In September, Apple unveiled the iPhone 14 range, comprising the 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max. When reviewing the iPhone 14, I declared it was a device in search of a reason to exist. In hindsight, that’s a little harsh. So, with the release of the iPhone 14 in yellow this week, I wanted to use it as an opportunity to give the cheapest iPhone in the 14 range another chance at winning me over.
I have to say, the colour choice certainly helps its cause. As someone who wears all black, all the time, the yellow iPhone 14 really pops and I’m genuinely considering jumping down from the 14 Pro Max just for aesthetics alone.
@gizmodoau Unboxing the iPhone 14 Plus in yellow. #iphone #unboxing #yellow #iphone14
iPhone 14 in yellow
Apple announced the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus were getting an additional colour just yesterday. Despite using terms such as Midnight, Purple, Starlight and (PRODUCT)RED to describe the other colours in the range, the yellow iPhone is just yellow. It’s hard to describe the colour and in every spot we tried to take pics of this thing, the yellow looked real different. It’s not a yellow that slaps you in the face, it’s more subdued, softer, but not baby yellow, lemon but not harsh. Here’s what we mean.
Last year, Apple added a green colour to both its standard 13 and 13 Pro range, but it’s just the 14 and Plus getting an addition this year. Could it be because Apple is soon to release a new, more budget-friendly SE? Or could it just be that Apple loves being Apple and getting everyone to make a big song and dance about a new device that’s the same just with a different colour?
Same-same but different
The iPhone 14 in yellow is in every way the same as the other iPhone 14s. The phone boasts powerful cameras, a photonic engine, Action Mode, Apple’s A15 bionic chip, Emergency SOS via Satellite, Crash Detection, great battery life and the other standard Apple stuff. When reviewing the 14 in September, I said it was the 2021 iPhone 13 Pro with access to 2022 software. And that’s sort-of where I decided the phone wasn’t worth the money.
Key to this argument was that the 512GB iPhone 14 was $150 more expensive than the 128GB iPhone 14 Pro. With the camera system and extra smarts the Pro has, it was hard to say that the 14 was worth it. Per the Apple website, the iPhone 14 in yellow follows the same pricing schedule:
- $1,399 for 128GB
- $1,579 for 256GB
- $1,899 for 512GB.
But, to be honest, for many people 128GB is more than sufficient and the 128GB iPhone 14 is still $500 cheaper than the 128GB iPhone 14 Pro Max. It’s a matter of individuality here, something I didn’t necessarily take into account – you might not want a phone with all the bells and whistles and that’s OK. Besides, the cheapest iPhone 14 is still leaps and bounds above the iPhone SE 5G.
Seeing the world in (iPhone) yellow
Like its predecessor, there are two cameras on the back, a main and an ultra-wide. While the main remains at 12MP, it’s now paired with a faster, f/1.5 aperture, a component directly lifted from the iPhone 13 Pro. The ultra-wide camera is also the same as in the 13 (12MP), but it benefits from Apple’s Photonic Engine. The TL;DR? iPhone 14 in yellow has similar hardware to the 13 range, but better software. Here’s how that looks in pics.
For a look at how the iPhone 14 compares to the iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max camera, head over here. And here if you want to compare the iPhone 14 to the Google equivalent – the Google Pixel 7.
They were all yellow
There are so many songs with the word ‘yellow’ in them, it was really hard to keep this from being just one big music reference, but that’s really the big thing here – that the phone now comes in yellow. The yellow matches my aesthetic more, yes, but I’m not genuinely just basing my entire opinion on the colouring – I could always get a yellow case if I really wanted, after all. But bringing out the yellow option gave me another chance to use the iPhone 14 and six months later, I’ve warmed up to it.
The iPhone 14 will give you all-day battery life. On every device we can (laptop, phone), we do the Avengers: Endgame test. That is, we stream the 3-hour movie from Disney+ on the highest quality, brightness all the way up and volume at max. We see how much this drains the battery. Halfway through the movie, the battery was down to 81 per cent and by the end of the three hours, it was at 54 per cent. The iPhone 14 Pro Max still had 63 per cent at the end of the flick. Apple reckons you’ll get up to 20 hours of video playback (up to 16 hours streamed) out of the battery.
The camera system also isn’t terrible.
The iPhone 14, now in yellow, has access to all the fantastic stuff Apple crams into its operating system and, look. It’s a great phone. Just like the other colours in the iPhone 14 range are. The yellow is just the icing on the cake.