Video Review: Four Days With the iPhone 14 Pro Max

thadoggfather said:
It’s true and by the end of the day, of the two, I’d always rather be labeled the complainer rather than the consooomer
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Right. Some people think you gotta either love it or hate it. And if you voice a complaint or pessimism, you must just be an unhappy person. Every tech choice has a bit of love/hate that goes with it.
 
I didn't even realize I had an eSIM on my iPhone 13 Pro until I got my iPhone 14 Pro and went to remove the SIM card from the older phone (and there was none there). So, that meant I had no problems with the setup. I'm on AT&T and I guess I did that process before and the process was so good that I didn't even notice it.
 
I enjoyed your review, as always! Quite helpful. Interesting observations on the dynamic island. Kudos to Apple and their ability to hyper present!! But like corinthian leather, will it be a caveat emptor?

I have 11 Pro. It's fine, especially for the multitude of cat photos I take, lol. I guess I will wait.
Thanks!
 
The Esim is kind of dumb if you pick up in Apple Store with trade.

The transfer sends a text to your old phone and since you have to Apple you’re out of luck and have to contact carrier
 
tomtad said:
Got a 14 Pro and immediately regretted it when I picked it up, the thing is just too heavy. And for a handheld device that is a big deal. Everything else is wonderful, the screen is smooth and bright, the camera's amazing. But for holding, texting and reading, what I do 99% of the time, it's just uncomfortable.

It's a shame the regular 14 lacks so many features but it's what I had to change to.
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lmao is this a joke?
 
Attirex said:
Same situation so my experience might be helpful - upgraded from a SE with physical SIM to Pro 14. I also have a VZW pre-paid plan. Transfer would not work at home, so I went to a local VZW store. Rep tried a few things that also didn't work, so put me on the phone with a support agent. I finally had to update the SE in the store to iOS16 (was on 15.7) to get the SIM xfer to take. I still consider it a minor miracle lol. Good luck!
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It didn't work. Everything appeared like it was going to work, but I kept getting an error telling me to contact Verizon. Now the fun part.

update: It was painless and took less than a 5 minute chat with Verizon to port over the esim :D
 
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craigab1 said:
This is anything but a relaxing fireside chat. I typically enjoy Dan's reviews, but his anti-eSIM rant in this video is embarrassing. I went from a physical SIM to an eSIM on ATT in all of about 5 minutes. The process worked seamlessly, as it did for everyone I know who received their new phone last Friday. If you're going to use a small discount carrier with your top-of-the-line iPhone, I'm not sure why you would expect that to be easy.
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Visible required every customer to contact them through chat to move their sim whether it was esim to esim or psim to esim. It was a mess and took hours because so many people were doing it. Then around 9 pm their esim system crashed and left everyone moving in limbo without service for about 12 hours.
 
spazzcat said:
Visible required every customer to contact them through chat to move their sim whether it was esim to esim or psim to esim. It was a mess and took hours because so many people were doing it. Then around 9 pm their esim system crashed and left everyone moving in limbo without service for about 12 hours.
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I tried visible and lasted a day. I was averaging around 500kbps on cellular because I live in a high traffic area. It was unusable.
 
masotime said:
Transcript (automated, so there will be typos):

This video is sponsored by Rockform.

eSIM Frustrations​

So we're gonna do things differently for this video. We're gonna have just kind of like a relaxing Fireside chat about the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max.

This is the promax. This is what I've been using since Friday, so for like the last 72 to 96 hours or so. And I do have a lot of thoughts, and some thoughts have changed since my initial hype from the announcement from Apple last couple of weeks, since we've known about all the official features for the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. And so I wanted to get my thoughts out there and then in the comments, please let me know your thoughts. And of course, subscribe if you want to see more videos, we still have so much more to test with this phone.

But one of the first things I do want to start off with is eSIM. I put out a tweet the other day that says eSIM sucks. And yes, that was just me being frustrated in the moment. I do think that eSIM as a whole, the concept, the technology, whatever, yes, it's fine. Let's move forward, let's progress. I really do believe in that. I'm not trying to hold it back, but I don't think a lot of carriers, specifically some of the smaller carriers that people belong to, myself included, or at least I did, those carriers were not ready for the amount of people that were trying to transfer from physical Sims to eSIMs all in one day, all at one time.

And even the big carriers, Verizon, AT&T and T Mobile, even those larger carriers had some issues. Now, I know a lot of people tweeted at me and said, oh, it took three minutes, and I wonder how many of those people were already on an eSIM to begin with.

Yes, it's true that one's a lot easier to manage. But when you're transferring from a physical SIM card to eSIM, yes, some people had a great experience. It took a couple of minutes. It was fine, it was seamless. And there were a lot of others, like myself, who did not have a good experience.

And I'll try to make it brief, but I was on Visible, which is a subsidiary of Verizon. It is an all digital company, which sounds great, but when you need to get a hold of them, using the chat inside of the app is not great, especially when there are thousands of people trying to do the same thing.

So on Friday, I transferred over my physical SIM, or at least I tried to. It had an error, and then it actually took my iPhone 13 Pro and it got rid of the SIM and the number from it because it no longer works with the physical, and it's stuck somewhere in between physical and the eSIM portion, and it never actually fully transferred. It's just kind of hanging out there in limbo. I never really got to talk to Visible because whenever I went on the chat service inside of the app, I was in a large queue.

And then whenever I got a number finally assigned to me and I got all the way down to two a couple of different times, I was two people away from being the next person to actually talk with a representative. The app would sign me out or crash, and I'd have to get back in line.

And honestly, after a full 24 hours of trying to do that, I got frustrated and I went to Verizon Proper and I started a new account and they gave me a temporary number while they port the number from Visible, which is actually not an easy process as well. And I'm still, without my actual phone number that I have a lot of people actually trying to call and text me and are concerned that I'm just not answering the phone.

So personally, I would have liked Apple to kind of not rush into this, or maybe they didn't rush into it, I don't know. But there are a lot of phones out there that have not rushed to just all eSIM with no physical SIM. And this kind of reminds me of the Nano SIM day where that didn't really take off as much as people wanted it to.

So those are my thoughts on eSIM, and I would love to hear yours in the comments down below. But then let's move on to the rest of my thoughts on the iPhone.

Dynamic Island​


Let's start with the two biggest features, and that's the Dynamic Island and the always on display. Now I was super Hyped for dynamic island. Apple did a really good job with its presentation of Dynamic Island, and all of the commercial and marketing videos that they have for it are really cool, and I still think it's really cool.

But after using the phone for four days, dynamic island is something that you don't really notice as much, especially since a lot of the developers out there do not have Dynamic Island kind of set in the apps yet. They're working on it. There are some things out there. Apparently Apollo has this really cool cat or something that goes around it, and there are some games that take I haven't seen them first hand, but that all sounds cool.

But I'm looking for third party apps to have some actually useful functionality. Now, I know Spotify, which is third party, it's up there and that works, and there are some that do work, but I'm looking forward to the day where we have more functional uses from other apps.

Right now, it's been fine. I don't use it as much, I haven't had the need, but it's definitely cool. It works really well.

I will say there is one thing that's kind of strange that I noticed, and that's the little microphone dot that lets you know that your microphone is in use. That for some reason is not in the Dynamic Island, it would make sense for it to be, but in certain use cases here, it's not. And it's all the way off to the right and it almost looks like it's not supposed to be there. It's like off to the right and then down a little bit and it's so close to the edge that it just looks like something that wasn't supposed to be there. I'm guessing that's a bug, but if it's not, that's a little weird.

But overall, everything has been fluid, it has been dynamic in some instances, but I'm just looking for a little bit more functionality. Otherwise, I think this is going to be something that you just kind of have and that it exists, but it's not something that maybe we were kind of like, oh, you should run out and get the pro because the Dynamic Island is really cool.

I think there are other reasons why this is just kind of a bonus nice to have. As of right now, those are my last three to four day impressions on Dynamic Island, and I think we can kind of say the same thing for Always On Display, though I do see far more functionality in it now.

Always On Display / Battery Life​


My main concern with the Always On Display is that whenever I'm using the phone, maybe I'm texting somebody and then I'm done. I put it on my desk and it goes down into Always On Display mode and it kind of dims the screen and drops to 1 Hz.

If I get a text or another notification immediately, it will bring that screen back up to its full brightness as if I picked it up and was trying to interact with my phone. And it'll do that for a little while. And I think that's what's contributing to the larger than normal battery drain than what you would get with the Always On Display, just kind of sitting here all day.

There have been tests out there where people have said it's relatively minimal, maybe five to 10% throughout the day. For me, it's been fine. I think battery life has been pretty much in line with how it was with my iPhone 13 Promax, and so I'm not really noticing a major drain.

I think that if we can get the battery life to kind of stay at that 5% range, five to seven throughout the course of the day, I'll take that hit to have the convenience of being able to see my phone and lock screen and see what's coming in.

Display Brightness​


Now, one of the features that actually surprised me when it comes to display is that 2000 nits of outdoor peak brightness. So if you're out in bright sunlight, which over the weekend I was at a football game and it was just super bright sun for four plus hours, I've got weird tan lines going on here.

But yeah, I mean, it really helps to have that. my wife has an iPhone Twelve Pro Max, and I have obviously the 13 Pro Max before I switched here. And I had them both outside kind of hand in hand, looking at it, just doing a test. And you could really see a difference here when it goes from 1000 to 2000, I mean, you literally see that double of screen brightness automatically just kind of kick on.

And it is mind blowing how much better you can see your phone compared to somebody else's. I was looking at her phone, I had sunglasses on too, which got, if you know what I'm talking about, you know that if you have sunglasses, you're looking at another phone outside. Good luck trying to see anything.

And I couldn't see anything on her device, and I could see everything clear as day. On mine, it was super bright. I could even turn the brightness down if I wanted to and it would be just fine. But it was really good. So something to keep in mind as well, especially if you are outside a lot when using your iPhone.

Rock Form midroll Ad​

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Even the company's Crystal case takes around 25 newtons to remove the wallet from the back of this case, which is quite a bit. These cases are obviously very well made, they're incredibly durable, and they protect your phone like no other.

So for more information about these iPhone 14 cases from Rock Form, visit the link in the description down below.

Performance / Efficiency​


And then one of the last major new features, aside from the A 16 bionic, which I don't really think we need to talk about a whole lot, I haven't noticed any difference in performance between, honestly, between the 13 Promax and the 14 Promax. They both work really well, they've continued to work really well. So that's really all you need to know.

Thermal efficiency, I feel like it's been a little bit better, especially when I'm outside. Like I said, before with that screen brightness all the way up, my phone wasn't as hot as I might have anticipated it to me. So maybe the thermals are a little bit better with a 16, but I have no way of really actually quantifying that right now. So just kind of take my word for it, I guess.

Camera​


But performance has been great, but the camera system is the biggest change. And you get that 48 megapixel wide angle sensor. It's so much larger, like 65% larger than the 13. We're going to do a full video, so please, if you want to see that subscribe, we'll be comparing the iPhone 13 Promax camera and maybe some other phones in the future to the 14 Promax.

But that'll be the next one. It'll be coming up very, very soon.

But I did snap some photos over the last few days of using it and I've been happy. If you're outside in the bright sun, you got good light around you, it's going to look good. It's always looked good. So I don't think there's a huge difference in that range. I think a lot of it is going to come in that low light, which I haven't really had a chance to test out a whole lot.

But my biggest thing that I really like with the 48 megapixel is if you take a photo, because it's going to default to twelve megapixels with pixel binning. So if you actually turn on Pro Raw, which is what you need to do to get 48 megapixels and you take a photo, it is going to be great.

When you crop in, it's not going to lose hardly any resolution or it's going to be a really good option for someone who wants to take a nice large file photo because that's what it's going to be and be able to crop in quite a bit and not lose out on any quality. It's very sharp. And again, we'll do more testing here soon. But the other thing that's really nice is having the ability because of that sensor, to have a near optical, like 2x zoom available again.

And so now whenever you open up the camera app here, you'll see you have your .5 ultra wide camera and then you have 1x, 2x, and 3x. Technically, that 2x isn't an optical zoom, but because of that 48 megapixel camera, you won't notice a difference in quality loss, that's for sure.

So you have those four optical like zoom ranges at your ready down there at the bottom, and you can choose between the four. And it's been a really nice addition.

Color Options​


And then the last thing I want to talk about are the color options. I'm not going to go too in depths on why Apple still continues to leave out bold color options for Pro users. If you want those color options, you need to go with the 14 and 14 plus.

But I do like the two newer options. And that's this new black, which is technically space black before it was graphite and then space gray. This one is definitely the best out of the previous gray black options that Apple has ever offered. I love the black stainless steel. I love this kind of space black option that they give you. It looks really clean. It's my personal favorite.

And then I'm kind of disappointed in the Purple, even though I'm going to tell you right now. It is definitely the next best color option in my opinion. I mean, it's just something that it's very boring most of the time. Like, sometimes it's going to look blue, sometimes it's going to look navy.

I'm trying to look at the camera here. Right here. It looks kind of like the space black. And then when I turn it towards the light, it's got a purple. But it's not a lot of purple. So, I mean, maybe you might like that. It is very subtle.

The stainless steel purple is very nice. So color options are kind of meh as always, but if I had to pick, it's going to be one of these two. And my ultimate favorite choice here right now is the Space Gray or Space Black. So, yeah, overall, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments down below, which color you like, what you thought about my thoughts as I've tested these phones for the last three to four days.

Conclusion​


Now, my kind of conclusion right now is that I don't think maybe the 14 Promax or the 14 pro is as much of an upgrade as I thought it might have been over the 13 pro and 13 Promax. Obviously, if we get any older than that, I do start to see where the value lies. Maybe the camera might be better again. We're going to be testing that very soon. So you can let me know in the comments which tests you want to see. And please subscribe to the channel so you don't miss those videos. This is vibe with Mac rumors. Thanks so much for watching and I hope to see you around in the next video.
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What's your point.
 
Good video. Dan does a good job. 13 Pro to 14 Pro eSIM to eSIM a non-issue for me. eSIM like any newer tech is rejected at first. But longer term, being able to quickly register an eSIM online when traveling will be looked at as being way more convenient. Battery life fine even with always on display. Screen brightness is great. Battery still seems a bit better than my 13 Pro, but could be to one year battery decline in the 13 Pro. Dynamic Island is a great step up from the notch. More useful. One small gripe is that when swiping right to go back in Safari in Landscape orientation, if you swipe from anywhere in the dynamic island, it does not work. So having to get used to swiping above or below. Camera much improved, night photos even better. Although for me the biggest issue left with the iPhone is that they bump really needs to go. I hope they are working on prism cameras so we can have a flat back once again. Colors, I got the purple just for fun. Agree it's a bit muted. But I keep it in a clear case, so that's keeps the whole phone less visible, but tradeoff as then it is protected. No easy solution there. Overall, I am happy with the upgrade. I would say it's more revolutionary than 12 Pro to 13 Pro, but still not a mind blowing upgrade like 7S to X. Great job Apple. Upgrading this product at this 100 million scale each year is a tour de force.
 
I went from a Physical SIM to eSIM via T-Mobile in 1min or less.
That’s crazy that everyone had this issue. Everything came over extra fast luckily for me.

As an old Apple Employee I suggest you stick to the bigger cell phone companies. We never liked the boost mobiles, or cricket service providers as they ALWAYS had issues with upgrades, and or things like what Dan experienced.
 
Great overview. Well done! As far as the esim I went from a VZW xr to a purple pro max. Upgrade in total took about a half an hour. I know YMMV. Color: purple all the way. Huge step up from an xr. Very pleased is the bottom line.
 
Lovetodayeveryday said:
I see these types people complaining about a mobile device being “heavy” and wonder if they are pulling my leg? 😂
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What do u use your phone for ?if you’re not too addicted and only use it while sitting (and not lying down) ,as a gps in your car ,in your backpack while hiking ,then sure ,it’s not heavy

If however you keep it in your hand while walking for kilometers ,use it to read stuff ,watch videos and movies in your bed while upside down , write a lot of stuff ..,it can become heavy real fast
 
TracerAnalog said:
Actually, I love the ease of eSim whilest traveling abroad! Just enter the code or use the app and I’m up and running in a literal minute. Before I had to search for a store (that is open!), fill in a lot of forms, wait for the sim, use the sim tool (which you always lose) to replace the sim card, activate it... All in all it took many hours to get things going. I am glad those days are over. It does of course depends on which countries you vist. But for those ‘sim-only’ countries I carry a cheap spare Pixel from a few year’s ago🤓
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My thought, exactly. I love the eSim. In some countries, I can just hop onto the wifi network on my airplane at 40,000 ft and activate the new sim even before I arrive.
I really don't understand the frustration...

And here are the list of carrier that support eSim in the US ... All of them can easily issue a new eSIM and activate the sim card easily... what's the problem guys?

  • Appalachian Wireless
  • AT&T
  • Boost Mobile
  • Carolina West Wireless
  • Cellcom
  • Chat Mobility
  • Consumer Cellular
  • Copper Valley Telecom
  • Credo Mobile
  • Cricket
  • C Spire
  • FirstNet
  • GCI
  • H2O Wireless
  • Metro by T-Mobile
  • Mint Mobile
  • Nemont
  • Nex-Tech Wireless
  • NorthwestCell
  • Optimum Mobile
  • Pioneer Wireless
  • PTCI
  • PureTalk
  • Red Pocket
  • Republic
  • Spectrum Mobile
  • Straight Talk
  • Strata
  • Thumb Cellular
  • T-Mobile USA
  • Tracfone
  • Truphone
  • Ubigi
  • Union Wireless
  • United Wireless
  • US Cellular
  • Verizon Wireless
  • Visible
  • West Central Wireless
  • Xfinity Mobile
 
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I have both a 14 Pro Max and an Apple Watch Ultra on order. Now that I've seen the reviews on both, I see no real benefit in maintaining the 14 Pro Max order .. I'm going to cancel it. It was tempting considering the small dollar differential between trade-in value and new device price. But keeping my current SIM card allows me to swap it for use in other devices (for instance my spare phone, my little $300 Motorola stylus - good for scribbling notes).

P.S. Had I been dan, considering all factors, I too would have ranted to at least the degree that he did - actually - probably - louder and longer. Imagine being a person who communicates for a living having to go days being blocked from incoming calls.
 
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Conclusion: is it worth it over a 13Pro?. Yes or no, please. I have no criteria and I will buy or not buy based on someone else’s opinion. ;)
Kidding aside, worth it over a 13Pro?. I have a yearly upgrade plan to return mine and get the new one at about half the price, but if I skip this year’s IPhone, next year I would have to pay full price.
 
spazzcat said:
Visible required every customer to contact them through chat to move their sim whether it was esim to esim or psim to esim. It was a mess and took hours because so many people were doing it. Then around 9 pm their esim system crashed and left everyone moving in limbo without service for about 12 hours.
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How did you get that info? :)

I picked up my 14 PM from a local Apple store around 5:30 PM on Saturday(9/17). I then went ahead to migrate my Visible cell service from a 7 Plus to the 14. The actual process took about 5 minutes!

It took longer to download and install iOS 16.01, lol! Many people were doing it, I guess.

I read a lot of threads at Visible forum and here, so I knew what to expect. But it turned out to be a super smooth experience!

I like Visible because:

1. It is cheap. On the legacy Unlimited plan, I paid $25 a month with Party Pay for unlimited voice, text and hot spot. With the new Plus plan, I pay $45/mo for the same unlimited perks and more: 500 minutes every month to any of 120 countries and unlimited texts to 200 countries.

2. Good speed. With the legacy Unlimited plan, the speed on the phone and the tethered laptop was about 2 mbps. But for some odd reason, I was still able to watch a lot of YouTube videos at 480 P and even 720 P. With the $45/mo plan, the speed is faster. It ranges from 10 to 800 mbps, depending on location and time of the day.

So I’m a completely satisfied customer at Visible! :)

I’m in a suburb of Los Angeles.
 
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