The rumors are almost… sort of. Over a year before the announcement, certain leakers claimed the iPhone 14 series would see the introduction of a hole punch front-facing camera. That would have been a dramatic change from the large notch seen since the iPhone X. But we didn’t exactly get a hole punch. Apple reduced the size of the notch to something you might call an extra wide oval.

That does mean you get a bit of screen above the front-facing camera stack, as seen in the traditional hole punch layout. But it’s small enough to not be useful. Instead, Apple went in a different and unique direction. The company made the front-facing camera useful for additional functions in a feature it dubbed Dynamic Island.

And yes, it’s silly to name this feature, but that’s the Apple way. Also, the Apple Way? A gorgeous amount of polish and a beautiful design. The Dynamic Island turns the front-facing camera into an interactive action center. Play some music, and the camera becomes a sort of music player with album art and a waveform. You can touch it to open the music app or press and hold to expand quick music controls. Frankly, that’s backward. I touched all the time hoping to expand music controls only to have it open the app.

It’s not just music apps, though. Your phone calls show up in the Dynamic Island, as does Face ID, your AirPod connection, timers, and more. But that “more” isn’t as long a list as I would like. More often than not, the Dynamic Island isn’t all that dynamic.

Here’s a dirty little tech reviewer secret. When I have plenty of time, I always prefer to take photos with my DSLR. That gives me the best base material to work with when it comes time to cleanup in photoshop and make sure everything looks right.

But when I’m pressed for time? When I know I need a “good enough, great enough” shot now with very little work after? I grab a smartphone and take the picture. And nine times out of ten, I grab an iPhone 13 Pro. But going forward, that’s going to change. Now my backup camera will be the iPhone 14 Pro.

New to the iPhone 14 Pro is an updated main camera that finally bumps things up from 12 megapixels to 48 megapixels. You get a few benefits out of that, and the most noteworthy is pixel binning, or as Apple calls it, “quad pixels.” In this case, Apple takes four pixels and combines them into one larger pixel. You end up with a 12-megapixel photo but’s far improved over what the previous 12-megapixel lens can manage.

That’s nothing new, Samsung, OnePlus, and Google already introduced pixel binning on previous phones. But it’s still a welcome improvement. And as far as innovation, Apple didn’t miss out on a bit of new. With smartphone cameras, most “zoom” photos are just digital crops that give you a blurry mess of a photo. A telephoto lens can help, but then you have to be careful to choose the right zoom to get a true “optical” zoom.

Apple found a nice medium ground, though. You still have the 3X from the telephoto lens, and it takes decent pictures. But now you’ll also find a 2x option as well. In that scenario, Apple is cropping out the middle 12 megapixels from the 48-megapixel lens. It’s a perfect version of digital crop—you won’t get a blurry mess. And I often found that 2x is exactly where I’d want to zoom.

Every sensor got an upgrade with 14 Pro, and it shows. When it comes to phones technically speaking, the phone that takes the very best photos sometimes is still the Pixel 6 Pro. But it also sometimes takes the worst photos. Samsung consistently provides “B+” results, and you get a few whizbang telephoto features. And Apple will consistently provide “A-” photos. The iPhone 14 Pro is the phone to reach for if you always want a pretty good photo with little effort.

It’s not perfect, though. Under default camera settings, Apple has a tendency to blow out blue sky and hide clouds. You can change exposure to correct that, but most people want to point and shoot. Hopefully, Apple improves on that in the future.

A phone, in many ways, is only as good as its battery life. If the dies on you, then it’s nothing more than a glass paperweight. In keeping with the “not much has changed here” theme, when it comes to battery life… well, not much has changed here. It feels almost identical to the iPhone 13 Pro.

That means you’ll probably want to plug it in every night. While it’s not the longest-lasting iPhone you can buy (the Pro Max takes the crown), you’ll easily get through the day without any worry. And the worst-case scenario, you should make it through part of the next morning, too, if you forget to charge your iPhone 14 Pro overnight.

I still wish Apple would embrace faster-charging standards. The iPhone 14 Pro maxes out at 20W wireless charging and 15W wireless charging. And you only get the latter if you buy a compatible MagSafe charger. Frankly, that’s pretty slow compared to a lot of Android phones. But it’s good enough to get you to 50% charge in around thirty minutes or so. So that should do the trick.

I say all this with one giant note: this assumes you turn the new Always On Display off. With the latest version of iOS and exclusively the iPhone 14 Pro models, you can now keep your phone display on at all times. Always On Display is a trick that’s been around for years on Android, but Apple finally released its take, and as usual, the company tried to dress up the feature with polish.

Instead of just a clock and maybe a single widget showing when the Always On Display features work, as with most Android phones, the entire screen stays active. It’s just a very dim version of what you’d normally see. On the one hand, you get a lot more information and personality with Apple’s take on Always On Display.

But on the other hand, it drains the battery quite a bit more than I expected. Combine that with the fact that I kept trying to lock my phone because it looked like it was still on, and I ultimately disabled the feature. Hopefully, Apple improves its take on Always On Display.

Recommending the iPhone 14 Pro is a bit harder than I would have expected before Apple announced the lineup. In a vacuum, the iPhone 14 Pro is, simply put, an amazing smartphone. It does have the “it just works” vibe that Apple is known for, and the cameras are spectacular.

But we don’t live in a vacuum. The iPhone 13 Pro exists, and the iPhone 14 standard is an option too. If you’re already on the iPhone 13 Pro, I can’t see a single compelling reason to upgrade. The cameras aren’t that much better, and the Dynamic Island needs work.

If you’re on a much older iPhone, like the iPhone 8, then yes, you should upgrade to something new. But you might want to consider the standard iPhone 14, which is pretty great, too, and less expensive. If, however, you say to yourself, “I need the most consistently great camera smartphone money can buy,” then you want the iPhone 14 Pro.