The Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max gives me almost everything I want in a big phone that doesn’t fold in half. I get the best screen, the best cameras, and the newest Apple A16 Bionic processor, only available on the best of Apple’s iPhones.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max is the best of Apple’s phones, and it beats the others in every way, right? Not so fast; there’s one aspect where Apple’s most expensive iPhone is no better than the base-model iPhone 14.
We have a full breakdown of how much each model of the iPhone 14 costs. Both the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which costs $1,099 / £1,199 / AU$1,899 to start, and the iPhone 14, which costs only $799 / £849 / AU$1,399, give you 128GB of storage at that price.
On both phones you can double the storage to 256GB for $100 / £110 / AU$170. You can double that again for twice the premium, or $200 / £220 / AU$350. On the Pro devices you can go even higher, to 1TB, for another $200 / £220 / AU$350.
Let’s be frank – that 256GB tier is where the iPhone 14 Pro Max should begin. It’s silly that Apple’s lowest-tier iPhone 14 and its cutting-edge, supersize iPhone 14 Pro Max should have the same storage capacity.
The key benefits of the Pro Max device demand more storage, and we would hardly recommend buying the biggest phone without a storage bump, unless you rely primarily on cloud services like Apple’s iCloud or Google Drive and Google Photos for backup.
It's mostly about shooting RAW
Besides the processor upgrade, which is still unproven by real-world reviewers, the biggest difference between the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 Pro models is the camera.
The base model iPhone 14 can only shoot in 12MP, though it uses a large sensor and Apple is no slouch with photography, even at the low end. The upgrade iPhone 14 Pro uses a 48MP sensor, and though it will output 12MP images in Auto shooting modes, you can also shoot in a ProRAW mode to get the full 48MP image.
The extra level of detail and information in a RAW image is a boon for professional photographers, and I can’t see myself shooting in any other format if I’m shooting for keeps. For sharing photos, a 12MP image is ideal because it is much smaller, but if I’m going to post an album from an event, or maybe even print a photo, I want to shoot in RAW.
This is the crux of the problem for me. A 48MP image is literally four times the size of a 12MP image. It doesn’t just take up a little bit more space, it takes up four times as much. Those cameras also shoot video at 4K up to 60fps, with options for HDR video and Dolby Vision modes. Those videos take up a ton of storage space as well.
I’m not saying the iPhone 14 Pro should come with four times the storage capacity, but at least a slight upgrade to 256MB would be nice. For the maxed-out iPhone 14 Pro Max? On that phone 256GB should be the bare minimum.
Okay, it's also about playing games
There are plenty of reasons I need more storage on an iPhone 14 Pro Max besides shooting high-res photos and videos. Apple claims its new processor is the fastest around, and to me that screams game time.
I like to connect my phone to an Xbox controller and really dig in, and the games I play, like Diablo Immortal and Call of Duty, require a download of many gigabytes of data to run smoothly. Games are another feature competing for scant storage resources.
If I have that humongous screen, I’m going to watch a lot of movies on it. Of course most of my viewing is through streaming services these days, but I travel a bit for work, so it’s nice to have extra storage space to download shows in advance before a plane ride, or just to make sure I don’t have to rely on my data connection where I’m going.
The iPhone 14 Pro Max needs to be the ultimate big screen phone experience, and that means it needs to have plenty of storage for everything I’ll want to watch.
Stings now, stings later
I will pay for the extra storage, but I won’t like it. For one thing, I’m already starting in the stratosphere for pricing. For another, I won’t recoup that extra storage fee when I trade in the phone next year. Apple offers great deals on trade-ins when the new model comes out.
I've written about why buying the most expensive iPhone now pays off later when you trade the phone back. If you pay $100 now for the upgrade, you’ll likely get $100 more next year when you give the phone back.
Unfortunately, that only works for model upgrades – you don’t get a better trade-in deal for a phone with a higher storage capacity.
Storage is cheap. It is true that the extra screen real estate, combined with the larger battery, certainly make the iPhone 14 Pro Max worth the price of an upgrade. I still need more space, so I’m going to have to shell out even more when it’s time to buy.
I won’t like it, but I’d rather spend just a bit more than feel like my big Pro Max phone is stuck with an entry-level amount of storage space.
