We’ve had a few months with the fleet of iPhone 14 models now, and just as much time to be impressed by the wickedly powerful iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. And as their presence towards the top of our list of the best phones will attest, Apple’s latest premium smartphones are some seriously impressive tech.
Offering a happy marriage of premium performance and powerful cameras with Apple’s typically gorgeous handset design, the latest powerhouse iPhones are well worth the hype – but how do they compare to one another? Is size really the only difference?
Having spent a great deal of time now with both models, we’ve stacked the two up against each other below to help you determine the right iPhone flagship for you.
Weight: 206g
Dimensions: 147.5 x 71.5 x 7.9mm
Screen size: 6.1-inch
Resolution: 1179 x 2556
CPU: Apple A16 Bionic
RAM: 6GB
Storage: 128GB / 256GB / 512GB / 1TB
Rear Cameras: 48MP + 12MP + 12MP
Front Camera: 12MP
Battery: 3,200mAh
The base Pro handset of the iPhone 14 generation offers the same well-built, stylishly designed premium smartphone experience that Apple fans have come to expect from the iPhone, but sacrifices slightly more than just screen size to its larger Pro sibling.
For
- Excellent design and build
- High-quality cameras
- Always-on display
- Dynamic Island is impressive
- Cheaper than Pro Max
Against
- Only 3x optical zoom
- No USB-C
- Expensive
iPhone 14 Pro vs iPhone 14 Pro Max: price and availability
Both the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 14 Pro Max hit the shelves in Australia on September 16, 2022, following the initial official announcement of the latest Apple phones just over a week prior.
In terms of pricing, there is an obvious difference between the two models. In the case of the iPhone 14 Pro to start, there are a grand total of four storage options to choose from with prices starting from:
• 128GB / AU$1,749
• 256GB / AU$1,899
• 512GB / AU$2,249
• 1TB / AU$2,599
Similarly, the big daddy of the two in the iPhone 14 Pro Max can be discovered in four total storage options, though at a slightly higher price than its sibling:
• 128GB / AU$1,899
• 256GB / AU$2,099
• 512GB / AU$2,419
• 1TB / AU$2,769
As you might expect, both the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are available from a variety of retailers and telcos, with some of the best deals on offer for you to discover below.
iPhone 14 Pro vs iPhone 14 Pro Max: design
As you might expect, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max look essentially identical in many ways, with the key difference being the sizes. Both do away with the much-maligned notch in place of Apple’s new Dynamic Island, which give both the Pro and Pro Max slightly more screen to work with.
In terms of physical design, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max look very familiar to what iPhone users have come to expect, maintaining the sleek, clean look we saw with the iPhone 13 flagships, paired with a stainless steel frame, brushed glass rear and uncomplicated glass screen protected by Apple’s Ceramic Shield – a transparent material that contains ceramic crystals for extra screen protection.
In terms of the sizing differences between the pair, the iPhone 14 Pro measures in at 147.5 x 71.5 x 7.9mm compared to the iPhone 14 Pro Max at 160.7 x 77.6 x 7.9mm, making the Pro Max the larger of the two. Naturally the iPhone 14 Pro Max also weighs more than its sibling, tipping the scales at 240g compared to the Pro’s 206g.
Both are IP68 water and dust resistant, with a submergence rating of up to 6 metres for 30 minutes.
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iPhone 14 Pro vs iPhone 14 Pro Max: display
As mentioned above, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are divided by a difference in screen size, with the iPhone 14 Pro’s display measuring in at a total of 6.1-inches compared to the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s 6.7-inches.
The pair also differ in terms of resolution, as the Pro’s resolution tops out at 1179 x 2556 versus the Pro Max boasting a resolution of 1290 x 2796.
Besides these details, the two phones feature the same Super Retina XDR OLED display with adaptive refresh rates of 1Hz to 120Hz, peak brightness of 2,000 nits and HDR10 capabilities. In the case of both the Pro and Pro Max, this peak brightness is notably greater than the two phones’ top competitors, such as the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.
iPhone 14 Pro vs iPhone 14 Pro Max: camera
Long a strength of the top iPhone models, the cameras of both the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are as impressive as ever. Both phones feature a trio of sensors at the rear – a 48MP wide, 12MP ultrawide and 12MP telephoto lens making up the array, with the latter being capable of up to 3x optical zoom. Of note, the 48MP main sensor at the rear of both phones is the first from Apple to offer pixel binning, a process that combines four pixels into one to offer a resulting image of smaller size, in this case 12MP stills.
This process isn’t new for smartphones with the top Samsung handsets with higher resolution sensors having offered this feature for some time now, but it does give the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max a slight boost when taking photos or shooting video in low-light conditions.
For selfies meanwhile, the Pro and Pro Max each offer a 12MP wide lens, with the real photo magic for both the rear and front cameras being done by the 14 Pro and Pro Max’s powerful new CPU – the A16 Bionic chip.
Shooting video is something else to gain a boost with the two models over their predecessors, as Apple has upgraded the Pro models’ video capabilities to support a 4K at 30fps cinema mode alongside an action mode tool to offer steady filming even in active conditions.
Image quality overall for both the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max benefit from Apple’s new Photonic Engine, which you can read about in greater detail via our in-depth look at the new camera technologies of Apple’s iPhone 14 series.
iPhone 14 Pro vs iPhone 14 Pro Max: battery and performance
Unsurprisingly, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max share performance attributes thanks to Apple’s new A16 Bionic chipset. This is a notable upgrade over the previous generation iPhone Pro models (which featured the Apple A15 Bionic) and corresponds to an overall welcome boost for performance, speed and efficiency even if not quite reaching the heights of the more powerful CPU of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Each of the two phones come with iOS 16 loaded out of the box, upgradeable to iOS 16.3 at the time of writing. There are also welcome gains to battery life in both phones – with the iPhone 14 Pro Max holding a slight edge with up to three hours more than the iPhone 14 Pro. This is due to the disparity in battery capacity between the pair, with the iPhone 14 Pro’s 3,200mAh battery notably less impressive than the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s 4,323mAh battery.
While a bigger battery would have always made sense for the iPhone 14 Pro Max given its larger size and the need to provide enough juice to account for this, it’s worth noting that the Pro Max’s battery appears to have been granted a boost in both size and efficiency even beyond the necessary requirements for the larger phone.
There is otherwise little to separate the pair in terms of performance, with the iPhone 14 Pro’s CPU earning a Geekbench score of 5346 compared to the Pro Max’s 5423 – both notably achieving greater heights than same-gen competitors such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra (3657) and Google Pixel 7 Pro (3187).
iPhone 14 Pro vs iPhone 14 Pro Max: takeaway
Size matters? Not necessarily as there’s very little separating the iPhone 14 Pro from the iPhone 14 Pro Max other than the difference in size – in terms of both the physical dimensions and the battery capacity. That said, the latter does have some energy efficiency gains over its cheaper siblings.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max also offers the slightest of performance edges over the iPhone 14 Pro, although admittedly to such a slight advantage as being barely worth writing home about.
Otherwise, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are hard to separate, with both being clearly the best iPhone models on the market and feeling years ahead of the generic iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus.
Ultimately, if the decision of which of the handsets is right for you comes down to budget, the iPhone 14 Pro has the obvious edge. If it’s power and performance that matter most to you, the iPhone 14 Pro Max just manages to set itself apart.
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