The iPhone 15 and 15 Pro Max: A New Era in Mobile Photography

In recent years, smartphone cameras have become increasingly important for mobile photography enthusiasts. While many phones still lack the same level of camera quality as their dedicated point-and-shoot counterparts, Apple has made significant strides in improving its camera system with the latest iPhones. But how does the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro Max stack up against last year's models?

One of the most noticeable changes is the warmer white balance on the new 15 Pros. This is likely to be more accurate than previous models, although some users may find it slightly over-sharpened. However, in certain shots, such as those taken with the camera's Pro mode, the 15 Pros seem to retain more detail and natural-looking colors. This is due in part to the new 48MP + 12MP combined sensor, which allows for more precise control over the camera's settings.

When it comes to zoom, the iPhone 15 Pro Max takes a clear lead over its predecessor. While both phones offer similar performance between 1-2.9 times zoom, the Pro Max surpasses the Pros in this range due to its improved hardware. However, in the longer-range zoom (3-4.9x) and ultra-wide angle (0.84-120mm), the pros' camera takes over. This compromise is understandable, given that the Pro Max features a more extensive lens system, which allows for greater flexibility and creativity during shooting.

One of the most exciting features of the iPhone 15 Pros is their ability to switch between different lenses seamlessly while shooting video. In this mode, the camera can transition smoothly between ultra-wide, standard, telephoto, and even the front-facing camera (for self-portraits). This level of flexibility would be hard-pressed to find in other smartphones, making the 15 Pro Max a true powerhouse for mobile videography.

Despite these advancements, there are still some areas where the iPhone 15 Pros fall short. The Cinematic Mode, which was already a standout feature on last year's models, remains unchanged – no 4K60 or proRes/Log options have been added to this mode. While the lens flare is slightly reduced in this new camera system, it's still present and can be distracting at times.

In terms of pricing, Apple has taken steps to make the iPhone 15 Pros more accessible to a wider audience. The regular iPhone 15 starts at £799 (compared to £849 for last year's model), while the Pro is now priced at £999 (down from £1,099). However, the Pro Max remains unchanged in terms of price (£1199) but comes with an additional 256GB of storage.

So, should you upgrade to an iPhone 15 Pro and/or Pro Max? If your current phone is an iPhone 11 or older, it's definitely worth considering. The new camera system offers significant improvements over last year's models, particularly in terms of color accuracy and detail retention. As for the debate between the standard Pro and Pro Max – while both phones are excellent options, I'd recommend going with the larger model if you value a bigger battery and a more comfortable screen.

Ultimately, the iPhone 15 Pros represent a new baseline for mobile photography on iPhones. With their improved camera system, enhanced features like Cinematic Mode, and reduced prices, these devices offer compelling reasons to upgrade – even for those who already own a newer iPhone model without USBC.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys Anton Tech Chap and I'm filming this entire review on the new iPhone 15 pro and pro Max so let me know what you make of it does it look like it's been shot on iPhone and actually if I show you what I'm looking at you can see this is my producer James with the 15 Pro recording his new 4k 60 prores onto an SSD plugged into the USB port so for me actually the new USB C Port is incredibly helpful because I can transfer files off we're talking like 10 gigs per minute at 4k60 Pro is plug it in your laptop and Away you go but as well as being able to shoot 4K 60 prores for the first time on new iPhone 15 Pros you can also Now record in HDR and log now I still don't think an iPhone is going to replace your fancy mirrorless or DSLR camera but you know often the best camera is the one you have in your pocket it's a good tool to have although I would be it's kind of surprised if my I don't know professional wedding videographer turned up to my wedding shooting on an iPhone but with the new options you have with the higher quality video and photos which we'll come back to in a second oh I just got bright it's a pretty big step up anyway enough about prores the headline upgrade with the new 15 series is the switch to USBC the ubiquity the universality of USBC how every MacBook iPad well except the cheapest 9th gen model every Windows laptop Android phone and every charging port in new cars they're all type c and while you could faff around with adapters or just rely on wireless charging and airdrop going forward it means if you run out of battery on your iPhone 15 and your friends or Android then you can use the same charging cable and vice versa now I had hoped the switch to USBC may have meant we'd also get faster charging but alas no still tops out 20 watts with Apple's charger which of course doesn't come bundled in the Box although you do get the nice CTC braided cable now and also the regular 15s not the pros actually have a USB 2.0 spec rather than 3.0 so the same speed as the old lining connector so it feels like a little half-hearted sort of switch to USBC although there are other benefits obviously we've got this transfer of footage that I'm recording prores on right now also you can now output to a TV or monitor at 4 4K 60 HDR previously topped out at 1080p 30 although I'm not sure if Apple made this switch out of the pure goodness of their heart so everything could be Universal and lovely I think it had something to do with the EU regulations coming in next year which kind of forced them to switch to USBC if they wanted to keep selling these phones in Europe but regardless of why they did it it is certainly a nice upgrade it will take a minute for Apple's accessories to catch up only the airpods Pro 2 have been refreshed with a USBC case all other airpods the Max's Apple's power bank and obviously still their Mac peripherals only updating but I suspect that'll happen pretty quickly and I'm also excited by all the new third-party accessories and charges coming out that will work with well everything but there's a lot more here than just USBC and some fancy video options although I'll come back to the camera in just a second let's talk about this design and while on the face of it not a whole lot has changed in the last well four years I guess since the iPhone 11 Pro with the most obvious refresh being last year's Dynamic Island which I'm pleased to see has made its way to the regular iPhone 7 scenes now and it is a genuinely useful little notification bar especially as more apps have now been optimized to use it I'll tell you what though the first thing you notice how much lighter this is the 15 Pros have a new titanium band Around The Edge and together with an aluminum frame inside actually reduces The Weight by 19 grams 240 221 and particularly with the pro Max which is a pretty chunky phone it is a very welcome upgrade they've also slimmed down the bezels and it means they've been able to reduce the overall size of the phone it's almost a millimeter narrower and shorter although it is about half a millimeter thicker but they've maintained the same 6.1 and 6.7 inch screen sizes Apple have also slightly contoured just the corners of the frame here on the back so it's a little bit smoother and sits in your hand a bit more comfortably although it is quite subtle and as someone who used the 14 pro Max as their main phone for most of last year these changes do add up to make it just a little bit more comfortable to use we also get a couple of new colors this is the natural titanium which for my money I think is the best new flavor it's kind of of Stony grayish color we also get a dark blue a black and a white although more importantly they've actually redesigned the Intel frame and layout of the 15 Pros so the back glass can now be repaired much more easily and crucially much more cheaply than before I've also just realized this is going to be my 1 000th video on YouTube we're at 999 this is my next video holy moly a thousand videos if you haven't already subscribed I feel like now is a pretty good time let's see what happens over the next thousand videos I'm gonna be so old anyway back to the iPhone and let's talk about this action button it is still a mute switch by default you just long press it to change between loud and silent and the dynamic Island will also react to the change and if you are muted you'll also be able to see the icon at the top left of the screen but now you can customize it to do pretty much anything torch voice recording launch an app although I reckon for most of us myself included you'll just make it the shortcut for the camera and then it also acts as a shutter button yes the volume down does also work as a shutter but you can do anything with it really and I also appreciate that you can use this to toggle on or off a lot of accessibility settings I think for some people this will be a really big deal don't get too close to me when I'm cooking babe I'm playing a preview of Resident Evil Village using what I'm told are PS4 assets natively on the 15 Pro Max albeit at 720p and 30fps and well low to medium settings but still for our phone this is incredible and for now at least it's only possible with the new Apple a17 Pro chip that powers the new 15 pro and pro Max which also happens to be the first three nanometer architecture chip we've had on a mobile we're also going to have the likes of Resident Evil 4 remake death stranding the division Resurgence and even next year Assassin's Creed Mirage which is the first time a full console version of an Assassin's game will be on mobile definitely recommend a controller though this is the backbone one for Playstation Android although they do now sell an iOS USBC version for the iPhone 15 highly recommend because playing Resident Evil village with the virtual touchscreen controls isn't ideal so it's all pretty exciting because yes we have the usual 10 bump in processor performance we actually get double the neural engine performance but these these are kind of just abstract upgrades that we see year on year and really make a noticeable difference but the reason the a17 pro is called the pro is because of this completely redesigned Graphics chip the GPU which is not only a lot more powerful but supports features like Hardware Ray tracing which isn't new you're right the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 the flagship Dimension 9200 I believe is from mediatek they both support Hardware Ray tracing actually we're going to have new versions of both those chips like next month so they will compete with the a17 pro hopefully it means more developers will actually make use of it in their games now as strong as these new titanium frame phones are they can still break they can still fall out your pocket off tables so I've teamed up with the lovely folks over at caseify who have sent me a whole range of new cases to protect my iPhones so case if I have refreshed their lineup for the new iPhone 15 and 15 pros and I've got three of the most popular models here I've got the impact the bounce and their brand new ultrabounce each tougher than the last and in case you're wondering uh yeah my real name is Tom and not the tech Jab and what I really do like about caseify is how they combine the creativity and the personality of their cases I mean there are literally so many options to choose from and you can customize your own with proper tough protection in fact all case defy protective cases are aligned with their Eco shock material which increases protection and also makes them able to absorb more of the shock if you happen to be a little bit clumsy and knock your phone off your desk over and over and over again and actually the impact case meets the 4X military grade we get 5x on the ultra impact six on the bounce and a whopping 10x on the ultra bounce which is the strongest case they have ever created and it also has a built-in lens protector for the camera you can literally drop this thing from over 30 feet and maybe I will but I'll save that for my next video just make sure you pair a case to find case with a screen protector though because even if your phone survives a fall you don't want that screen to be scratched so they're tough they look good and case if I are making their products even more sustainable and environmentally friendly than ever so before you're showing your iPhone arrives click my link in the description below to get 15 off your next order at caseify Now versus last year's 14 Pros the new 15 Pro and Promax get an extra two gigs of RAM so we're now up to eight gigabytes and of course we have that new a17 Pro chip replacing the a16 bionic and in this 3dmark Wildlife extreme test we're looking at around a 25 optic in performance although in this new solar Bay Benchmark which includes Ray tracing it's 44 faster however if we switch back but run the 20 minute stress test the stability is lower the new chip throttles more although it's still eight percent faster even at its lowest score but you can also see the 15 Pro Max lost 5 of its battery versus just two percent on the 14 pro Max during this test although we'll talk more about battery in just a second but actually even versus last year's 14 pro Max which is to say I've been using pretty much every day this does feel noticeably nippier more responsive apps seem to load Just a Touch quicker and also I haven't had any of those sort of random slowdowns or stuff says that did occasionally crop up on my 14 pro it's also a big deal because the 15 Pros are the only phones for now at least that will run these upcoming console level games this does now support Wi-Fi 6E although you will of course need a compatible 6E router to make best use of it but overall I would say it's a solid step up and with the new graphics chip along with USBC it makes this one of the most future-proof iPhones we've had in years okay before we dive into the camera which I know you're waiting to see I just want to mention the battery life because we didn't see the much rumored increase in battery size but for the first time the 15 support the G2 standard so if you have a new G2 wireless charger or power bank that can now match the magsay's 15 watts double the previous 7.5 which is a nice little upgrade and actually even though Apple claim the new 15 series will have the same battery as the 14 series that's not been quite my experience so far after an hour of YouTube an hour of tick tock half an hour of gaming and 15 minutes of shooting 4k60 both the 15 pro and pro Max were three percentage points lower than the 14 pro and pro Max all phones with 100 battery capacity and actually bought these two 14 Pros last week so they're all brand new like the 15s although more importantly what I'm very keen to see is how the battery health fares over time because my iPhone 14 pro Max which I've been using for a year is down to 88 of its battery health now to be fair other Brands don't really share that information so there's not a lot to compare it to but I do know versus previous iPhones I've used for a long time that degradation in battery capacity is a lot faster it's more significant so I'm hoping there's improvements with this obviously it'll take a while to figure that out trying to get a photo no more I'm out if I bring up the camera specs for both you can see the main Hardware change this year is that the optical zoom with the pro Max is getting a new five times telephoto whereas the pro is sticking with three times aside from that the hardware is pretty similar same sensors and same resolutions as last year's 14 Pros however there is more to the story with some pretty big software and processing improvements for example the iPhone 15 Pros now combine your usual four into one pixel bins 12 megapixel photo with a full fat 48 megapixel photo giving us a more detailed 24 megapixel shot and also despite having double the megapixels the file size of each photo is only about 50 bigger Apple have also introduced three different focal length options for the main camera so you've got the default one times which is 24 millimeters tap once for 28 and tap again for 35 equivalent to a 1 1.2 and 1.5 times optical zoom using some clever cropping of that 48 megapixel sensor this is definitely aimed at more Enthusiast photographers who have a particular focal length in mind although it's a shame these new focal length options don't transfer over to video but I reckon one of the most exciting new features is how even in the regular photo mode if the camera detects a face a cat or a dog or even if you just simply tap on a subject it will now capture a depth map so you can actually turn this regular photo into a portrait where you can then adjust the bokeh level and also the focal point so if you see this little f-stop icon pop up then you know it's capturing the portrait info and you can tap it if you want to preview that bokeh and then if you press edit on the photo there is this new portrait button that turns it into a portrait with that tasty background blur so the idea is you don't have to worry about whether I should take a regular photo or a portrait which previously had higher shutter lag and missed out on Smart HDR because now with these next Generation portraits as Apple calls it portraits now use the same photonic engine pipeline so their fancy background processing as a regular photo so there's no compromise in quality or shutter lag and for me this is one of the most significant camera upgrades this year night mode shots as well as the new portraits also benefit from Apple's fancy photonic engine and deep Fusion processing now and according to Apple we're looking at up to two times better low light quality and the latest smart hdr5 processing should improve dynamic range color and detail across all cameras and modes up front we have the same 12 megapixel true depth selfie camera as before but this also gets next-gen portraits so again your regular selfies can now be turned into portraits after the fact plus we get all the benefits of that new smart hdr5 as for video the main difference now is that you can shoot that prores at 4k60 we have new log and HDR options and the video quality particularly low light should be improved now usually the selfie camera gets forgotten uh in many phones but not so much with the iPhone and also not so much with video and actually this can also shoot a 4k60 also known prores with login HDR yes it's lower megapixel than a rear camera but it has pretty much all the same features as well as small HDR and the next gen portraits for photos so all that sounds great but is the camera quality really that much better than last year well let me show you a few side by sides and also make sure you have subscribed as I have a full camera comparison with the Galaxy s23 Ultra in the works but my takeaway is that there isn't a huge amount in it I think the most obvious change is how the 15 Pros lean towards a warmer white balance which I would say is a little bit more accurate some shots are also noticeably less over sharpened some photos on the 14s look like someone's just turned the clarity slider up in Lightroom too far now photos look more natural and actually if we crop in so just literally pinch in on that one time shot you can see there is more detail and that's thanks to the new 48 plus 12 megapixel combined shot although on the face of it you may be hard-pressed and noticed now to answer the question of is the 15 Pro Max's Zoom better than the pros well it comes down to what you want really so between 1 and 2.9 times Zoom they're basically the same between 3 and 4.9 the pro wins but then 5 to 25 times the Promax wins makes sense given the hardware and of course in an Ideal World we'd see the pro Max with four lenses like the s23 ultra so there isn't a compromise but the question is do you prefer a three times portrait or a five times portrait 84 millimeters or 120. you can obviously shoot both on both phones although the quality isn't going to be the same and the real world difference with the pro Max is that you just have to take two or three steps back what you can now do as my cameraman James is demonstrating is Jump between all the different lenses while shooting at 4K 60. previously you couldn't go to ultra Wide Auto photo depending on which one you started with but now at the highest resolution and frame rate you can switch between them all and I'm kind of curious how it looks going between those lenses just darting in and out obviously I can't see but hopefully you'll let me know in the comments what do you think how's that five times stability although I had hoped they'd have made some changes and upgrades to the Cinematic Mode still stuck to 4K 30 no prores or log options it still looks pretty good particularly in nice lighting but there is no kind of new next-gen mode of cinematic where if you shoot regular video you can then add depth stuff afterwards maybe next year I'm also pleased to see that they have slightly reduced the lens flare it's definitely still there and we get those sort of light floaters as I call them but in this particular shot you can no longer see the camera lens outline but what do you think of this new camera system would it tempt you to upgrade another upgrade is actually the price it's now cheaper or at least here in the UK Apple always set their prices by US Dollars first and then look at other currencies and adjust for inflation and tax and things but the iPhone 15 the regular one is actually 50 pounds cheaper now in the UK starting at 799 down from 849 the 15 Pro is 100 quid cheaper it's now starting at 999 rather than 1099 and the 15 Pro Max is actually the same price 11.99 but now with 256 gigs of storage anyway let's wrap up this review should you buy a 15 pro and pro Max well it all depends if you do an upgrade how old is your current phone I reckon anyone with an iPhone 11 or older yes go for it in terms of the Pro versus the pro Max for me it comes down to the bigger battery that's why I want this guy and also I prefer the bigger screen which is actually now a lot more comfortable to use because of the sort of smaller form factor but I reckon even if as a package it's not that significantly different from 14 pro Max the there are lots of nice incremental upgrades and as I say with the pro GPU with USBC this is kind of like the new Baseline for iPhones if you buy anything older without USBC you can restricted to last gen stuff but what do you reckon are you tempted to upgrade have you already ordered one let me know what you make of the new 15 Pros in the comments below thank you so much for watching guys and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chathey guys Anton Tech Chap and I'm filming this entire review on the new iPhone 15 pro and pro Max so let me know what you make of it does it look like it's been shot on iPhone and actually if I show you what I'm looking at you can see this is my producer James with the 15 Pro recording his new 4k 60 prores onto an SSD plugged into the USB port so for me actually the new USB C Port is incredibly helpful because I can transfer files off we're talking like 10 gigs per minute at 4k60 Pro is plug it in your laptop and Away you go but as well as being able to shoot 4K 60 prores for the first time on new iPhone 15 Pros you can also Now record in HDR and log now I still don't think an iPhone is going to replace your fancy mirrorless or DSLR camera but you know often the best camera is the one you have in your pocket it's a good tool to have although I would be it's kind of surprised if my I don't know professional wedding videographer turned up to my wedding shooting on an iPhone but with the new options you have with the higher quality video and photos which we'll come back to in a second oh I just got bright it's a pretty big step up anyway enough about prores the headline upgrade with the new 15 series is the switch to USBC the ubiquity the universality of USBC how every MacBook iPad well except the cheapest 9th gen model every Windows laptop Android phone and every charging port in new cars they're all type c and while you could faff around with adapters or just rely on wireless charging and airdrop going forward it means if you run out of battery on your iPhone 15 and your friends or Android then you can use the same charging cable and vice versa now I had hoped the switch to USBC may have meant we'd also get faster charging but alas no still tops out 20 watts with Apple's charger which of course doesn't come bundled in the Box although you do get the nice CTC braided cable now and also the regular 15s not the pros actually have a USB 2.0 spec rather than 3.0 so the same speed as the old lining connector so it feels like a little half-hearted sort of switch to USBC although there are other benefits obviously we've got this transfer of footage that I'm recording prores on right now also you can now output to a TV or monitor at 4 4K 60 HDR previously topped out at 1080p 30 although I'm not sure if Apple made this switch out of the pure goodness of their heart so everything could be Universal and lovely I think it had something to do with the EU regulations coming in next year which kind of forced them to switch to USBC if they wanted to keep selling these phones in Europe but regardless of why they did it it is certainly a nice upgrade it will take a minute for Apple's accessories to catch up only the airpods Pro 2 have been refreshed with a USBC case all other airpods the Max's Apple's power bank and obviously still their Mac peripherals only updating but I suspect that'll happen pretty quickly and I'm also excited by all the new third-party accessories and charges coming out that will work with well everything but there's a lot more here than just USBC and some fancy video options although I'll come back to the camera in just a second let's talk about this design and while on the face of it not a whole lot has changed in the last well four years I guess since the iPhone 11 Pro with the most obvious refresh being last year's Dynamic Island which I'm pleased to see has made its way to the regular iPhone 7 scenes now and it is a genuinely useful little notification bar especially as more apps have now been optimized to use it I'll tell you what though the first thing you notice how much lighter this is the 15 Pros have a new titanium band Around The Edge and together with an aluminum frame inside actually reduces The Weight by 19 grams 240 221 and particularly with the pro Max which is a pretty chunky phone it is a very welcome upgrade they've also slimmed down the bezels and it means they've been able to reduce the overall size of the phone it's almost a millimeter narrower and shorter although it is about half a millimeter thicker but they've maintained the same 6.1 and 6.7 inch screen sizes Apple have also slightly contoured just the corners of the frame here on the back so it's a little bit smoother and sits in your hand a bit more comfortably although it is quite subtle and as someone who used the 14 pro Max as their main phone for most of last year these changes do add up to make it just a little bit more comfortable to use we also get a couple of new colors this is the natural titanium which for my money I think is the best new flavor it's kind of of Stony grayish color we also get a dark blue a black and a white although more importantly they've actually redesigned the Intel frame and layout of the 15 Pros so the back glass can now be repaired much more easily and crucially much more cheaply than before I've also just realized this is going to be my 1 000th video on YouTube we're at 999 this is my next video holy moly a thousand videos if you haven't already subscribed I feel like now is a pretty good time let's see what happens over the next thousand videos I'm gonna be so old anyway back to the iPhone and let's talk about this action button it is still a mute switch by default you just long press it to change between loud and silent and the dynamic Island will also react to the change and if you are muted you'll also be able to see the icon at the top left of the screen but now you can customize it to do pretty much anything torch voice recording launch an app although I reckon for most of us myself included you'll just make it the shortcut for the camera and then it also acts as a shutter button yes the volume down does also work as a shutter but you can do anything with it really and I also appreciate that you can use this to toggle on or off a lot of accessibility settings I think for some people this will be a really big deal don't get too close to me when I'm cooking babe I'm playing a preview of Resident Evil Village using what I'm told are PS4 assets natively on the 15 Pro Max albeit at 720p and 30fps and well low to medium settings but still for our phone this is incredible and for now at least it's only possible with the new Apple a17 Pro chip that powers the new 15 pro and pro Max which also happens to be the first three nanometer architecture chip we've had on a mobile we're also going to have the likes of Resident Evil 4 remake death stranding the division Resurgence and even next year Assassin's Creed Mirage which is the first time a full console version of an Assassin's game will be on mobile definitely recommend a controller though this is the backbone one for Playstation Android although they do now sell an iOS USBC version for the iPhone 15 highly recommend because playing Resident Evil village with the virtual touchscreen controls isn't ideal so it's all pretty exciting because yes we have the usual 10 bump in processor performance we actually get double the neural engine performance but these these are kind of just abstract upgrades that we see year on year and really make a noticeable difference but the reason the a17 pro is called the pro is because of this completely redesigned Graphics chip the GPU which is not only a lot more powerful but supports features like Hardware Ray tracing which isn't new you're right the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 the flagship Dimension 9200 I believe is from mediatek they both support Hardware Ray tracing actually we're going to have new versions of both those chips like next month so they will compete with the a17 pro hopefully it means more developers will actually make use of it in their games now as strong as these new titanium frame phones are they can still break they can still fall out your pocket off tables so I've teamed up with the lovely folks over at caseify who have sent me a whole range of new cases to protect my iPhones so case if I have refreshed their lineup for the new iPhone 15 and 15 pros and I've got three of the most popular models here I've got the impact the bounce and their brand new ultrabounce each tougher than the last and in case you're wondering uh yeah my real name is Tom and not the tech Jab and what I really do like about caseify is how they combine the creativity and the personality of their cases I mean there are literally so many options to choose from and you can customize your own with proper tough protection in fact all case defy protective cases are aligned with their Eco shock material which increases protection and also makes them able to absorb more of the shock if you happen to be a little bit clumsy and knock your phone off your desk over and over and over again and actually the impact case meets the 4X military grade we get 5x on the ultra impact six on the bounce and a whopping 10x on the ultra bounce which is the strongest case they have ever created and it also has a built-in lens protector for the camera you can literally drop this thing from over 30 feet and maybe I will but I'll save that for my next video just make sure you pair a case to find case with a screen protector though because even if your phone survives a fall you don't want that screen to be scratched so they're tough they look good and case if I are making their products even more sustainable and environmentally friendly than ever so before you're showing your iPhone arrives click my link in the description below to get 15 off your next order at caseify Now versus last year's 14 Pros the new 15 Pro and Promax get an extra two gigs of RAM so we're now up to eight gigabytes and of course we have that new a17 Pro chip replacing the a16 bionic and in this 3dmark Wildlife extreme test we're looking at around a 25 optic in performance although in this new solar Bay Benchmark which includes Ray tracing it's 44 faster however if we switch back but run the 20 minute stress test the stability is lower the new chip throttles more although it's still eight percent faster even at its lowest score but you can also see the 15 Pro Max lost 5 of its battery versus just two percent on the 14 pro Max during this test although we'll talk more about battery in just a second but actually even versus last year's 14 pro Max which is to say I've been using pretty much every day this does feel noticeably nippier more responsive apps seem to load Just a Touch quicker and also I haven't had any of those sort of random slowdowns or stuff says that did occasionally crop up on my 14 pro it's also a big deal because the 15 Pros are the only phones for now at least that will run these upcoming console level games this does now support Wi-Fi 6E although you will of course need a compatible 6E router to make best use of it but overall I would say it's a solid step up and with the new graphics chip along with USBC it makes this one of the most future-proof iPhones we've had in years okay before we dive into the camera which I know you're waiting to see I just want to mention the battery life because we didn't see the much rumored increase in battery size but for the first time the 15 support the G2 standard so if you have a new G2 wireless charger or power bank that can now match the magsay's 15 watts double the previous 7.5 which is a nice little upgrade and actually even though Apple claim the new 15 series will have the same battery as the 14 series that's not been quite my experience so far after an hour of YouTube an hour of tick tock half an hour of gaming and 15 minutes of shooting 4k60 both the 15 pro and pro Max were three percentage points lower than the 14 pro and pro Max all phones with 100 battery capacity and actually bought these two 14 Pros last week so they're all brand new like the 15s although more importantly what I'm very keen to see is how the battery health fares over time because my iPhone 14 pro Max which I've been using for a year is down to 88 of its battery health now to be fair other Brands don't really share that information so there's not a lot to compare it to but I do know versus previous iPhones I've used for a long time that degradation in battery capacity is a lot faster it's more significant so I'm hoping there's improvements with this obviously it'll take a while to figure that out trying to get a photo no more I'm out if I bring up the camera specs for both you can see the main Hardware change this year is that the optical zoom with the pro Max is getting a new five times telephoto whereas the pro is sticking with three times aside from that the hardware is pretty similar same sensors and same resolutions as last year's 14 Pros however there is more to the story with some pretty big software and processing improvements for example the iPhone 15 Pros now combine your usual four into one pixel bins 12 megapixel photo with a full fat 48 megapixel photo giving us a more detailed 24 megapixel shot and also despite having double the megapixels the file size of each photo is only about 50 bigger Apple have also introduced three different focal length options for the main camera so you've got the default one times which is 24 millimeters tap once for 28 and tap again for 35 equivalent to a 1 1.2 and 1.5 times optical zoom using some clever cropping of that 48 megapixel sensor this is definitely aimed at more Enthusiast photographers who have a particular focal length in mind although it's a shame these new focal length options don't transfer over to video but I reckon one of the most exciting new features is how even in the regular photo mode if the camera detects a face a cat or a dog or even if you just simply tap on a subject it will now capture a depth map so you can actually turn this regular photo into a portrait where you can then adjust the bokeh level and also the focal point so if you see this little f-stop icon pop up then you know it's capturing the portrait info and you can tap it if you want to preview that bokeh and then if you press edit on the photo there is this new portrait button that turns it into a portrait with that tasty background blur so the idea is you don't have to worry about whether I should take a regular photo or a portrait which previously had higher shutter lag and missed out on Smart HDR because now with these next Generation portraits as Apple calls it portraits now use the same photonic engine pipeline so their fancy background processing as a regular photo so there's no compromise in quality or shutter lag and for me this is one of the most significant camera upgrades this year night mode shots as well as the new portraits also benefit from Apple's fancy photonic engine and deep Fusion processing now and according to Apple we're looking at up to two times better low light quality and the latest smart hdr5 processing should improve dynamic range color and detail across all cameras and modes up front we have the same 12 megapixel true depth selfie camera as before but this also gets next-gen portraits so again your regular selfies can now be turned into portraits after the fact plus we get all the benefits of that new smart hdr5 as for video the main difference now is that you can shoot that prores at 4k60 we have new log and HDR options and the video quality particularly low light should be improved now usually the selfie camera gets forgotten uh in many phones but not so much with the iPhone and also not so much with video and actually this can also shoot a 4k60 also known prores with login HDR yes it's lower megapixel than a rear camera but it has pretty much all the same features as well as small HDR and the next gen portraits for photos so all that sounds great but is the camera quality really that much better than last year well let me show you a few side by sides and also make sure you have subscribed as I have a full camera comparison with the Galaxy s23 Ultra in the works but my takeaway is that there isn't a huge amount in it I think the most obvious change is how the 15 Pros lean towards a warmer white balance which I would say is a little bit more accurate some shots are also noticeably less over sharpened some photos on the 14s look like someone's just turned the clarity slider up in Lightroom too far now photos look more natural and actually if we crop in so just literally pinch in on that one time shot you can see there is more detail and that's thanks to the new 48 plus 12 megapixel combined shot although on the face of it you may be hard-pressed and noticed now to answer the question of is the 15 Pro Max's Zoom better than the pros well it comes down to what you want really so between 1 and 2.9 times Zoom they're basically the same between 3 and 4.9 the pro wins but then 5 to 25 times the Promax wins makes sense given the hardware and of course in an Ideal World we'd see the pro Max with four lenses like the s23 ultra so there isn't a compromise but the question is do you prefer a three times portrait or a five times portrait 84 millimeters or 120. you can obviously shoot both on both phones although the quality isn't going to be the same and the real world difference with the pro Max is that you just have to take two or three steps back what you can now do as my cameraman James is demonstrating is Jump between all the different lenses while shooting at 4K 60. previously you couldn't go to ultra Wide Auto photo depending on which one you started with but now at the highest resolution and frame rate you can switch between them all and I'm kind of curious how it looks going between those lenses just darting in and out obviously I can't see but hopefully you'll let me know in the comments what do you think how's that five times stability although I had hoped they'd have made some changes and upgrades to the Cinematic Mode still stuck to 4K 30 no prores or log options it still looks pretty good particularly in nice lighting but there is no kind of new next-gen mode of cinematic where if you shoot regular video you can then add depth stuff afterwards maybe next year I'm also pleased to see that they have slightly reduced the lens flare it's definitely still there and we get those sort of light floaters as I call them but in this particular shot you can no longer see the camera lens outline but what do you think of this new camera system would it tempt you to upgrade another upgrade is actually the price it's now cheaper or at least here in the UK Apple always set their prices by US Dollars first and then look at other currencies and adjust for inflation and tax and things but the iPhone 15 the regular one is actually 50 pounds cheaper now in the UK starting at 799 down from 849 the 15 Pro is 100 quid cheaper it's now starting at 999 rather than 1099 and the 15 Pro Max is actually the same price 11.99 but now with 256 gigs of storage anyway let's wrap up this review should you buy a 15 pro and pro Max well it all depends if you do an upgrade how old is your current phone I reckon anyone with an iPhone 11 or older yes go for it in terms of the Pro versus the pro Max for me it comes down to the bigger battery that's why I want this guy and also I prefer the bigger screen which is actually now a lot more comfortable to use because of the sort of smaller form factor but I reckon even if as a package it's not that significantly different from 14 pro Max the there are lots of nice incremental upgrades and as I say with the pro GPU with USBC this is kind of like the new Baseline for iPhones if you buy anything older without USBC you can restricted to last gen stuff but what do you reckon are you tempted to upgrade have you already ordered one let me know what you make of the new 15 Pros in the comments below thank you so much for watching guys and I'll see you next time right here on the tech chat\n"