iPhone 14 vs one of the best Android telephones: Spec showdown

Since its launch in 2007, the Apple iPhone story has been one in every of relentless rise on just about any metric you care to decide on — gross sales of recent iPhones, the put in base of energetic iPhones, income from iPhone gross sales, income from providers delivered by way of iPhones, and extra. 

In 2021 it is estimated that Apple bought a file 242 million iPhones, serving to to gas an energetic put in base of 1.23 billion and producing income of $191.9 billion. Income from Apple providers – about a 3rd of which is generated by the iOS App Retailer — was $68.4 billion in 2021.

A key consider constructing a wholesome energetic put in base is the extent to which telephones have an after-life past their first proprietor. If handsets are traded or handed on to relations reasonably than retired or recycled, extra of them stay plugged into the seller’s ecosystem, delivering income by way of providers. By supporting gadgets longer than most rival smartphone distributors, this technique has labored properly for Apple:

In the case of buyer satisfaction versus the Android competitors, the newest American Buyer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) reported a tie between Apple and Samsung, based mostly on a survey of over 23,000 US prospects contacted between April 2021 and March 2022:

Buyer satisfaction: prime smartphone distributors

Information: American Buyer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)  

The preferred smartphone mannequin in ACSI’s 2022 survey was Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Extremely. Apple took 4 of the highest ten slots (as did Samsung) with the iPhone 11 Professional Max main the way in which in third place.

In a current survey of US adults, 451 Analysis uncovered some fascinating generational patterns in smartphone preferences between Apple and its most important Android rival, Samsung. Generations as much as and together with Millennials present comparable ranges of average choice for Apple (41%-51%) over Samsung (29%-34%), however the youngest age group — Technology Z — is overwhelmingly Apple-focused: 83% of Gen Z respondents personal an iPhone, in comparison with simply 10% with a Samsung telephone. 

If this sample continues because the Gen Z cohort ages, Apple’s grip on the grownup US smartphone shopping for and proudly owning inhabitants – already over 50 % — can solely tighten. Apple’s current success in attracting ‘switchers‘ from Android to iPhone definitely echoes this survey sign. In a current analyst name, Apple CEO Tim Cook dinner had this to say:

 “Turning to iPhone, we set a June quarter file for each income and switchers to iPhone. With its superior efficiency, functionality, and ease of use, prospects proceed to search out that iPhone stays the gold customary for smartphones. They usually’ve been raving in regards to the iPhone 13 lineup’s extraordinary digicam high quality, with options like Cinematic Mode and macro pictures to create eye-catching content material.” 

Cook dinner’s feedback are supported by additional information from the 451 Analysis survey, which recognized digicam high quality as a very powerful smartphone function for all generations, adopted by water resistance, inner storage capability, sturdiness, and charging pace:

 Influential smartphone options 

Information: 451 Analysis 

Because the iPhone 14 sequence involves market, are there any clouds on the Apple’s smartphone horizon? The Covid pandemic could have dented gross sales considerably in 2020 as a result of provide chain points, however the upward development apparently continues apace: as famous above, Apple posted file iPhone income ($40.6 billion) in its most up-to-date fiscal quarter (Q3 2022, or calendar Q2).

After Covid, the subsequent fear is the fallout from the conflict in Ukraine, leading to rising inflation, a excessive chance of widespread recession and decreased client demand. Will this trigger smartphone patrons to look extra in the direction of mid-range and funds telephones, reasonably than Apple’s historically sturdy premium sector? Do Android distributors supply higher worth additional down the smartphone meals chain, or will the incremental enhancements within the iPhone 14 sequence, plus headline options like crash detection and satellite tv for pc connectivity, proceed to gas Apple’s seemingly unstoppable upward trajectory?

For the second, issues look good for Apple within the premium smartphone market. Current analysis by Counterpoint gave Apple a 57% share in Q2 2022, with Samsung a distant second on 19%.  

The common promoting worth (ASP) for a premium telephone rose 8% year-on-year to achieve $780, pushed primarily by 94% YoY progress within the ‘ultra-premium’ (>$1000) section, the place Apple has a 78% market share. Counterpoint’s Varun Mishra famous a number of drivers behind these findings: 

“This development within the ultra-premium market is ubiquitous throughout areas, regardless of inflationary pressures. It’s because prosperous shoppers are usually not affected by the present financial headwinds. Therefore, the low-to-mid-price section has been hit onerous by the current macro headwinds whereas the high-price section nonetheless appears to be like stable, additional boosting the ASPs. Additionally, the rising variety of financing schemes and a rising ecosystem of trade-ins and EMIs are additionally serving to shoppers to improve their gadgets with out paying the full worth upfront.” 

To get a deal with on all this, let’s check out how Apple’s portfolio shapes up towards a variety of choices from Android distributors, whose main representatives in Q2 2022  worldwide have been Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo (together with OnePlus) and Vivo. For every of those distributors, we have chosen telephones in three totally different tiers to stack up towards Apple’s newest and up to date iPhones:

Show

Typically talking, individuals desire large-screen telephones today, and Apple serves them with its 6.7-inch Professional Max (13 & 14) and Plus (14) fashions. You may get barely greater screens from Samsung, Vivo and Xiaomi, however 6.7 inches ought to be sufficient for many large-screen fans. Should you want far more, you may have to think about a foldable telephone (at the moment Android solely). Apple additionally caters for individuals who desire a extra compact handset, with its 6.1-inch gadgets (iPhone 13/Professional and 14/Professional), the 5.4-inch iPhone 13 Mini and the diminutive 4.7-inch iPhone SE. The iPhone Mini has not been carried ahead into the 14 household, however the SE was up to date in 2022 and an improve is predicted subsequent 12 months.

Dimension is not the whole lot: decision, expressed as pixel density (ppi) describes the sharpness of a show’s picture. The iPhone 13 and 14 households ship stable pixel densities of round 460ppi, however premium Android smartphones from Samsung, Vivo, Xiaomi and OnePlus all supply 500ppi or extra.

A key show metric is the panel’s most refresh charge, which determines the smoothness of scrolling and animation, with a excessive refresh charge being important for gaming. Though some gaming-focused smartphones supply refresh charges as much as 144Hz and even greater, the present customary for premium handsets is 120Hz, with 90Hz and 60Hz frequent amongst extra reasonably priced telephones. Apple’s Professional fashions duly supply 120Hz, however it’s noticeable that the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus stay at 60Hz, together with the iPhone 13 and 13 Mini, and a few funds Android telephones from Samsung and Vivo.  

A excessive refresh charge is fascinating for sure use instances, however it’s a drain on battery life and isn’t at all times crucial. That is why there’s rising give attention to adaptive refresh charges that may fluctuate robotically relying on the content material being displayed. That is enabled by LTPO (Low Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide) expertise, which may go as little as 1Hz, enabling a low-power ‘at all times on’ show for notifications. LTPO is accessible on high-end OLED panels in premium telephones; Apple calls its LTPO implementation ProMotion and reserves it for Professional iPhone fashions. Android telephones with LTPO panels embrace the Samsung Galaxy S22 Extremely, Xiaomi 12 Professional, OnePlus 9 and 10 sequence, and Vivo X80 Professional.

One other necessary display-related metric is the screen-to-body ratio: usually talking, customers desire ‘minimal bezel’ shows with as a lot display as attainable (~90%) occupying the entrance of the telephone. Because the chart beneath exhibits, Apple is not a pacesetter on screen-to-body ratio, though high-80% figures for its 6.7-inch fashions are completely respectable. The plain outlier is the 4.7-inch iPhone SE, whose huge prime and backside bezels make it appear like a handset from one other period. Hopefully the 2023 mannequin will see a redesign.

There’s additionally the problem of how the front-facing ‘selfie’ digicam and parts similar to depth sensors for facial authentication are accommodated. Options embrace on-screen notches, hole-punches, water-drop designs — and even sliding or pop-up mechanisms that preserve display integrity on the expense of extra shifting components. In contrast to most of its Android competitors, Apple has held on to the notch design till the iPhone 14 sequence, which — for the Professional fashions solely — introduces a shape-shifting display cut-out known as the Dynamic Island. Ultimately the entrance digicam situation could also be solved by under-display cameras, as seen on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 3 and 4 (4MP), and the ZTE Axon 40 Extremely (16MP). Nonetheless, the jury is at the moment out relating to the standard of at this time’s under-display cameras. It additionally stays to be seen how the Dynamic Island idea will go down with iPhone customers, and whether or not one thing comparable is obtainable on future Android telephones.

Dimensions

All different issues being equal, smartphone customers desire slim and light-weight gadgets, on condition that they’re just about ever-present in regards to the individual. After all there are trade-offs: customers additionally like loads of options and as large a battery as attainable to energy them, all of which take up area. This is how Apple’s iPhone portfolio shapes up and weighs in comparison with the Android competitors:

If slim telephones are your factor, Apple appears to be like fairly good, with all of its 13- and 14-series iPhones coming in at beneath 8mm. Nonetheless, do not forget that there shall be a digicam bump on the again and that most individuals will wish to shield their shiny new iPhone buy with a case.

Weight is a unique story, with the 6.1-inch iPhone 13 and 14 on the light-weight finish, the 6.1-inch iPhone 13 Professional and 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus in the midst of the pack, and the 6.7-inch Professional Max fashions the heaviest on this comparability.

Many customers worth water resistance extremely when selecting a smartphone — which is smart, as anybody who has suffered a water-related telephone mishap will verify. The usual measure right here is the IP ranking, which additionally elements in mud resistance. The present smartphone ‘gold customary’ is IP68, with ‘6’ signifying {that a} machine is ‘mud tight’ and  ‘8’ that it may well deal with immersion in 1m or extra of water for a specified period of time (often no less than half-hour). Except for the iPhone SE, all of Apple’s 13- and 14-series iPhones carry an IP68 ranking. IP67 for the iPhone SE means you would be unwise to dunk it in additional than 1m of water for any size of time.

IP scores are unusual on the reasonably priced finish of the Android market, an exception right here being Xiaomi’s Redmi Observe 11 Professional with IP53 (‘mud protected’ and proof against ‘spraying water’). Additionally notice that the Xiaomi 12 Professional, a premium handset, lacks an IP ranking.

It is simpler to make a smartphone mud resistant and waterproof if it has minimal ports and slots that may permit the ingress of undesirable materials. Apple has already distributed with the three.5mm headphone jack, and the US variations of the iPhone 14 sequence have ditched the bodily SIM card slot in favour of eSIMs (as much as six on iPhone 14, eight on iPhone 14 Professional). Ultimately, with wi-fi charging and information switch, we’ll little question find yourself with solely port-free — and mud/water-tight — smartphones.

Platform

Apple’s flagship smartphone chipset is the brand new A16 Bionic within the iPhone 14 Professional and 14 Professional Max. Constructed on a 4nm course of, it consists of ‘almost’ 16 billion transistors, and has 6 CPU cores (2 efficiency, 4 effectivity), 5 GPU cores and a 16-core Neural Engine. Apple claims that the A16 Bionic is the ‘quickest chip ever in a smartphone’, with as much as 40 % quicker CPU efficiency than the competitors, whereas sustaining energy effectivity in order to not impression battery life. All this stays to be confirmed by benchmarking, though early indicators are promising. In the meantime, the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus use the prevailing 5nm A15 Bionic with a 6-core CPU, a 5-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine.

Premium Android handsets are inclined to run on Qualcomm’s flagship 4nm, 8-core Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, though a Gen 2 mannequin is predicted later this 12 months — probably to floor first within the OnePlus 11 Professional. Additional down the Android meals chain, we discover earlier Qualcomm Snapdragon fashions, and chipsets from MediaTek. This is how our comparability group appears to be like, chipset-wise.

* 5-core GPU; remaining A15 Bionic iPhones have a 4-core GPU

Within the absence of sufficient benchmarks from the A16 Bionic, this is Apple’s A15 Bionic lineup in comparison with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-based OnePlus 10 Professional 5G on CPU efficiency:

To evaluate graphics efficiency, we have collated 3DMark Wildlife Excessive scores for a lot of the telephones in our comparability group: 

The 2 iPhone 13 Professional fashions with the 5-core GPU model of the A15 Bionic prime the listing, with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-based OnePlus 10 Professional 5G the main Android telephone. Observe how graphics efficiency falls away sharply among the many reasonably priced/funds Android telephones.

Cameras

There’s much more to smartphone pictures than the variety of cameras and their megapixel counts, with rising quantities of effort going into AI-assisted computational pictures and videography, enabled by at this time’s highly effective smartphone chipsets. That stated, it is fascinating to put out the breadth of rear digicam choices in our comparability group:

Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Extremely leads the way in which on this metric, with its 108MP huge angle, 12MP extremely huge angle (120˚), 10MP telephoto and 10MP periscope telephoto cameras. It is spectacular that Xiaomi’s funds Redmi Observe 11 Professional, which prices simply £209 within the UK (~$240), matches the best most important digicam decision on view (108MP). As for the iPhone, it is fairly clear that the improve to the 14-series Professional digicam system — 48MP huge angle, 12MP extremely huge angle, and a pair of 12MP telephoto (2x and 3x zoom) cameras — was well timed.

Android telephones clearly have so much to supply with regards to pictures — witness the truth that the highest 5 locations within the DXOMARK smartphone rankings are at the moment occupied by Android handsets. Nonetheless, the iPhone 13 Professional and 13 Professional Max take joint sixth place, so the trio of 12MP cameras (huge, extremely huge, telephoto) in these handsets clearly punch above their megapixel weight. It is going to be fascinating to see how the upgraded iPhone 14 Professional digicam system — with its Photonic Engine and Deep Fusion for improved mid-/low-light efficiency, and ProRAW assist — fares when the critiques are available in.

Entrance-facing ‘selfie’ cameras was once one thing of an afterthought on smartphones, however social media and the arrival of facial authentication put paid to that. Now you may get entrance cameras with resolutions that would not be misplaced in a most important rear digicam array (>30MP). Apple’s front-facing TrueDepth digicam has average photographic decision (12MP), however is supplied with an infrared sensor that permits refined Face ID biometric authentication. The iPhone SE’s 7MP selfie digicam doesn’t assist Face ID, the handset counting on a House button-integrated fingerprint sensor and Contact ID as an alternative.

Batteries

Smartphone battery capacities can attain properly over 10,000mAh, however the benchmark for mainstream telephones is round 5000mAh. Apple hasn’t disclosed the capacities of the batteries in its 14-series iPhones, so we’ll have to attend for the teardowns. Nonetheless, they don’t seem to be anticipated to vary vastly from these within the 13-series handsets, which prime out at 4352mAh within the 6.7-inch Professional Max mannequin. Apple claims as much as 20 hours of video playback for the iPhone 14, 26h for the 14 Plus, 23h for 14 Professional and 29h for the 14 Professional Max.

Apple would not bother the highest of the charts with regards to charging, wired or wi-fi. Xiaomi takes the honours right here, with 120W wired charging on its 12 Professional and Poco F4 GT handsets and 50W wi-fi charging on the premium 12 Professional. Pre-launch rumours had the iPhone 14 sequence supporting wired charging at as much as 30W, however the spec sheets merely point out a ’20W adapter or greater’. The entire new iPhones, just like the 13 sequence, assist Qi wi-fi charging at 7.5W and MagSafe wi-fi charging at 15W.

It is instructive to look at producers’ claims for wired charging speeds. For all of its iPhone 13 and 14 sequence, Apple claims ‘as much as 50% cost in round half-hour’. In contrast, Xiaomi claims 100% in simply 18 minutes at 120W for its premium 12 Professional handset. On condition that 451 Analysis’s survey, quoted earlier, flagged charging pace as an influential function, enhancing this is perhaps one thing for Apple to think about in future fashions.

Pricing

Costs for the iPhones and Android smartphones we have in contrast vary from ultra-premium (>$1000) to funds (<$300), with many factors in between. This is how they stack up (dense bars are beginning costs, lighter bars are top-end costs — the distinction usually being the quantity of inner storage):

When absolutely loaded up with 1TB of storage, the iPhone 14 Professional and 14 Professional Max are among the many costliest smartphones you should buy ($1,499 and $1,599 respectively). Nonetheless, for those who’re an early adopter who’s absolutely invested within the Apple ecosystem, and also you’re insulated from financial headwinds, you may in all probability need one in every of these gadgets, which begin at $999 (14 Professional) and $1,099 (1 Professional Max).

On the extra reasonably priced finish of the market, your new iPhone choices are extra restricted: the 5.4-inch iPhone 13 Mini (from $599) and Third-generation 4.7-inch iPhone SE (from $429), plus the 2020 6.1-inch iPhone 12 (from $599). Until you are prepared to purchase second-hand (or third-hand), Apple would not swim in sub-$300 funds waters.

In between the ultra-premium and funds sectors, there is a cheap selection for iPhone patrons and a terrific many choices for Android patrons (far more than is proven right here, clearly). As enterprise and client budgets tighten within the face of virtually inevitable recession, this appears to be like like a key battleground: will Apple proceed to draw these Android ‘switchers’ — attracted by excessive buyer satisfaction scores, for instance — or will these patrons pause and take a look at extra reasonably priced choices from inside their present ecosystem?