Apple sells two huge phones for the first time. There’s the iPhone 14 Pro Max starting at $1,100, and there’s the iPhone 14 PlusThe phone is available for purchase at $899 and goes on sale immediately. There are many differences between the phones, but they may not be as important as you think. Here are six great reasons to choose the iPhone 14 Plus over Pro Max.
It is still a great display
The 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus and 14 Pro Max are identical to the 6.1-inch iPhone 14 & 14 Pro. However, they’re not exactly created equally. On the iPhone 14 Pro Max, you get several features that aren’t available on the Plus: ProMotion with 120Hz refresh rate (versus 60Hz) and an always-on display.
The non-Pro iPhone 14 doesn’t have ProMotion or always-on, but it’s still a fantastic display.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
These are great features Pro Max users will love. However, if you’re coming from an iPhone 12 or XR, the display on the Plus will be just as good as you were used to on your old phone, just bigger. You’ve already lived for years without ProMotion or always-on, so you won’t know what you’re missing—and the iPhone 14 Plus’s display is still great.
Battery life is superior
Apple claims that the iPhone 14 Plus offers the longest battery life ever. We’ll be running our own tests soon, but early reviews corroborate Apple’s estimates. In video rundown tests, battery life was reported by reviewers at 20-21 hours. This is about one hour more than what the iPhone 14 Pro Max can do in similar tests.
In real-world use, you’re likely to get multiple days of use of the iPhone 14 Plus. According to The Verge’s Allison Johnson, “a day of moderate use with about two hours of screen-on time and plenty of time away from Wi-Fi only drained the battery by about 25 percent.” So if you’re upgrading from an iPhone 11 or even an iPhone 13, the improvement will be staggering: you’ll basically never have to worry about reaching for a charger ever again.
These cameras still work great
The iPhone 14 Pro Max and 14 Plus have the most significant difference apart from the Dynamic Islands. The iPhone 14 Pro Max comes with a 48MP main lens, and a 12MP Telephoto camera. These cameras are not available on the 14 Plus. The iPhone 14 actually has a similar camera to the iPhone 13. It features a dual-camera setup, which pairs a 12MP wide camera and a 12MP ultra-wide camera. But that doesn’t mean you won’t take great photos with the Plus.
Although it only has two cameras the iPhone 14 still captures excellent photos.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
The processors are basically identical
Apple split the A15 processor into two flavors with the iPhone 13—a 4-core GPU for the iPhone 13 and 13 mini, and a 5-core GPU variant for the iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max—and took it even further with the iPhone 14. The iPhone 14 Pro models have Apple’s newest A16 processor while the iPhone 14 Plus has the higher-end version of last year’s A15.
But while it might seem like a huge upgrade, it’s really not. Our Test, the A16 is barely faster than the A15—certainly not anything that’s going to be noticeable in day-to-day use. So if you buy an iPhone 14 Plus it won’t feel any slower than an iPhone 14 Pro Max.
The Dynamic Island isn’t a must-have feature yet
The iPhone 14 Pro Max’s biggest new feature isn’t hardware—it’s software. The Dynamic Island—which is a feature that lives inside the new camera cutout—is easily the most interesting and intriguing feature of the new phone and one that will be a standout on iPhones for years.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max’s Digital Island has tons of potential, but it’s currently not living up to it.
Foundry
But it’s not quite there yet. Most of the time the Dynamic Island is as lifeless as the notch, and even when iOS 16.1 launches with Live Activities, it’ll take some time before developers properly update their apps to take advantage of it. It’ll be a few months before all that happens and by then we’ll all be looking ahead to the iPhone 15 Plus—which will likely adopt the Dynamic Island too.
It could save you life
Apple has introduced two new iPhone features: Crash Detection via satellite and Emergency SOS via Satellite. Those two features could very well save your life one day—and they’re available on all iPhone 14 models, Pro or no.
You can find more information about choosing the iPhone you want to purchase in our buying guides.
