By Tomi, Mozillion Team
These two Apple phones are similar in many ways, but not all.
The iPhone 14 is one of the best smartphones out right now and it has some subtle updates compared to its predecessor. And speaking of predecessors, if you have the iPhone 13 right now is it worth upgrading to the iPhone 14?
Let’s find out.
The iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 are pretty alike. In fact if it wasn’t for the colour differences you would never be able to tell them apart. Both devices feature the same display size, 5G connectivity and Apple’s A15 Bionic chip, with slight differences.
Nevertheless, if you’re due an upgrade or in need of a new phone, the iPhone 14 offers a number of upgrades such as an additional GPU core, Emergency SOS via satellite, the Photonic Engine, and Action Mode.
iPhone 14 vs 13: Design
In terms of the design they’re nearly identical – the camera placement on the back, the lightning ports on the bottom with the speaker grill, the power button placement on the right side, the volume control and silent switch on the left side and the SIM card tray all in the same areas.
On the front you have the same notch and the same display. Both are made of glass and aluminium with glossy backs. The iPhone 14 has a ceramic shield on the front glass for added durability but to be honest both are prone to scratches so do get a case to protect them.
iPhone 14 vs 13: Display
They’re both IP68 rated meaning you’ll be okay if you get yourself in water, with a maximum depth of 6 metres for up to 30 minutes. The iPhone 14 and iPhone 13 have the same 6.1 inch OLED displays with HDR, support 800 nits of brightness on standard content and 1200 nits of peak brightness when it comes to HDR content, so they’re both just as bright.
For you, all this means is whether you’re reading a book, browsing the web or watching videos on the go, the brightness levels in different lighting conditions are really good for consuming your content
iPhone 14 vs 13: Camera
Although the camera looks similar to the naked eye, the iPhone 14 has a slight upper hand when it comes to the camera quality. Both devices feature a pair of rear 12 megapixel cameras, so a main wide lens and an ultra wide angle shooter.
The only difference here is the iPhone 14’s main camera has a larger pixel size at 1.9 microns, a faster f1.5 aperture and sensor shift image stabilisation.
All this means for you is that on the iPhone 14 you get brighter and sharper images and better stabilisation when it comes to shooting on the go with shaky hands. It also means night mode is brighter with the exposure now twice as fast.
The iPhone 14 also comes with something called Photonic Engine and this is a buzzword for the camera software which intelligently looks at your images and enhances them in the background so you don’t even know it’s happening, so this is great for better photos in low light. All that said though, if you’re only going to be sharing your photos on Facebook and sending to family and friends, it doesn’t really matter what the differences are between these two, it’s really hard to tell the differences.
iPhone 14 vs 13: Performance & Battery
iPhones in general perform really well in terms of day-to-day use, playing games and so on and the iPhone 14 and iPhone 13 are no slacker when it comes to performance. Both of them are powered by Apple’s powerful A15 Bionic processor but don’t be fooled because the iPhone 14 has a 5 core GPU for boosted gaming performance compared to the iPhone 13’s 4 core GPU. This is not to say you’ll notice any difference in reality.
That said, they can both play Call of Duty with no issues at all, no glitches, no lag, it just works really well so I wouldn’t consider that to be a deal breaker when it comes to upgrading from the 13 to the 14.
Of course performance isn’t just about the processing power and gaming capability, yes it’s fluid and very smooth but how long can you use it for? On paper, the iPhone 14 should last up to 20 hours for video playback, 16 hours for streaming Netflix for example and 80 hours for audio playback, The iPhone 13 on the other end will do 19 hours of video playback, 15 hours of streaming videos and 75 hours of audio playback, so technically the iPhone 14 should last a bit longer but in reality it varies on your usage and it’s very similar in overall performance so no major advantage here.
Elsewhere, on the iPhone 14 you get SOS Satellite Communication, you also get crash detection in a car but if you don’t find yourself in remote locations where you need an SOS satellite connection that doesn’t really matter, and most cars these days have emergency crash detection so I wouldn’t worry too much about that.
iPhone 14 vs 13: Verdict
So, back to our question: Should you upgrade from the iPhone 13 to the iPhone 14?
Right now I would say the iPhone 13 offers a great value for money if you’re coming from the iPhone 12 or an older model, but if you have the iPhone 13 already and are considering moving to the iPhone 14, I’d hold on to your cash or get a refurbished one where you can save some money and not pay the full price for a brand new iPhone 14.
The iPhone 14 doesn’t offer enough upgrades over the iPhone 13 to fork out the full price for a brand new device if you’re coming from the iPhone 13.
If you want to find out some of the latest deals on both models, check out the links below.