I was asked a very interesting question the other day; "So what is the best phone right now?"

Seems like a simple thing to ask - especially of someone who spends all his time fooling around with as many of the latest handsets as he can set his hands on. But as I was about to answer I found myself pausing... there are a lot of phones out there. They all have their strengths and weaknesses and every user has different requirements.

What matters most to you? Camera performance? Durability? Battery life and charging options? Do you want lots of RAM and a super-fast processor? Or does it just need to be a cool colour?

Oh, and budget is probably the major factor, of course.

See how quickly a simple question can get complicated?

To make matters worse, Apple has four new phones in the mix...

 

Not that I'm complaining. I've talked about the sheer pleasure of unboxing a brand new Apple device before and that experience has not dimmed in the slightest with the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Sublime is the adjective that springs to mind when you first unseal these fine examples of precision engineering.

The first feature to really catch my eye was the back glass; it has a matte, fingerprint-resistant finish and on my review units is coloured Space Black on the Pro and Apple's new colour for 2022, Deep Purple on the Pro Max. Both have a luminescence to them - an effect I was first aware of when Apple brought out its green iPhone 13's. The Deep Purple is particularly fetching - in some lights it seems almost black while its matching stainless steel rail around the edge is a little lighter. This is not an in-your-face colour choice. Instead, it exudes luxury and elegance.

That being said, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is a weighty beast indeed. Bear in mind; the two Pro models are essentially the same phone apart from screen and battery size. However, that 6.7-inch display and larger battery mean not only is the Max bigger but it also weighs in at 240 grams over the Pro's 206 grams. To call it a brick would diminish how beautiful it is although it does kind of feel like a brick when you pick it up in one hand.

For many of you, that digital workout might well be worth it for the extra screen real estate. Unlike some other, long and skinny large-screen handsets, the Pro Max maintains the aspect ratio of the 6.1-inch Pro, so not only is it longer, it's wider too. And this year we see Apple ditch the notch around the selfie-cams in favour of a more subtle cutout instead. This means an even more usable display on both devices which is akin to sensory overload, given the exquisite nature of these Super Retina XDR screens, with their oh-so-responsive ProMotion abilities, offering refresh rates up to 120Hz.

A big talking point with the iPhone 14 range has been Apple's decision to reserve its new A16 Bionic chip for the two Pro models, while the standard iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are powered by 2021's A15. I touched on this in my iPhone 14 review, quick to point out the performance of this "vanilla" model still blasts most other comers out of the water. That said, you can only imagine how thrilling it is to put these Pro versions through their paces. The A16 Bionic features a 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine. I don't really understand what that means in much the same way as I don't really know what any of the individual components of my car's engine do. What I do know is these phones simply fly - from gaming to filming, to editing to downloading, installing and launching apps, as usual for iPhone, everything just works. With these phones though, it all works instantly.

Back to that new cutout at the top of the screen. By now if you've been following any iPhone news at all, you've probably heard about or even seen the new Dynamic Island interactive widget. This transforms the otherwise blank oval surrounding the front-facing camera and face sensor into something a lot more interesting to look at and perhaps something genuinely useful too. The list of apps and functions capable of utilising the Dynamic Island is exploding as we speak but mostly it's about giving you quick access to things that are running in the background - for example, audio playing, timers running or even active phone calls.

When these sorts of activities are happening, you'll see animated icons appear on either end of the Dynamic Island. A long tap on it will likely bring up a useful temporary control widget at top of the screen, so you can play, pause or skip - or maybe take your caller off hold. A short tap will instantly open the app involved - all without any extra swiping or other navigation. It's definitely more than just a gimmick and I've already found myself using it quite a bit - almost intuitively - especially to control my music and podcasts.

Another new feature Apple has introduced to the 14 Pro's is one we've seen on other phones and devices for years; Always On Display. Personally, I can't think of anything worse than having my screen on all the time and I've never understood why people love it so much. But then, I was a very early smartwatch adopter so I'm used to getting notifications on my wrist, without having to look at my phone at all. Apparently other (normal?) people like the ability to see what's coming and going on their phone with a quick glance at the lock screen.

Although late to the party on this one, Apple being Apple has jumped on board AOD with both feet and has decided it doesn't need to be a limited, black-and-white, simplified version of the lock-screen. AOD on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max means full-colour, fully operational, just significantly dimmed to preserve battery life. Not only that, in combination with the latest iOS, there are some fun effects you can play around with if you set a portrait photo as your wallpaper - placing it behind the clock and widgets when the phone's asleep, bringing the picture to the foreground when you wake it up.

I've read varying reports on how much the new AOD feature affects battery life and that's how it is with battery life - how long is a piece of string? All I know is the battery life on these two phones is easily the most impressive of any iPhone I've used to date and outshines quite a few flagship phones from other manufacturers too.

I highlighted Apple's latest crash-detection technology in my recent Apple Watch Series 8 review and rest assured, you get all those features here as well.

But camera performance is likely to be the main reason most users choose to spend a few hundred dollars extra for an iPhone Pro and again, these handsets a truly another step ahead. There are significant upgrades across the board - from the Ultra Wide camera with a sensor almost twice as big as last year's - to the 3x Telephoto lens that now offers a vastly improved zoom experience, especially now Apple has released an update to remedy the widely publicised issue some early customers were experiencing with third-party photo apps allegedly causing the camera module to rumble, grind and shake. 

I never experienced this, although I encountered a different frustration at my daughter's university graduation last week. As you can imagine, this is an event where photos are pretty important, so it was rather alarming when the camera app froze completely on more than one occasion. This happened when I was attempting to zoom in across the poorly lit audience at the indoor arena hosting the event. Each time I had to restart the camera app to continue shooting. Luckily, it didn't seem to affect the more well-lit pics of the action on stage. I'm also confident the next update will sort this niggle too.

Some fairly extensive online research has suggested a few other people have run into similar issues at other indoor events. It seems odd because all other aspects of the camera performance are truly remarkable - including low-light shooting thanks to what Apple calls its Photonic Engine. As I understand it, this uses all the information it can get its hands on; multiple images and even uncompressed footage to produce brighter, more colourful shots than ever.

There's also a new Action Mode which takes the iPhone 14 Pro's digital stabilisation to another level.

The front camera has been zooped up too - now capable of autofocus and also utilises the aforementioned Photonic Engine for improved low-light selfies.

I could go on and on. Weirdly, just as with the base iPhone 14, the Pro and Pro Max have also been accused of "not being that much better" than their predecessors. Again I'll point out, most users aren't professional phone critics who update their handsets every five minutes. Besides, I've just spent about 1500 words (far, far too many) discussing the many and varied ways these phones have in fact been improved.

Are they the best phones money can buy? At around the NZ$3000.00 mark for the highest spec, 1TB models, you'd certainly hope they're right up there. They're definitely the best phones Apple has ever produced and that's saying something.