One of the things that my job analyzing mobiles implies is using them as personal mobile between 7 and 15 days to test its autonomy, its photographic performance or finding possible failures that are only detected with the daily use of the smartphone. The vast majority of these mobiles are Android and I already told how to change mobile in just over half an hour.
However, when I travel for work to attend a product launch, I leave my Android phone on duty at home and trade it in for an iPhone 14 Pro Max. Why this change? For their cameras… and for traveling light luggage.
I have always been a strong defender of the camera instead of the smartphone to take photos. However, the iPhone main camera and, above all, its video quality, have made it no longer worth it carry more than 1 kilo of extra weight in photographic equipment.
It’s only 1 kilo! Some will think. But when you have to compact that equipment, clothes for a couple of days and a 14-inch laptop into a cabin suitcase that you have to drag through airports, transfers and events, every gram is gold. And that he iPhone 14 Pro Max is neither the lightest nor the most compact of mobiles.
It is not because of the sensor, it is because of what is done with it
Many will be surprised that, after testing some of the best Android phones on the market, such as the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the Xiaomi 13 Series or the OnePlus 11 5G, to name a few examples, I decide to change my phone when I travel.
Any of these phones offers excellent photographic performance and mounts sensors up to 1″ that, on paper, perform better than any of the iPhone.
However, although in the photographic section any of the mobiles that I have mentioned can be superior to the iPhone – and in fact, in some respects they are – In the video section, the iPhone 14 Pro Max plays in another league.
The stabilization of 48 Mpx sensor for the main camera, the extreme sharpness, the recording in 4K at 60 fps and HDR or recording with Apple’s ProRes codec are strong arguments for any video creator…and if you’ve visited the ComputerHoy channel on YouTubeyou will know that this is part of my work analyzing devices.
Android works with Mac, but with iPhone everything flows
Another reason why I have changed my usual video recording equipment during work trips it is because of the work flow.
Here I run into two problems. The first is the lack of physical ports on the MacBook Pro with M1 from 2020 that I use to work. Above all, the absence of an SD card reader is noticeable, like the one recovered by the 14” MacBook Pro of 2021.
The lack of connectors on the 2020 MacBook Pro and the friction of MacOS with other operating systems, makes it use an android phone with a macalthough they are perfectly compatible, it is not always the most agile and productive option.
Instead, the iPhone integration with MacOS it flows like butter on hot toast. Photos and videos can be transferred wirelessly via Airdrop and to edit the videos recorded with the iPhone from Final Cut Proautomatic improvements are applied to audio and color processing, as well as the time spent rendering the video.
A few weeks ago, precisely during a trip, a colleague from the sector asked me: “Rubén, what do you feel more comfortable with, Android or iOS?” My answer was: “With both of them, Carlos, from Android, I keep the versatility and freedom of use on a day-to-day basis, but leave me the iPhone 14 Pro Max to record video and upload it to social networks”, especially if you work with a Mac.
Why give up anything, if you can have the best of both systems. And you, are you from Android or do you like to bite apples?
