Doesn’t it just scream happiness? Apple just released a new colour addition for the iPhone 14 and it comes in this beautiful buttery colour that symbolises joy and hope. Lucky for me, I got my hands on this new phone and upgraded from my iPhone XS Max. In this article, I’ll be comparing the main upgrades on the phone and sharing my experience.
At the same time, during the first week of using the iPhone 14, I got to check out the new Transformers World Tour. With the new movie release of Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, two life-sized statues of Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal landed in Gardens by the Bay as part of their world tour. As a big fan of Bumblebee, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to attend the Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Statues World Tour with the new yellow iPhone 14. Bearing such similarities in colour, Bumblebee’s character in the past Transformer movies has been a fan favourite due to its comedic relief as well as his courage, loyalty, and determination to protect his human friends.
It has been 3 years since I got my iPhone XS Max. By just upgrading to the iPhone 14, I experienced a huge performance improvement with the processor, battery as well as camera.
To start things off, there’s a big jump in the display as the iPhone 14 has higher brightness levels of 800 – 1200 nits, contrast levels of 2 million to 1 and a resolution of 460 ppi. Also, the display is now Super Retina XDR compared to the Super Retina HD display my iPhone XS Max had. This greatly increases the immersive experience when watching Netflix or playing games on the phone.
On the note of games, the performance also improved. The iPhone 14 is running on an A15 Bionic chip with a 5-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine. A huge leap from the A12 Bionic chip, 4-core GPU and 8-core Neural Engine the XS Max had. When playing my game – Nino Kuni Cross World especially during peak timings, using the XS Max will have the phone crashing every other minute whereas the 14 was able to run smoothly without crashing. This goes to show how users like me can immerse themselves without having to care if the phone can manage such speeds.
Here now comes the camera and video which is significantly one of the more important features for me. A couple of features still remained similar – Portrait Mode, and Lighting with 6 effects. However, the 14 now has an Ultrawide 12MP camera system instead of a Telephoto. On top of the new camera system, the iPhone 14 has a Photonic Engine – Deep Fusion which combines 9 photos taken across different exposure levels and combines them to produce the best possible photo. The effects of this are similar to the introduction of Smart HDR 4 which improves colour, contrast and lighting for each subject. The introduction of mature photography technology can be seen with the comparison photos of Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal where it’s pretty evident that the iPhone 14 comes out more crisp and vibrant as opposed to the XS Max.
In addition to the photography software upgrades, the iPhone 14 now has a night mode that further improves the photography experience when taking low-light shots. With the Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal only lit by 2 surrounding lights, the iPhone 14 was still able to capture the grandness of these life-sized statues. One last mention of the camera would be the new Photographic Styles where there are presets of different photo styles like Rich Contrast, Vibrant, Warm and Cool that change the vibe of your photos.
As for video recording, users can expect more well-bodied videography features with the inclusion of cinematic mode, action mode, and night mode. One awesome feature that I’ll highlight here is the Action mode. By utilising the improved sensor-shift optical image stabilisation, the iPhone 14 can record movement while having the stability of an inbuilt rig. It’s truly crazy to me. While recording my pet koi, it’s evident that the iPhone 14 videos have better stability than the iPhone XS Max. A good note is I was briskly walking side to side while going up a step and irregular flooring made it easy for me to shake the phone while recording.
As for durability and added features, iPhone 14 users will experience a great improvement in battery life with video playback of up to 20 hours and audio playback of up to 80 hours. With the inclusion of MagSafe wireless charging is more convenient. The iPhone 14 also has included Dual eSIM support, making it easy for those who frequently travel and need to be on different data plans.
Safety-wise, the crash detection feature can detect a severe car crash and dial emergency services automatically. Emergency SOS via satellite allows users to send emergency messages without cellular and Wi-Fi.
All in all, it’s a huge upgrade for me and it’s evident across photos, videos as well as features! For those keen to purchase the new iPhone 14 – Yellow, it is currently available for $1,311.10 based on the storage you wish to purchase at authorised retailers or Apple online store here.
