iPhone 14 review: The best thing about new series of phones

The iPhone 14 has a bunch of new features that make it an incredible phone. But there was one thing that caught my attention.

The iPhone 14 range is packed with new features.

The new iPhone 14 series is a significant step up from older models. It’s faster, and the camera and battery are better. The improved video stabilisation is out of this world.

But there’s one feature I couldn’t stop playing with – and it came with the release of the new iOS 16.

The fun feature that grabbed my attention is the ability to take photos, and with one touch, cut parts of the image or text and easily use them elsewhere.

I’ll show you what I mean.

I took this photo of toys on my child’s play mat.

Images of the toys were 'lifted' from the photo with just one tap.

And the same thing works for text.

I took a photo from a textbook I’m using and the tech recognised the text and lifted the words right out.

I was able to paste the text in an email and send it to myself, which is much easier than typing out the quotes.

One of the coolest functions on the new iPhone is the ability to ‘lift’ text from photos.

iPhone 14 series review

Apple sent me over an iPhone 14 to check out and – full disclosure – I’ve been solidly on team Android for years. Nonetheless, I was impressed by the latest offering from the world's biggest tech company.

The Cliffs Notes version of the major improvements is big changes to the iPhone’s performance, camera and battery life.

The iPhone 14 range. Picture: Supplied

Improved performance

The A15 bionic chip with a 5-core GPU, which first appeared in the iPhone 14 Pro, has been slotted into the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus.

The chip is the engine that powers the phone – including the 16-core neural engine for the camera that enables features like cinematic mode in 4K resolution.

Overall it is about 18 per cent faster, meaning the phone has smoother graphics for game play and increased efficiency for the phone.

The chips used in phones are an increasingly important factor as all brands are upping their game, so it was good to see Apple using the A15 in the standard iPhone 14.

The TrueDepth camera now has autofocus.

Camera system reworked

There have been a bunch of changes to the iPhone’s camera system.

First of all there’s a new main camera with a larger sensor for better shots in all lighting conditions.

It has a bigger sensor, larger pixels and a faster aperture.

A quick note about Apple’s “Photonic Engine”, it now applies Deep Fusion (an image processing system) to uncompressed images earlier in the image pipeline, enabling use of more data for more detail, more colours and brighter colours.

In this way, the photonic engine dramatically increases the ability of the phone to take photos in low light conditions.

There’s also a new front “TrueDepth” camera, with a faster aperture and autofocus for the first time. And the “Ultra Wide” camera captures four times more scene.

And on the video front, action mode enables people to take stable video footage – even if you jump around like a madman.

Many people are choosing their phones on the basis of camera performance alone. There’s tight competition between the iPhone, Google Pixel, Samsung, OnePlus and Oppo. AI camera technology is also super important for people like me who point and shoot, so Apple’s focus on the Photonic Engine is welcome.

The new True Tone flash on iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus is now 10 per cent brighter.

Battery

Apple says the iPhone 14 series has the best battery of any phone it has made yet.

It’s billed to last all day – and it certainly did for me, although I wasn’t intensively using the phone.

Other cool features

Apple made some major moves with the iPhone 14 series that have received plenty of attention.

The back glass of the phone can be simply removed, making it the easiest to fix since the iPhone 7.

The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max now have a ‘Dynamic Island’, which essentially consolidates alerts, notifications and activities into one interactive place.

The more expensive models also have the “Always-On” display.

The iPhone 14 Pro model also has the ability to detect serious car crashes – and can automatically contact emergency services.

The iPhone 14 has better graphics for gaming thanks to the A15 Bionic with a 5-core GPU.

My thoughts

The iPhone 14 has copped some criticism for being too similar to the iPhone 13, with one meme going viral.

But I think it’s a tad unfair. The improvements to performance, the photo system and battery are significant, and in my view, are enough to justify upgrading, especially if you have an older model.

The iPhone 14 is lightweight, sleek and lives up to Steve Jobs’ vision of simplicity.

The phone has long been a status-symbol – a fashion statement of sorts. And there are now plenty of colours to choose from – the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus comes in midnight, starlight, blue, purple and red, and the iPhone 14 Pro in silver, gold, space black and the all-new deep purple.

The iPhone 14 starts from $1399 and the 14 Pro starts from 1749.

Overall, it’s a great phone – but it’s still not enough to convince me to switch from Android. But for the millions of Australians who have iPhones, you’ll love the iPhone 14 series.