iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max Announced: Price, Specifications

Photo Credit: Apple

The iPhone 14 series launched globally on Wednesday at Apple's 'Far Out' event. As suggested by dozens of leaks and rumors in recent months, Apple's newest series of smartphones consists of four models: iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max. While the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro are the smaller models, the iPhone 14 Plus and iPhone 14 Pro Max are the ones aimed at those who prefer larger screens. The series also includes the first series of iPhone Pro phones to have a redesign on the front since the iPhone X. The famous notch has been replaced with a pill-shaped hole-punch cutout that houses the front-facing camera and sophisticated Face ID technology.

Also, while the non-Pro models come with last year's Apple A15 Bionic SoCs, the Pro models have the latest Apple A16 Bionic SoC under the hood. The latest smartphones come with E-sim activation without Wi-Fi in the US. For the first time, US iPhone models will not have a SIM tray.

The smartphone also comes with satellite emergency communication technology that can be used to send SOS messages via satellite. The feature will start in the US and Canada and will be free with iPhone 14 for two years. All phones also come with a fault detection feature that will automatically dial emergency services when a user is unconscious or unable to reach their iPhone.

Photo Credit: Apple

iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max price in India, sale date

In the US, the iPhone 14 price starts at $799 (approximately Rs. 63,700). Similarly, the iPhone 14 Plus starts at $899 (roughly Rs. 71,600). Both phones will be available for purchase in Blue, Midnight, Purple, Starlight, and (PRODUCT) RED color options.

iPhone 14 pre-orders will begin on September 9. The iPhone 14 will go on sale from September 16 and the iPhone 14 Plus will go on sale from October 7.

In contrast, the iPhone 14 price in India starts at Rs. 79,900 and the iPhone 14 Plus price in India starts at Rs. 89,900.

In the US, the iPhone 14 Pro price starts at $999 (approximately Rs. 79,555) and the top-of-the-line iPhone 14 Pro Max price starts at $1,099 (approximately Rs. 87,530). Pre-orders for these models start on September 9 and will be available for purchase starting on September 16. They will be available for purchase in Deep Purple, Gold, Silver and Space Black color options.

By contrast, the iPhone 14 Pro price in India starts at Rs. 1,29,900 and the iPhone 14 Pro Max starts at Rs. 1,39,900. The phones can be purchased from Apple's online store and through Apple Authorized Resellers.

iPhone 14 specifications

iPhone 14 has a flat-edge aerospace-grade aluminum frame, with Ceramic Shield material on the front, and is rated IP68 for dust and water resistance, like the previous generation. The phone has a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display which is said to be better in terms of brightness and color reproduction compared to last year's phone. It is said to offer a maximum brightness of 1200 nits and support for Dolby Vision.

Under the hood, the iPhone 14 gets Apple's proprietary A15 Bionic SoC from last year that powers last year's iPhone 13 series. Apple continues to offer Face ID technology as the only biometric security option to unlock your phone.

Apple does not officially reveal the amount of RAM and battery capacity of each model, however third-party teardowns in the coming weeks should be able to shed more light on this information. Apple says that the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will be able to offer more runtime compared to last year's iPhone models.

As far as the camera is concerned, the iPhone 14 has a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera that combines a 1.9um sensor and an f/1.7 aperture lens. There's a 12-megapixel sensor paired with an f/2.4 aperture ultra-wide-angle lens with a 120-degree field of view. Apple says there's a new 12-megapixel TrueDepth front-facing camera with an f/1.9 aperture lens.

The company also highlighted a few camera tricks up the phones' sleeves, including improved video recording with a new stabilization feature, called Action Mode. This mode uses the phone's motion sensors to better correct the video. Cinematic mode is now available in 4K at 30fps and 4K at 24fps. Apple also touted better low-light performance, thanks to the new Photonic Engine.

It is claimed to have improved low-light performance by up to 2x on the ultrawide camera, 2x on the front TrueDepth camera, and 2.5x on the main camera. Apply the computational benefits of Deep Fusion in the imaging process. There's also an improved True Tone flash that's 10 percent brighter, Apple says.

iPhone 14 Plus Specifications

The iPhone 14 Plus features similar hardware to the iPhone 14, except for the larger screen size and battery backup. The phone has a 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display and Apple claims that the iPhone 14 Plus is said to have the best battery life ever on an iPhone. Under the hood is the A15 Bionic SoC that powers the vanilla iPhone 14 and the camera setup is also identical on both models.

iPhone 14 Pro Specifications

As far as the Pro models are concerned, Apple has used surgical grade stainless steel which is said to be resistant to abrasion and corrosion. iPhone 14 Pro has a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR Always-On OLED display with Apple's ProMotion refresh rate feature. Pro models can scale as low as 1 Hz to provide a combination of smoother motion and a low power system.

The display also offers the highest outdoor peak brightness on a smartphone — up to 2,000 nits, which is twice as bright as the iPhone 13 Pro. The iPhone 14 Pro comes with a Ceramic Shield front cover that's touted as tougher than any smartphone glass.

As mentioned, the main difference in the display is the introduction of a pill-shaped punch-hole cutout instead of the famous trend-setting notch. Apple calls it Dynamic Island, an "interactive space" that expands for notifications along with other information such as music player, call interface, maps, among others. The company says the feature works with third-party apps.

Under the hood is Apple's new in-house A16 Bionic SoC, said to be the most powerful chip in a smartphone. It has two high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores. The new 6-core CPU is claimed to be up to 40 percent faster than the competition. The A16 Bionic SoC also features an accelerated 5-core GPU with 50 percent more memory bandwidth and a new 16-core Neural Engine capable of nearly 17 trillion operations per second, Apple says.

The company says that the CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, and image signal processor work together to support the new camera hardware and perform up to 4 trillion operations per photo.

Now that we're talking about the camera, for photos and videos, Apple has gone a step further to update the camera hardware of the Pro models. There's a new 48-megapixel main camera with second-generation sensor-shift optical image stabilization. and a 12-megapixel telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom, f/2.8 aperture lens, and optical image stabilization. The third is a 12-megapixel sensor with an f/2.2 aperture ultra-wide-angle lens that has a 120-degree field of view.

The four-pixel sensor combines four pixels into one pixel for maximum light input. It also enables a 2x telephoto option and the new machine learning model allows the iPhone 14 Pro to take ProRAW. It also has Photonic Engine which is claimed to offer better low-light performance: up to 2x on the main camera, up to 3x on the ultra-wide camera, up to 2x on the telephoto camera, and up to 2x on the front TrueDepth camera.