iPhone 14 Pro first experience: This upgrade fascinates me more than Smart Island

Providing a roughly similar experience within different hardware has been Apple's signature for a long time. Take the iPhone in the full-screen era as an example. You can say that these phones are "exquisite and not enterprising", but in any case, similar hardware frameworks allow Apple to bring similar software and interactions to different iPhones, which is significant. Reduce users’ learning costs for different hardware.

But with iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, things have changed. In order to "buy time" for under-screen Face ID or other biometric recognition systems, Apple introduced the "Smart Island" design for the new iPhone 14 Pro series, using software technology appropriately to "relieve" stagnant hardware development. Although under the cool and smooth interactive animation of Smart Island, this design to hide shame has indeed played a role in turning decay into magic. But for consumers, the emergence of Smart Island inevitably brings interaction differences to the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro series.

So how is the iPhone 14 Pro different from the iPhone 14 that everyone was familiar with a year ago?

Body

Before introducing Smart Island, I would like to first share with you the iPhone 14 Pro body design aspects of things. After all, Smart Island can only be seen and used after it is unlocked, and the appearance and design of iPhone 14 Pro can be appreciated the moment you pick it up.

First of all, the iPhone 14 Pro has indeed become heavier. Whether you compare it with iPhone 13 Pro or iPhone 14, the solid weight and feel of iPhone 14 Pro will give you a new understanding of stainless steel frames. Many people think that last year’s iPhone 13 Pro Max is heavy because of its large size, but this is not the case. Even within the same generation of the iPhone 14 series, the iPhone 14 Plus, which has an aluminum alloy frame and a larger screen, is still lighter than the iPhone 14 Pro, which has a stainless steel frame.

Picture source: Lei Technology

Why should Apple insist on What about the stainless steel frame? The reason is simple: the hard stainless steel frame brings a better tactile feel to the phone. However, on the iPhone 14 Pro, due to the change in the angle of the frame, the phone will feel scratchy when you hold it in hand, and the stainless steel frame is easily stained with fingerprints or left scratches. Judging from Xiaolei’s own habits, a protective case that feels comfortable in the hand is still essential. But on the bright side, the body width of the iPhone 14 Pro seems to be somewhat narrower than the iPhone 13 Pro, which can provide some psychological help for holding it with one hand.

In addition to the impressive feel and weight of the stainless steel frame, the iPhone 14 Pro The camera module is equally memorable. The iPhone 14 Pro camera module, which uses a new sensor, has become more prominent than the iPhone 13 Pro, and its "footprint" is also larger. This change has brought two negative effects to the iPhone 14 Pro: First, placing the phone on the table will cause a more serious "seesaw" phenomenon. Secondly, when holding the phone with one hand, the index finger of the right hand will press the fingerprint onto the camera lens.

Smart Island

One thing to say, Smart Island may not be a perfect design, but it is indeed a very Interesting design. In terms of hierarchy, it is so smart that it does not belong to the notification bar, so notifications from software such as WeChat will appear below the smart island. However, in actual use, I feel that the smartness is more like the permanent items after pulling down the notification bar: the music player controls and countdown controls that were originally resident at the top of the notification bar will appear in the smart island, and they can be used without pulling down. Direct operation.

However, this design also has its own drawbacks, that is, Smart Island treats the Face ID module as a button. In other words, your fingerprints will always be with the former camera, and you have to wipe it specially before taking pictures, otherwise the pictures will be foggy.

Picture source: Lei Technology

By the way, due to smart The essence of the island is a resident control, so most music playing software can directly call the smart island without worrying about adaptation issues.

Camera

As another major upgrade to the iPhone 14 Pro, the 48MP latter camera impressed me deep impression. Let’s talk about the issue that everyone is concerned about first: the “ghost” is still there. Due to problems with the optical design of the lens, the phenomenon of "ghosting" (internal mirror reflection) still occurs in the iPhone 14 Pro. But judging from actual performance, the "ghost control" of iPhone 14 Pro is much better than that of the previous two generations, and the "urban galaxy" situation has been greatly improved.

Picture source: Lei Technology

Not only that, the over-sharpening of iPhone photos in the past has also been greatly improved. What I don’t mean here is that the iPhone 14 Pro’s photos look “fleshy”, but thanks to the higher-pixel main camera, the iPhone no longer needs to sharpen to make the picture “look clearer.” In addition, the iPhone 14 Pro does a better job of retaining details than previous iPhones. The night scene mode also has cleaner sky colors.

Picture source: Lei Technology

Some people were worried about iPhone 14 before The Pro's smaller aperture affects the quality of nighttime shots. Judging from the sample photos taken by Xiaolei, you don't have to worry about this problem at all. Even when shooting without relying on handheld, the amount of light entering the iPhone 14 Pro at night is high enough. As for the sports mode that was highlighted at the press conference, we have not had time to test it due to time constraints, and will be sent in a detailed test later.

A16

In terms of configuration, this year’s mobile phone has been equipped with 6GB RAM as standard, and the situation of killing the background is similar to before. It's slightly better than that, and the first ten applications that go back to the background will basically not be reloaded. But if you want to go back to a game several apps ago, the probability of reloading is still relatively high.

In terms of running scores, compared with the iPhone 13 Pro, the performance of the iPhone 14 Pro has been slightly improved. GeekBench CPU single-core performance increased from 1734 points on iPhone 13 Pro to 1863 points, and multi-core performance increased from 4577 points to 5446 points, an increase of 7% and 18% respectively. At this stage, 3D Mark will have a vertical screen rendering problem on iOS 16. Due to incorrect resolution, scores and frame numbers have no reference meaning. As for the game test, it will be completed in the added evaluation.

However, in terms of heat generation, the performance of iPhone 14 Pro is indeed slightly better than that of iPhone 13 Pro.

Summary

Although in the eyes of many people, the “only” update of iPhone 14 Pro is Smart Island and surrounding Smart Island has a series of overt interactions, but after half a day of hands-on experience, the iPhone 14 Pro impressed me more with hardware improvements. The new 48MP camera has changed my previous impression of iPhone cameras being “sharpened and full”, and the brighter screen has also brought me a better HDR video viewing experience. If what attracted me to buy iPhone 14 Pro was Smart Island, then what really made me continue to use iPhone 14 Pro was the hardware improvements covered by Smart Island and the matching excellent software experience.

#Next, I will continue to fully experience all aspects of iPhone 14 Pro, and detailed evaluation content is also being actively prepared. If you haven't bought the first batch of iPhone 14 Pro, or you are still hesitating "Should I wait for 15?", I believe you can find the answer in the future iPhone 14 Pro review.

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