That guy has so jumped the shark. So sick of him. The beginning of his review was him talking about his branded sweatshirt, like igaf. The title of the video I clicked on wasn’t “review of the new mkbhd hoodie.” All these reviews just act out the specs page on apple.com. All a copy, of a copy, of a copy. Same lighting. Same shots. Same script. Zero insight.
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iPhone 14 Pro Reviews are in and the consensus is well meh
- Thread starter GorillaHead
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Verge’s review touches on a really good point. This is the beginning of a LOT of new things in the old body.
Similar to the iPhone 5S, when it got a lot of new stuff, only to get a full form refresh in the 6. And then the large iPhone evolution and the long march towards camera, faceID, etc really kicked off.
Similar to the iPhone 5S, when it got a lot of new stuff, only to get a full form refresh in the 6. And then the large iPhone evolution and the long march towards camera, faceID, etc really kicked off.
Yet they start with
The best gets even better
So I think it's fine. I am going from an iPhone 12 Pro Max to an iPhone 14 Pro Max and I doubt I will find it inferior.The verge has always been more of a blog. Was never journalism. This was ok since they brought over experienced writers from Engadget or ones like Dieter Bohn. Without them, not so much.
Heh. It’s not just that. But it piles up on them. You can only review so much before you’re like “can’t do this anymore “. It’s grunt work if done right. Most of what we’re seeing could be done without the actual phone in hand. It’s mailed in. Can’t say I didn’t do some of that back in my tech reviews days.
Haha. Sorry. Didn’t mean to rile up his fan club. I mean I don’t know what to tell you. He says he didn’t do much with camera but declares it best in class.
I think some drank the 48mp koolaid. I’d put those unrealistic expectations on apple for being a little misleading about it as well.
But other aspects such as brightness, island, and always on look to be solid.
All of your bugs are issues with camera limitations. Some like the 2X is a crop is silly because well of course it is because there’s no 2x lens. I mean they could add one but I don’t know if that’s going to happen because the camera bump is already big enough.
I can probably take any phone review and list camera issues. No phone camera is perfect. They are trying to make it the best I can with that tiny lens. If phone cameras were perfect companies wouldn’t sell $6000 DSLRs. I’m sure Apple would love to fix some of these limitations, but technology has its limits.
Wow that color difference in low light is egregious. Wtf has Apple been doing in the camera department for the last several years? Focusing too much on gimmicks like cinematic video I guess.
He normally focuses a lot on smartphone cameras in his reviews, to the point that it's a bit annoying, actually.
He can rely on his reputation for the most part to claim it's the best camera in any smartphone. He's not trying to prove anything, he's just offering his opinion.
His review isn't meant to be used in an objective argument online to defend or attack the iPhone 14 Pro - it's to inform his viewers.
Mark Spoonauer clearly has something against Apple because the 14 Pro is not that bad.Pretty mediocre review from Tom's Guide here 😔😔😔 major buyer's remorse now
Don’t want to keep beating a dead horse about the Verge website but is it only white text on black background (dark mode)? I thought the world agreed black text on white background is easier to read…
Why does everything need to spoon-fed to MacRumors' commenters? A fix is a fix: either it's fixed everywhere or the problem still exists.
How did you miss all of them? These issues were found in these first-round of reviews: they are pretty hard to miss.
MKBHD discussed the darker skin tone overexposure:
The Verge explicitly showed the crushed colors in low-light, the overexposed lit-areas in low-light, and the still inconsistent-but-often-warm-biased white balance. In fact, you can see them all in one comparison:
It can be the best and have lots of old flaws. The world is more complicated than your "best vs failure" dichotomy. How are these mutually exclusive to you? There is a clear "third" choice: not a Pixel 6 Pro, not an iPhone 14 Pro, not a Samsung S22 Ultra: simply not upgrading this year.
I don't know how far you've made it into this comment, seeing as you couldn't finish the last one, but there are still significant fixes left in the iPhone camera ecosystem and for me personally, I'll wait for the updated Photonic Engine V2 if it fixes these issues. Please, happily upgrade to the iPhone 14 Pro if you like it: Apple does need the R&D money, it seems.
You've hit the nail on the head. All of the problems you've listed have been around for a long time. Every year Apple will update the cameras and they get slightly better in some scenarios but the changes between generations are not enough to really say "wow, shooting under condition X got way better" or "wow the detail is a lot better this year." Even when comparing iPhones from 4 years ago some of the telltale iPhone weak points are still here. When Apple were babbling on about the Photonic Engine's "new rendering pipeline" during the keynote with ZERO side by side comparisons my initial gut instinct was "uh oh, this is pure marketing speech and they haven't improved upon the long standing iPhone camera issues." Based on the review samples we've got so far looks like I might be right, I have to test it out myself but the regular binned images look identical to the 13 Pro if not a bit more washed out. When Deep Fusion came out the improvements were noticeable enough to warrant a side by side comparison during the keynote.
The argument from many is always something along the lines of "well expecting major differences year over year is ridiculous, tech has plateaued and people don't upgrade every year anyway." Ok, I'll grant you that people don't upgrade every year and the rate of new features has slowed down: why does that excuse zero year over year improvements on long standing issues like the stuff you mentioned when the other two big players, Samsung and Google's Pixel, do manage to make significant year over year improvements in their respective departments? Some off the dome examples:
- Pixel 6 upgraded to a 50MP sensor vs. the Pixel 5. Detail for regular binned JPEG photos became significantly better when compared to the previous year's Pixel 5 and even this year's iPhone 14 Pro. Apple have upgraded their sensor pixel count and based on the ProRAW samples it can clearly pick up on more detail so why is the oil painting effect still very noticeable? I thought the oil painting sharpening effect was to make up for lack of sensor resolution?
- Pixel 6 introduced some of the best color science in the smartphone world for rendering brown and black skin and all manner of color in general, the iPhone is seriously behind on this. Apple have had years to fix it but they don't. If they fix it next year it will only be because they're catching up with Pixel, why wait for Pixel to surface this issue in the first place? Why not be proactive in pushing your color science further?
- Samsung work on their portrait mode edge detection every year and now their hair masking is stupidly good. Meanwhile almost all the iPhone portraits I take have the telltale giveaway of blurry hair.
- Samsung's colors are looking better year over year, they've reduced the over saturation whilst retaining really pleasant tones (especially in yellows and greends). Meanwhile the colors on my 13 Pro look mostly the same as the colors on my 11 Pro except there's a lot more oil painting effect on the 13.
- Night photos on iPhone still destroy the color palette by making everything a sickly yellow, Pixel on the other hand looks brilliant (in terms of color, their approach in image brightness is debatable).
I think the sad reality is Apple are primarily competing with themselves now, AKA not competing at all, especially with their gen Z customers that are hooked into the iPhone ecosystem and will basically never leave. Apple don't have to push themselves to be better than Pixel and Samsung because all they have to do is ensure they're better than what they released 2-3 years ago in order to justify someone upgrading from one iPhone to another.
I think this night shot comparison from The Verge really sums everything up:
Pixel 6 Pro (below): The sky is a pleasant blue-grey. The buildings appear life like in color, contrast, and overall detail. Look at the lights within those buildings, they look realistic because they are not blown out or glowing. There is a perceivable element of depth to everything in the shot. The blue of the Ferris wheel is present without appearing overly saturated and bright. The domed roof on the building toward the right of the picture retains great color and contrast, in particular look at how nicely the red and pink hues are being rendered. The water is detailed but it's not screaming for attention, the reflections look great and the color and texture of the ripples appear lifelike too.
Overall everything is BALANCED, this image looks like a real city taken with a real camera. If you told me this was taken on an entry level compact mirrorless I would believe you honestly (unless I zoomed in).
^ Pixel 6 Pro
iPhone 14 Pro (below): WELCOME TO GOTHAM, everything has a sickly yellow glow to it. The sky looks like ash instead of evening clouds. The subtlety of the building colors are gone. The building windows look more like glowing yellow globs of light instead of actual windows. The Ferris wheel's blue has been completely nuked, much like the other colors in this image. Look at the domed roof on the right, overexposed and the red is completely washed out vs. the Pixel. Lest I forget is that water or is that crude oil I see? The color from the water is gone and the oversharpening is unflattering.
Overall this image is disgusting to look at, I mean that with no exaggeration. If I took this image I wouldn't ever want to look at it again nor share it with anyone. This looks like an image taken by an incapable camera that is overcompensating with over processing, it cannot even get basic white balance right for heaven's sake. If you told me this was taken on a budget Poco phone I would believe you. iPhones have been doing this yellow stunt for YEARS, how has upgrade cycle got anything to do with an image this poor when Pixel can clearly handle it!?
^ 14 Pro
You beat me to it for explicitly showing The Verge's night photo comparison, it's incredibly embarrassing for the iPhone honestly. I suspect people repeatedly claim the iPhone as the "best" smartphone camera system because somehow nobody has quite matched Apple in video, otherwise I think Pixel beats it almost every time in stills. Pixel detail rendering and colors are on another level.
i’m not sure how i feel honestly, if you think of it in terms of what *most* people use their phone for i.e. bright sunny day thirst traps on instagram and making videos for tick tock, i guess you could say apple hit it out of the park? it’s the one offs that are taking pictures of night time city skylines.
We are beginning to hit a peak in smartphones in some areas it seems.
The 14 seems a decent upgrade for those who are either coming from an older iPhone (older than 11) and those who simply upgrade yearly, BUT if you are expecting to have your mind blown, then you need manage your expectations.
The 14 seems a decent upgrade for those who are either coming from an older iPhone (older than 11) and those who simply upgrade yearly, BUT if you are expecting to have your mind blown, then you need manage your expectations.
If that’s what passes for writing now at The Derge they won’t need to worry about that hideous web redesign. Not that any of them are Apple fans, but it reads more like a bad children’s book than a tech review.
Totally false. Most reviews that matter have said that iPhone Pro 14’s are a very good upgrade. Not sure what you are reading. Maybe you took one review and made it the consensus?