Apple iPhone 14 Plus review: Large screen, great battery performance

This is the iPhone most people want. It’s Not the iPhone with the new display featuresHigh-resolution cameras. It’s the iPhone with a big display and a battery that goes for days.

That’s really all you need to know about it, honestly. If you’d rather have an iPhone with the best possible battery life than an iPhone with the very newest features, then the iPhone 14 Plus is the one for you.

The 14 Plus is a big-screen version The standard iPhone 14. Apple decided to go iPhone Big / iPhone Bigger this year instead of going iPhone Mini/ iPhone Big. It shares nearly all the same features but offers a 6.7-inch screen compared to the standard 14’s 6.1-inch display. It also claims the best battery life of any iPhone — officially, Apple calls it “all-day battery life,” but in my experience, you can get much more than that.

Oh, and there’s one more distinct difference: the Plus starts at $899, while the regular 14 starts at $799. That makes it the least expensive 6.7-inch iPhone released yet, but it’s still far from cheap.

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What’s the iPhone 14 Plus? doesn’tIncluded are the new display options on the 14 Pro Max and 14 Pro Max. That’s the shape-shifting notch called Dynamic Island that displays system status indicators and an always-on display that shows a dim version of your wallpaper even when the screen is locked. They’re handy features, but they’re more of a sign of what’s to come for the iPhone than must-haves. Instead, the 14 Plus delivers the kind of quality-of life upgrades that many people are looking for in a new phone. Now

The 14 Plus’ display features a slightly higher 2778 x 1284 resolution than the 14’s, so even though it’s much bigger, it maintains roughly the same pixels-per-inch (458ppi compared to 460ppi on the 14). That means images look just as sharp on this screen — they’re just, you know, bigger, and you can see more emails or parts of a webpage before you need to start scrolling.

There’s no ProMotion, super-smooth scrolling 120Hz refresh rate here, which is a shame. Apple’s still reserving that for the Pro models, long after fast refresh rates have become the norm for Android phones at the same price. It’s not something you’ll miss if you’re coming from a phone with the same standard 60Hz refresh rate, but I did notice it when I switched from the 14 Pro — maybe even more so because the screen is so big. On the other hand, the lower refresh rate is less power-intensive and probably contributes to the 14 Plus’ excellent battery performance. I think that’s a tradeoff most people will happily live with.

This is probably an obvious point, but the feeling of having more visual space while using this phone — especially compared to a 6.1-inch model — is real. You can fit more text on the screen, while games and videos feel a lot more immersive. However, it feels large and easy to use. It’s a real struggle to use it one-handed, even with the iOS 16’s “reachability” UI controls. While many people are able to live with large phones, the 6.1-inch Pro and 14 Pro are much more comfortable in my hand.

Although it may seem large, the 14 Plus is much lighter than I expected. It weighs 7.16 ounces (203g), or just about an ounce (28g) more than the iPhone 14 — and a little less than the 6.1-inch 14 Pro. Its light weight was something I appreciated every time it came clattering out of the pocket of my joggers because this phone doesn’t truly fit in any pants pocket I own. It makes the 14 Plus feel more comfortable than the Pro Max iPhones when in use.

The screen is this phone’s big draw, but the extra real estate lends itself to the 14 Plus’ other killer feature: battery for days. MacRumors Reports that there is indeed a much bigger cell in the 14 Plus than in the standard 14 — on par with the battery in the 14 Pro Max. But because the 14 Plus doesn’t have all of those fancy, new, power-hungry display features, it manages to eke out better battery performance.

Apple’s claim of the “best battery life in an iPhone” isn’t an exaggeration. My experience was that a day of moderate usage with approximately two hours screen-on time and lots of time away Wi-Fi drains the battery about 25%. Even with a single charge, I was able to use the iPhone for three days. Reader, I can’t remember the last time I used an iPhone that comfortably made it through multiple days of use.

Some people should not expect multi-day performance. For heavy usage like video streaming or gaming, two days might feel more reasonable. That could mean that you are pushing into the single digits on day two. My two hours of screen-on time isn’t a whole lot, but I didn’t take it easy on the 14 Plus by any means. I used navigation throughout the day, connected to 5G instead of Wi-Fi whenever I could, and recorded a few short video clips. And at the end of every day, I felt like I should have pushed the phone’s remaining battery percentage much lower than I had. Color me impressed.

The iPhone 14 Plus feels almost the same as the iPhone 14 Plus in all other aspects. It’s almost like using an iPhone 13. Performance is snappy, and the A15 Bionic chipset recycled from last year’s 13 Pro keeps up with just about anything you can throw at it. There’s no physical SIM tray, as on the rest of the 14 series, so be prepared to Learn more about eSIM.

The 14 Plus includes two new emergency features (also on the 14 Pro and 14 Pro models), Crash Detection, and Emergency SOS via Satellite. Crash Detection uses multiple phone sensors and inputs to automatically detect when you’ve been in a car accident and call emergency services. We haven’t tested it, but early reviews are mixed. It is possible to Sometimes things work just too well. On the other, it seems to rely on a lot of signals to indicate that you’re actually in a moving car, which This could cause it to miss some crash if, for example, you haven’t been driving for very long before an accident.

Satellite SOS is a feature that’s coming in November and helps relay a message to emergency services when you’re out of cellular range. It might cost extra down the line, but for the first two years, it’s included free with the iPhone 14 Plus. Even if you don’t end up needing it, you will likely be able to You can try it to find out how it works.

The 14 Plus has the exact same cameras as the 14. It includes a 12-megapixel main camera with sensor shift stabilization, a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 12-megapixel selfie camera with autofocus. There’s no high-res, 48-megapixel sensor here (or Portrait Mode: A 2x Crop that comes with it), but the 14 Plus does gain the benefits of Apple’s updated image processing called Photonic Engine.

What that boils down to is better low-light performance, especially from the ultrawide and selfie cam, even though the hardware isn’t exactly new or special. For a more detailed analysis, see the following: My iPhone 14 review, but the short version is that this is a very good camera system — not solely worth upgrading for, but it’ll be a pleasant update if you’re coming from an iPhone 11 or older.

When I reviewed the iPhone 14, I couldn’t find a compelling reason to pick it over the iPhone 13. If you are looking for the most advanced features, then consider the 14 Pro. But the standard 14’s improvements over the 13 are so minor that most people would be better off living without them and saving a little money.

However, the iPhone 14 Plus actually makes a case for spending more. Its $899 price tag is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s lower than the iPhone 14 Pro’s starting price of $999 — and lower still than the $1,099 you’d need to pay for the 6.7-inch 14 Pro Max. For $899, you get a significant boost in battery life, no matter what iPhone you’re upgrading from. Good battery life means that your phone will last longer and be more reliable in the future. The 14 Plus will be supported by Apple for at least five more years with software updates. This could make it last.

There’s the screen, too, and as we learned from the iPhone Mini Experiment, people don’t want small phones. Big screens let you see more and scroll less — the fact that the phone isn’t really pocketable or usable with one hand doesn’t seem to bother most people. This isn’t the Best big phone screen Apple offers, but it’s still very good.

If it’s time for an upgrade and you’ve been eyeing the big iPhone, but you’d rather get the best battery life possible than the very latest features, then the iPhone 14 Plus is for you. This iPhone has a large screen and a great battery life, all for less than $1,000. That’s a combination of features that a lot of people will find appealing, and the 14 Plus delivers on its promises.

Allison Johnson Photography/The Verge