A leaker claims that the base iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus/Max will offer performance improvements over the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. That’s despite the base models using the same A15 Bionic chip as last year’s flagship handsets. The report dropped after months of rumors that said only the iPhone 14 Pro variants will get the next-gen A16 Bionic chip.
That’s a first for Apple. The iPhone 14 will significantly change how Apple differentiates the Pro models from the non-Pro devices. The iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max will feature the best iPhone hardware Apple can offer this year. Meanwhile, the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus/Max will somewhat recycle iPhone 13 Pro components.
Apple to recycle iPhone 13 Pro design and specs
Rumors say the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus/Max will share the space and design of the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. They’ll have the same display notch as last year’s models. The camera module on the back will be different, as the cheaper iPhone 14 models will not feature three cameras. All in all, the overall iPhone 14 performance and experience should be similar to the iPhone 13 Pro.
The specs should be on par with last year’s Pro models. Apple will reportedly use the same A15 Bionic variant that powered the iPhone 13 Pros. That means iPhone 14 models will feature a 5-core GPU and 6GB of RAM.
Comparatively, the iPhone 14 Pro variants will get new pill-and-hole display designs. They’ll also have triple-lens cameras on the back, featuring a brand new 48-megapixel sensor that’s exclusive to the Pro variants.
Inside, the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max will feature the next-gen A16 Bionic chip. The processor will also be paired with 6GB of memory like the base models. But we’re looking at faster LPDDR5 RAM for the Pros that should further speed up the overall experience. That’s to say the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max will deliver noticeable performance improvements.
What about iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus/Max performance?
Based on these rumors, we can assume the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus/Max will offer at least the same performance as the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. We don’t have any leaked benchmarks for the new devices, however.
The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max might be about 15% faster than last year’s Pros. That’s the expected CPU speed bump. The GPU performance might go up by 25-30%. But these are just estimates from a recent report examining the kind of chip tech available to Apple for the iPhone 14 series.
A leaker who goes by the name ShrimpApplePro on Twitter claims that the non-Pro iPhone 14 variants will still offer “some overall performance boost over the iPhone 13 series.” That’s despite using some old hardware.
Unfortunately, the leaker doesn’t go into specifics other than mentioning a new cellular model and a new internal design.
This might be just speculation, given the lack of specifics. But given the similarities between the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 14, it’s likely that Apple will want to differentiate these two. By boosting the performance, even if only by a little, Apple could still make a case that the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus/Max are more than repackaged iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max phones.
More iPhone coverage: For more iPhone news, visit our iPhone 14 guide.
