Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max review: nearly perfect

The iPhone 14 Pro Max’s design looks very similar to last year’s 13 Pro Max, which is to say, it looks a lot like the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Apple’s stuck with the same general design language for the last couple of years, and while that may not make the iPhone 14 Pro Max a visual breakthrough, this tried-and-true design offers very little to complain about.

The stainless steel frame is luxurious, the frosted glass back looks and feels incredible, and small details — like the buttons and haptic feedback — are as exquisite as you’d expect. Most smartphones today have a nice fit-and-finish, but the iPhone 14 Pro Max still feels like a step above.

There are two main benefits you get for putting up with the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s gargantuan size, the first of which is an expansive 6.7-inch display. That display is an OLED one and has a resolution of 2796 x 1290 — working out to the same 460ppi pixel density of the smaller iPhone 14 Pro.

Like the iPhone 14 Pro, the quality of the 14 Pro Max’s screen is excellent. Colors are vivid and beautiful, text is easy to read, and the screen is now brighter than ever. You can 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 up to 2000 nits of brightness. Even on the sunniest of days, you shouldn’t ever have a problem seeing the phone outdoors.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max also retains the 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate Apple introduced on the iPhone 13 Pro lineup, giving you ultra-smooth animations whenever you’re interacting with the phone. Combined with the fluid nature of iOS 16, this creates one of the smoothest and snappiest phones I’ve used all year.

And, of course, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is one of the first iPhones with an always-on screen. Pressing the power button to turn off your iPhone’s display now shows a dimmed version of your lock screen, complete with notifications, lock screen widgets, and the full color of your wallpaper. I’ve never been the biggest fan of always-on screens, but I do have to admit that Apple’s implementation is one of the prettiest I’ve seen.

What’s also been a treat is the Dynamic Island. Gone is Apple’s notch, and in its place is a solid black bar at the top of the screen. Silly name aside, the Dynamic Island is one of the most exciting iPhone features I’ve seen in years and makes me excited about what Apple can do with it.

Listening to a song? Swipe up to go home, and your music app floats into the Dynamic Island to show 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 can easily keep an eye on 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.

These are all notifications that have always existed on the iPhone, but the Dynamic Island now gives them a cohesive place to live. Along with simplifying iOS’s many alerts, it gives them a fun, playful characteristic that’s just so damn charming. The Dynamic Island isn’t always doing something, but when an app does take advantage of it, it’s a treat.

My only complaint about the Dynamic Island is that I wish it could do more. There’s currently not much utility for the feature beyond a few system notifications and music playback. However, that should be changing in the not-too-distant future. When Apple launches the Live Activities API with iOS 16.1 later this year, third-party apps like Lyft, Uber, ESPN, Starbucks, and others will be able to create their 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 looks like.

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 since the iPhone 6s, but with the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max, you get a brand new 48MP main camera with an f/1.78 aperture and sensor-shift optical image stabilization. Using the added resolution of the sensor, the 48MP main camera can also be used as a 2x optical zoom lens.

The main camera is joined by a 12MP telephoto camera capable of 3x zoom, in addition to a 12MP ultrawide camera with a 120-degree field-of-view. Also new is the 12MP front-facing camera, which is the first 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 new Photonic Engine image pipeline, offering “more lifelike colors and beautifully detailed textures in less light than ever,” according to Apple’s website.

It all sounds very impressive, and looking at photos captured with the iPhone 14 Pro Max, it’s understandable why Apple’s hyping up the camera so much. Simply put, it’s excellent.

Whether you’re shooting in good or mediocre lightning conditions, the 48MP main camera consistently produces incredible results. Colors are rich and vibrant but also do a good job of remaining true to life to what a scene actually looked like. I’ve also been impressed with the amount of detail you get with the main camera. While images from the 48MP sensor are pixel-binned to 12MP shots, you still see very fine details in pictures. Another great perk of the larger 48MP camera is the natural depth of field you get in the photos you take. The photo of my dog sleeping on his bed could have been a throwaway shot, but because of how the camera naturally blurred the front of his bed and his body further away from the camera, it ends up looking really impressive.

The 48MP camera also shines even when the lights come down. Taking pictures in a dimly-lit room isn’t a challenge at all for the iPhone 14 Pro Max. It has no problem continuing to show great colors, fantastic detail, and natural bokeh. Even in near pitch-black scenarios, the iPhone 14 Pro Max brings in enough light for a totally usable shot. Extremely low-light images inevitably mean sacrificing detail, but that’s the case for even the best smartphone cameras — the ranks of which the iPhone 14 Pro Max certainly belongs.

What about the 12MP ultrawide camera? It’s also very good! There’s an expected drop in detail for these photos compared to the main camera, but if you’re in an instance where you need a wider shot that still looks great, it’s an admirable performer. Apple’s also done a good job keeping edge distortion to a minimum, ensuring there’s no unsightly fish-eye effect on these shots.

But it’s not just ultrawide photos this 12MP camera is capable of. Get the iPhone 14 Pro Max close enough to something, and the camera app automatically switches to a macro mode enabled by the ultrawide camera. The results are phenomenal. Whether you want a close-up shot of a flower or want to find hidden details in a piece of fabric, there’s so much versatility with the macro mode. Bad macro cameras are a dime-a-dozen on smartphones, but high-quality ones are much harder to come by, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s macro camera is among the best I’ve used.

Performance is rarely a point of contention with the iPhone. To no one’s surprise, that’s true once more with the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Both the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max come with Apple’s new A16 Bionic chip. The A16 has a smaller 4nm design compared to the 5nm architecture of the A15, making it faster and more power efficient than the previous generation.

In my testing, the A16 Bionic has proven a performance powerhouse for every task I throw at it. Apps? They open instantly and run perfectly. Games? From Tetris to Call of Duty: Mobile, any title I’ve thrown at the iPhone 14 Pro Max has performed without a hitch. And when you combine that with 6GB of RAM, multitasking becomes a smooth and reliable experience.

I almost forgot to include a performance section in this review, simply because it’s not something the iPhone 14 Pro Max has ever made me think about. The phone just does everything I ask it to and does so flawlessly.

The iPhone 14 Pro Max is available 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.

If you buy direct from Apple’s website, the company’s trade-in program lets you send in your old phone for an instant credit that can be valued as low as $40 or as high as $720. And if you have an Apple Card, buying the iPhone 14 Pro Max direct from Apple gets you 3% cashback (just shy of $33) on your purchase.

There’s no question that 2022 is an exciting year for Apple’s Pro lineup of iPhones. With the new always-on screen, Dynamic Island, considerable camera upgrades, and A16 Bionic chipset, there’s a lot to sink into with the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.