iPhone 16 Pro Max vs iPhone 14 Pro Max: Out with the old, in with the new, but is it wise to rush?

The new iPhone 16 Pro Max is here, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max is now two generations old. Ouch!

With the new jumbo-sized iPhone, we get a larger display with thinner bezels, a new button (the Camera Control button), better performance thanks to the A18 Pro chipset, improved battery life, and improved cameras. 

Might not seem like such a big upgrade cycle to some, but then again, new iPhones these days are aimed at people using three- or four-year old devices, so all the improvements are on point. 

However, the iPhone 14 Pro Max still feels sufficiently modern. With its Dynamic Island punch-hole, large 48MP main camera, and classic flat design, it's still a device that will be serving flawlessly for years to come. Sure, it might not be the newest one around, but a case could be made that you probably shouldn't upgrade to the iPhone 16 Pro Max if you're content with your iPhone 14 Pro Max.

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The iPhone 16 Pro Max doubles down on the titanium design that debuted with the iPhone 15 Pro Max last year. It remains slightly curved for improved ergonomics, but the most important aspect of the design here could be the thinnest bezels on an iPhone––just 1.15mm! 

Oh, did we say the most significant aspect are the bezels? Apologies, the iPhone 16 Pro Max has a much larger 6.9-inch screen. This was achieved thanks to the combination of thinner bezels and slightly taller body. At the same time, the Dynamic Island combining the FaceTime camera and Face ID sensors is here to stay, and so is the customizable Action Button that broke ground in 2023. 

Aside from the Action Button, the iPhone 16 Pro Max debuts another new button, dubbed the Camera Control button. It's a capacitive button with sapphire coating that's mostly similar to the TouchID home button on the iPhone 8––delivering haptic feedback and being pressure-sensitive without employing any moving parts. With this button, you get a whole new way of controlling your camera.

At the same time, the iPhone 14 Pro Max acts as the proverbial bridge between the old and the new Apple design language. It comes with a flat stainless-steel frame and employs both the Dynamic Island and a ring switch. A peculiar mix of classic and new features here. Oh, and there's a Lightning port at the bottom of the iPhone 14 Pro Max, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max has a USB Type-C port. 

Size-wise, the iPhone 16 Pro Max is slightly taller and thicker, but lighter than the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which is great to witness. This is significant, as the iPhone 16 Pro Max also adopts a larger screen and battery, so a win-win scenario on multiple fronts. Sorry, iPhone 14 Pro Max users, but your phone might feel a little old-fashioned in this regard.  

Colors-wise, we got the iPhone 14 Pro Max in Space Black, Silver, Gold, and Deep Purple. The iPhone 16 Pro Max colors are Black Titanium, White Titanium, Natural Titanium, and Desert Titanium. 

So, aside from the size, will there be any major changes in the display department? Well, no. 

The size bump to 6.9 inches is pretty important, as iPhones rarely get larger screens. Aside from this change, the rest of the iPhone display properties have not changed, except for the minimum brightness, which is now a single nit. The Super Retina XDR OLED screen with 120Hz ProMotion that enables super-smooth refresh rate is here to stay. 

There's a new Ceramic Shield coating on the iPhone 16 Pro Max that is reportedly twice as resilient as the one on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. 

The iPhone 14 Pro Max, on the other hand, comes with a smaller screen in comparison, a 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR OLED one that also support 120Hz ProMotion. The maximum brightness is lower here, "just" 1,600 nits in HDR mode, which was already surpassed by the next-in-line iPhone 15 Pro Max, so it's the iPhone 16 Pro Max will most certainly best them all.

There's an improvement for the minimum brightness––the iPhone 16 Pro Max can hit 1 nit, which is way lower than the iPhone 14 Pro Max.    

Face ID is the biometric method of choice to unlock your iPhone 14 Pro Max, and the same will be true for the iPhone 16 Pro Max, too. It's fast and reliable, we have no issues with it. 

Apple's second-generation 3nm chipset, the A18 Pro chip, is found inside the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Aside from beating all former Apple chips in raw performance (that's a given), it also puts the focus on on-device artificial intelligence and machine-learning. The chip consists of dual performance cores and quad efficiency cores, as well as a 16-core NPU for Apple Intelligence on-device processing.

Apple has also improved the internal design of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, achieving 20% improvements in heat management, which on its own minimizes throttling and achieves better performance. Nice!

What's the situation with the iPhone 14 Pro Max? It comes along with a 4nm chipset, the Apple A16 Bionic, which still performs mighty fine in both everyday tasks and benchmarks. Where the Apple A16 Bionic will probably fall off could be on-device AI processing, but cloud-based AI processes that are coming with iOS 18 should be just fine. The A18 Pro inside the iPhone 16 Pro Max will undoubtedly make it way more future-proof for all things AI-related.

We have 8GB of RAM of memory on the iPhone 16 Pro Max. One of the main reasons for this memory windfall is the performance cost and hardware requirements behind the on-device AI as it processes large swaths of data where RAM is paramount. At the same time, the iPhone 14 Pro Max comes with 6GB of RAM, but it also doesn't support Apple Intelligence. 

Just like the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the iPhone 16 Pro Max comes with 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB of native storage. You can get the iPhone 14 Pro Max with 128GB in the entry-level variation, but also comes with 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB of storage.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max comes with support for Wi-Fi 7 and the Snapdragon X75 5G modem for faster data speeds. The iPhone 14 Pro Max, on the other hand, has Wi-Fi 6 and the older Snapdragon X65 5G chip.   

As far as software support goes, Apple has recently revealed that it has committed to a MINIMUM of five years of software updates. Thus, the iPhone 16 Pro Max will receive timely updates at least until 2029 when iOS 23 should break ground. The same applies to the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which will be supported until 2028 at least, or even longer.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max will arrive with iOS 18, and so will the iPhone 14 Pro Max. However, the intriguing Apple Intelligence features will only come to the iPhone 16 Pro Max. 

iOS 18 brings a host of AI-powered enhancements, particularly with Apple Intelligence, which significantly improves Siri’s functionality. While most AI processing is handled on-device, more complex tasks can utilize Apple’s Silicon-powered cloud servers. 

Another new feature intertwined with the camera and the new Camera Control button is Visual intelligence, which allows you to point your phone at a point of interest or a business venue, click the Camera Control button, and receive relevant information about that. 

In early 2025, an update to iOS 18 will allow Siri to execute multi-step actions within apps, such as finding and sharing specific photos, as well as be much smarter than before. Finally!

Safari now offers Intelligent Search and Distractions Control, while the Messages app benefits from AI-generated replies, emoji creation, and message summarization. The Photos app gains features like AI-driven object removal and memory creation, enhancing user experiences. iOS 18 also introduces RCS messaging for better cross-platform communication.

Customization features include movable icons and a redesigned Control Center, allowing for more personalized user interfaces. Accessibility gets a boost with tools like Vocal Shortcuts and Eye Tracking, catering to a wider range of needs. 

Additionally, Apple has partnered with OpenAI to integrate the ChatGPT AI client into iOS 18 (coming later this year), further enhancing AI-driven functionalities. These updates make iOS 18 more intuitive, powerful, and user-friendly.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max inherits the same triple camera setup as the iPhone 15 Pro Max but with some notable changes: the 48MP Fusion main camera has a custom new sensor, the same tetraprism telephoto camera with 5X optical zoom, and finally, the ultra-wide camera is now a 48MP one. The latter will possibly deliver better light sensitivity and improved detail. 

The iPhone 16 Pro Max also employs improved Photographic Styles, which are now more customizable than before and let you fine-tune the native appearance of the photos you get. 

The iPhone 14 Pro Max, on the other hand, debuted Apple's 48MP main camera, which has been used on the iPhone 15 Pro Max and will likely be used on many more iPhones in the near future. The rest of the camera loadout is a bit more old-school, though: a 12MP ultra-wide and a 12MP telephoto with 3X optical zoom are not that impressive. Yet, they definitely get the job done. 

The iPhone 16 Pro Max also scores 4K@120fps video recording, which enables cinematic video capture, a first on the iPhone line. Additionally, Apple has outfitted the iPhone 16 Pro Max with a four-array studio-grade mic, which will deliver better audio quality, native wind noise reduction, and a new Audio Mix feature, which allows you to intelligently isolate sound and voice from your video clips. 

Apple is seemingly pretty proud of the iPhone 16 Pro Max battery life. We don't have a specific battery size yet, but the official battery life figures are greatly improved in comparison with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, so the new iPhone 16 Pro Max might turn out to be the iPhone with the best battery life so far. 

Meanwhile, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is packing a 4,323mAh battery, which is smaller than both the preceding iPhone 13 Pro Max and succeeding iPhone 15 Pro Max. As a result, it's not a phone that you'd usually associate with great battery life. Still, it easily lasts you through a day or more. 

As per Apple, the iPhone 16 Pro Max scores 33 hours of video playback in Apple's battery test, whereas the iPhone 14 Pro Max gets 29 hours in the same test. Thus, we expect the newer device to be much better in terms of battery life.

A big difference between the two is the port at the bottom: the iPhone 16 Pro Max comes with a USB Type-C port, while the iPhone 14 Pro Max employs a Lightning port.

Charging-wise, we get an update to the wireless charging speed of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which is now 25W. The phone also supports Qi2. No bump in the wired charging speed. 

Our iPhone 16 Pro Max vs iPhone 14 Pro Max specs comparison is already live, but we've also summarized the essentials for you right below:

So, with all that in mind, should you upgrade? Has the time come to ditch the iPhone 14 Pro Max? Let's be honest, it wasn't one of the finest iPhones in recent years, but is the iPhone 16 Pro Max the one you should get instead?

Well, we can't say yet, as the iPhone 16 Pro Max is yet to go through the paces of our own in-house tests. It's a bit early to draw conclusions. 

From the looks of it, the iPhone 14 Pro Max users might not have that many reasons to upgrade. From a pure value perspective, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is still a perfectly viable device that's extremely unlikely to be that outshone by its grandson, so to speak. 

At the same time, if you're into cutting-edge tech, there's nothing stopping you from upgrading to the iPhone 16 Pro Max. It will have a ton of niceties and improvements over the previous generation, even more so in comparison with the iPhone 14 Pro Max.