without the always-on screen got me from 7:55 am to 11:41 pm with 32% battery remaining. That day consisted of over 7 hours of screen time, including an hour and 20 minutes of Twitter, 30+ minutes browsing web sites on Safari, over 40 minutes of YouTube, and using dozens of other apps throughout the day.
Minus that very first day with the 14 Pro Max, I’ve never gotten the phone right down to 15% before the top of a day, and that’s with heavier use than normal while reviewing the phone. Using the iPhone 14 Pro Max more often could easily see me get through a few days on a single charge (as I write this review, it’s nearly 5:00 pm, and I still have 77% battery left within the tank).
iPhone 14 Pro Max price and availability
The iPhone 14 Pro Max is offered for purchase now. It starts at $1099 for 128GB of storage with optional upgrades to 256GB, 512GB, and even 1TB. Those higher storage models cost $1199, $1399, and $1599, respectively.
When you buy direct from Apple’s website, the corporate’s trade-in program permits you to send in your old phone for an quick credit that might be valued as little as $40 or as high as $720. And if you could have an Apple Card, buying the iPhone 14 Pro Max direct from Apple gets you 3% cashback (just shy of $33) in your purchase.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max is the iPhone at its best
Joe Maring/Digital Trends
There’s no doubt that 2022 is an exciting 12 months for Apple’s Pro lineup of iPhones. With the brand new always-on screen, Dynamic Island, considerable camera upgrades, and A16 Bionic chipset, there’s loads to sink into with the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Given the alternative between the 2, nevertheless, I’d argue that the latter model is the one it’s best to buy this 12 months. You get all the pieces that makes the iPhone 14 Pro so great, however the 14 Pro Max makes it higher with a bigger screen and significantly higher battery life. It’s a large phone and one which comes at a steep price, but in case you can recover from those two potential roadblocks, the iPhone 14 Pro Max stands tall as the most effective iPhone this 12 months. And, arguably, one in every of the absolute best smartphones money should buy.
Editors’ Recommendations
