iPhone 15 Pro Review - The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly!

Here is the rewritten content in a structured article format while preserving the original text:

You Know What's Funny?

When there are not that many changes, it really puts a magnifying glass on the few changes that there actually are.

Have you ever listened to a car reviewer describe the latest generation Porsche 911? Like, this is a car that's looked more or less the same for the past 50 years with slight evolutions with each new generation. And literally, every time you watch or read a review, they always say:

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- You know what's funny?When there is not that many changes,it really puts a magnifying glasson the few changes thatthere actually are.Have you ever listened to a car reviewerdescribe the latestgeneration Porsche 911?Like, this is a car that'slooked more or less the samefor the past 50 yearswith slight evolutionswith each new generation.And literally, every timeyou watch or read a review,they always say every single time,\"Oh, it's so refined,oh, this is an engineering masterpiecethat's been perfected over generations.It's a formula that's been developedin the same direction for years.\"I actually, as a kid,I used to actively dislikePorsches because I just,I knew they were expensive,but I thought they're all so boring,they all look like the same thing.Why would you get one ofthose, when you could geta way more excitingFerrari or McLaren instead?But as I've gotten older,I can appreciate the Porscheformula a little more.I don't love it or anything,I wouldn't say I love it,but I can appreciate itmore, does that make sense?I hope that makes sense.♪ Bling ♪♪ I am the one at optimum ♪♪ I got the drum, I got the drop on 'em ♪♪ I got the lock, stockand barrel on top of them ♪♪ I got the chopper for theblock they knocking on ♪♪ Act tion tion ♪♪ Look at the crowd, theway they packed in in ♪♪ Lone wolf hear the howl,where the pack then then ♪♪ Is he packing then ♪♪ Shooting off at the mouthlike rat tat tat bling ♪♪ Anybody in a pine for life ♪♪ Your size ain't nothingfor you to die for ♪♪ All up in my eye for ♪This is the iPhone 15 Pro.Not a lot of changes.(logo whooshing)So, okay, I think peoplegotta get this thoughtout of their head that you'vegotta upgrade every yearto the newest phone.Like, I realize most ofus already know this,but for some reason, peopleare still stuck on this thingwhere they say, \"Oh, last year's phoneis barely differentfrom this year's phone,it's not worth upgrading.\"But like, that's not new,like the Zenfone 10 I just reviewedis just a refinement of Zenfone 9.Like the bleeding edge ROG phonehas looked the same for three years now,the Pixel is findingits stride with design.But what we're really looking foris for them to fix anythingthat's wrong or bad,and then just find ways, clever ways,good, interesting waysto just get a littlebit better every year,so that over a long time,over a bunch of improvements,it adds up to a bigger,more significant change.So that's what's happeninghere with this iPhone 15 Pro.I've been using it forabout two weeks now.They've made some improvements,but now we're starting to alsosee some possible problems,some new issues that have risenup, so let's talk about it.So there's basically four newfeatures they've added here.I'm gonna go over someof the more fundamentaland existential stuff in theregular iPhone 15 review,so definitely make sure you're subscribedto see that when it comes out.But for the Pro,it's time to deep dive on the stuffthat's unique to this one,the professional stuff.That being the build, the chip,the cameras and the Action Button.So easiest place to startis the way they've built this phone.So Apple made an update to the buildand the materials of the iPhone this year,they've softened the corners a little bit,it's clearly still a boxydesign, but, you know,now, instead of a completelyflat glass at the front,there's this gentle littlecurve just at the very edges.I think that'll maybemake screen protectorsslightly more intricate,but I think it has a nice look to it.And then the screen sizesare exactly the same,but now the bezels areactually a tiny bit slimmerall the way around.So technically the phoneis like one millimeter smaller diagonallyand the rails have famously switched fromthat shiny stainless steelto a lighter, coated and brushed titanium.The result, it's veryslightly better, I think.It's kind of funny,I've always associated a heavy phonewith like expensive feeling, you know?Like, the ceramic phonesare like extra heavy,they feel like substance.But I understand why peoplewant it to be lighter.And so, this phone isactually noticeably lighterthan the previous Pro.It's 10% on paper, but itfeels like more than 10%.And then, there's a new set of colors tooso I'm sticking with it,this new natural titaniumis the best color,this is the first year I am not orderinga dark or black iPhone.They still look good, don't get me wrong,but they get all kinds offingerprints on them like crazy.And also, my worries aboutthe light colored scratches,if you go deep enough,were all confirmed byZack, JerryRigEverything,in his video cutting the thing up.So because I'm on team no case,I'm going with the all gray phone,I think it looks dope,so I'm going with that.I think basically the idea is,if you have a perfectly working phone,there's no world where youshould upgrade to this onejust for the titanium buildor just for the slightly thinner bezels.But you have to appreciate,put this up next to aniPhone 11, then, yeah,you can see the differencescompounding over time.Just like if you sat in a992 generation 911 right nowafter sitting in a 997 generation car.But the real highlight of thisbuild here, let's be honest,is there's a new port atthe bottom, that USB type C,which makes a bigdifference to people like mewho have other gadgets in their life,computers, headphones, mouse, keyboard,I just bring one charger,it works with everything.I have already had this riteof passage moment that everyonewho gets this phone is gonna havewhere you have an existing Lightning cableand you try to plug itin and then you're like,oh right, new cable.But now I've gotten used to it.But the thing is,I could have sworn Applewould do more with this port.Like, okay, we know thatthey were basically forcedinto doing this by the EU,so shout out to the EU for that.Now we have a USB iPhone,but like the only pitch is just,hey, one cable for everything.That's it, Apple really?So like with 30 pin toLightning all those years ago,the benefit was obvious,it's just so much smaller of a portso that let them fitmore stuff in the phone,plus it's reversible now.Now with this USB type C, it's like okay,it was already small, itwas already reversible,charging speed did not improveat all, it's still 25 watts.There's no extra like desktop mode,plug it into a monitor and get,there's no decks oranything like that, right?It's just one cable for everything.Okay, fine, sure, welcome to the club.You know, iPhone userscan now take advantageof the U in USB-C.I talked about the handshake it doeswith plugging directly into other phonesand reverse charging themat four and a half wattsin the unboxing video, that's pretty neat.You can also plug in other things,plug in a keyboard and typewith it, plug in a monitor,it'll mirror your screen at up to 4K 60.And the Pro phone now supportsUSB 3.0 data transfer speedsso you can get that ProRes footageoff the phone noticeably faster,and you can actually, for the first time,shoot video directlyonto an external drive.Now there's some talk about thecable that comes in the box.Remember that nice highquality braided USB-C cablethat comes in the box?But it's only USB 2.0 transferspeeds, it's a slow cable.So if you have a Pro phone,you need get a fasterseparate cable for it?That seemed weird to people,but it's not, that's very normal.Most smartphones come withjust a USB-C cable just to charge.It's a charging cable.If you wanted a data cable,you'd have to buy athicker, more robust cablethat looks the same but is a data cable.It's kind of confusingand annoying actually.Welcome to the world of USB-C, my friends,it's good to have you.But that is a good segueto the main enabler,the new powerhouse chip insidethis phone with a new name,the A17 Pro.So the base iPhone 15sgot last year's A16bionic from the 14 Pro.And so, here's this new more powerful chipin the highest end phonesand it's not the A17 Bionic,this is the first one withthe Pro name, A17 Pro,and this thing goeskind of crazy on paper.This is their first three nanometer chip,actually, the first threenanometer chip in any phonethat we'll probably see forat least another year or two.I ran some benchmarks,it's literally approaching M1 chip levelsof synthetic benchmark scores,and compared to last year,it's 10 to 20% more powerfulon both the CPU and the GPU,which is very respectable.But more power is likemore horsepower in a car.It's only really useful or noticeableif it lets you do more things with it.I'm gonna live in this analogya bit more for a minute,but like the last generationPorsche 911 Turbo S,it was already so ballistic fastthat you never approached that limitanywhere on public streetsuntil you get to thehighest end of performance,on the track.And the highest endiPhone is the same way,like, the Pro iPhone's been greatat just surfing Instagram and textingand doing all the normal web browsing,basic stuff you'd do on a phone.And so, the only place you'd really noticethe extra performance is,well, we got a gaming demo.Apple showed these wild demoson the new iPhone at the keynote.And just a disclaimer,I'm not much of a phone gamerso I'll defer the commentaryon this to Dave2D,you can go watch his video, linked below.But they literally launchedexclusive games on the iPhone,that are like \"Resident Evil: Village\"and \"Assassin's Creed\",but not on cut down mobile versions,these are literally the sameversions with the same assetsand same textures and everythingfrom the PlayStation version'cause it literally isthe PlayStation version.That's impressive.Plus you know, performanceheadroom is never a bad thing.But I think also for me andfor a lot of other people,the more impactful thingsthat you'll actuallynotice about this new chipare in the dedicated parts of itthat are for specific tasks.Like, the new image signal processorlets you take really, really fast,lag-free photos constantly.The new neural engine recognizesPortrait Mode subjects,like people's faces anddogs and cats automatically,and lets you go back in timeand set a regular phototo a Portrait Mode photo.The USB 3 controllerthat enables faster data transfer speedsis also on the A17 Pro,all of that is coming from the new chip.But what I'm more concerned withat the moment is battery life.Okay, so actually, it'skind of two main issuesthat have been popping upthat you kind of haveto try to figure out,are they isolated issuesor are these real problems with the phone?And those are battery lifeand overheating issues.And to be honest, part of the reasonthis review took like longer than normalis I've been really tryingto dig into the batteryand figure out what's going on here.So objectively speaking,these phones have slightlybigger batteries than last yearand a new three nanometer chip.So in a controlled environment,they should do better and they do,they literally last longer onlike simple benchmark stuff.So that's good news.Now when I test a phone, like normal,I pretty much, I kind of go by feel,I always have some mix of good days,some average days and then some bad days,where I can sort of figureout what's draining it,what its weaknesses areand then I can come toa conclusion from that.So now here we are, Iget a couple days in,I get a couple weeks inand I've had a goodamount of average days,I've had a couple ofthose bad draining days,but I also haven't hadany of those amazing dayswhere I get like ninehours of screen on time.I just haven't had any yet.And then, we also started tosee some of those headlinesabout battery life potentially being worseand there's also some overheating issuespopping up on Twitter or Xand some people were askingif mine has had any issues.So here's the weird answer,yes, but not when I would expect,Two days ago, literally, Iwas just at a golf tournament,it was in Florida, it waslike 100 degree really feelor something crazy like that.And I'm outside with myphone at max brightnesswith GPS going all day out in the sun,and it was fine, no problem,no overheating issues.But then, a couple hours later,I'm on the airplane withmy phone in Airplane Modeand I've got just likemusic playing on Bluetoothwith Spotify and likescrolling through Instagram,and for like five minutes,the phone just gets really hotand just blasts through like 5% battery,and then it's fine again afterwards,and I'm like, there almostseems to be no rhyme or reasonwhy it does this randomly once in a while.So my best theory isthat the A17 Pro is just,it's a more powerfulchip and so therefore,is able to drain powermore quickly than beforein high intensity settings,like gaming, et cetera.And there's also been someissues attributed to iOS 17 bugs,like we're already on 17.0.2.I imagine there's some more updates comingto both iOS and a bunch of apps.But by the end of this,I kind of feel like I'mexpecting battery lifeto basically even out tobe the same as last year,which is a boring answer, butthat's kind of what I expect.Now we can talk all we wantabout what the word Proactually means in a smartphone,but with iPhones, thathas mostly meant cameras.And it turns out there is a lot going onwith these relativelysimilar looking camerason these new Pro phones, bothin hardware and software.So you're looking at a newbigger 48 megapixel main camera.There's also an improved ultra widewith a closer up macro capabilityand a whole telephoto situationthat we'll get to in a minute.But then with software,there is this whole newintricate image processingpipeline happening.So you know how most smartphones,a lot of 'em today havelike 48 megapixel camerasand they all bin down to 12 megapixels.They give you 12 megapixel shots.You know, previous iPhones did this,this new one, for thosewho might've missed it,is actually by defaultspitting out 24 megapixelimages instead of 12,and it's only about one anda half times of file size.So this new process,which is the sameactually across the boardfor iPhone 15s and 15 Pros,is it's taking a 48megapixel full sensor shotfor detail informationand also taking a fullsensor 12 megapixel shot,which is the quad binning forlight information and noise.And then, it's using theneural net to combine themand do a sort of a detailed transferto get you this hybrid 24 megapixel image.It's very complicated, very clever,and the end result is slightly better.It's really right in linewith what I've been saying.So if you just generally lookat photos shot on this camera,it's an iPhone photo, like,they look pretty great,they're awesome with dynamic rangeand sharpness across the board.I still preferand shoot in the rich contrastprofile most of the time,but, yeah, mostly, the iPhoneis one of the best camerasat just pointing and shooting,in full auto, just gettingresults that look good,even if it doesn't look themost like real life, you know,it's doing the classicrelighting and tone mappingand everything we're usedto from all this smart HDR,it's all here and a lot ofpeople like it and it looks good.The improved Macro Modeis also really good.And with this natural falloff with the primary camerawithout even needing Portrait Mode,you can get some blurredbackgrounds, it's awesome.Autofocus is also really, really fast,especially whenever there'sa face in the scene,this thing loves seeing faces.And the benefit of the bigger sensorshows itself at night toowith even longer handheld captures.It's not magic, it's justphysics, but, you know,does the 24 megapixel make a differenceover the 12 megapixel?Well, zoomed out, absolutely not,they look basically the same.So you gotta zoom in,and even at 50% zoom, youstill can't really tell.It's not until you zoom allthe way in that you can,okay, you can see a difference,you can start to notice a differencein fine detail and contrast.The 15 Pro is definitely,when your pixel peeping,more contrasty and sharpwhen you're all the wayzoomed in versus last year.But that's just when you'vezoomed all the way in.And by the way, once you get past 2X zoom,it's back to kicking outregular 12 megapixel images.So again, it's like,it's a small, smallyear-over-year improvementwith that tiny amount oflike pixel peeping detail,but over a longer distance,over a bunch of generations,that's the type of thing that adds up.They even, on the Pro phones,did a couple of presets from the 1X lens.There's a 24 millimeterall the way zoomed out,then a 28 millimeter,a little bit tighter,and a 35 millimeterthat all have their owndedicated image processingpipeline presetsto maximize detail intothese basically superres, zoom, focal lengthsthat you can digitally zoom between.I wouldn't exactly call ithaving extra lenses on the phone,but, you know, 1.5X zoomon last year's phoneversus 1.5X zoom on this year'sphone, slight difference.But there is a difference.Honestly, the most Pro thingsabout these new phones thoughis definitely their video cameras,so I'm just gonna nerd outabout these for a second.Because the iPhone's video capabilities,I've talked about this so much,but they're still so clearly far outin front of the rest ofthe smartphone world.It doesn't even shoot 8K,which it's totally capableof with the 48 megapixels.I wish they would let us,but even just at 4K 30in full auto, the detail,the auto focus, the slightdepth, the dynamic range,the stabilization,they're all world class.I mean, if you wanna justlook at test footage,the entire electric Riviandelivery van review I didon the Auto Focus channelwas shot on iPhone 15 Pro,audio included, I'll drop the link belowif you wanna watch that whole thing.Also, shout out to the newAV1 Codec support on the chip,that's gonna play nice with YouTube.But this year, you can also shoot Log,literally a Pro camera feature.Now it is annoyingly buriedseveral layers deep inthe separate Settings app,which is really not very Pro.But if you find the timeto go switch over thereand get into Log,the iPhone will shootwith way more information,that classic flat Log look,dynamic range, everything.And you don't have to deal withwhatever Apple was gonna dowith over sharpening andsaturation and processing.Apple has its own transformation LUTto turn it into SDR or HDRor you can go in andfully grade it yourselfto really get the mostout of the iPhone's videoand it looks really,like, really, really good.So the one thing that I'mgonna say to, you know,because I'm pixel peeping at this point,is the haloing from point light sources.You know, it's one ofthe hardest challengeswith these tiny opticsso I get why they haven'tjust fixed it yet,but like it's pretty bad.Anytime there's any sort of point lights,especially with video,despite whatever new lenscoding they're doing,it's pretty dramatic and itseems like it's the worston the iPhone of any other phone.So it's there, gonna point it out again,but, hey, if that's the biggestdownside of iPhone video,I'll definitely take it.And then, iPhone 15 Pro Max,the big one is the onlyone that comes withthe new 5X larger telephoto lens.I would bet my life thatthat's gonna come downto the smaller 16 Pro next year, whatever,but it's only in the big one this time.But yeah, it does letyou get a little furtherwith max zoom, from 15X to 25X.It's nice if you do a lotof zoomed photos and videos,which is a very specific crowd,there's some people that do that,you know, concert goers, things like that.But there are just very fewpeople who should buy onejust for this lens because it also meansyou have to have a bigger phoneand it also happens tomean that your 4X photosjust before you get to 5Xwill actually be worse on this phone.But, yeah, it's not nearly as capableas some of the longertelephoto periscope lens.I mean Samsung has a 10X optical lensthat blows this one out thewater in terms of reach,I think Apple's main advantagereally is just stabilization.Like, they finally do thatzoom in preview windowon the corner of the viewfinderand they overstabilize the frame,so you can zoom all the way inand get a shot in supercreeper mode, it's great.But I'm just gonnashamelessly borrow a linefrom Mr. Mobile because he said itas well as anyone possiblycould, and he's right,which is just that somuch of the differencesbetween these cameras, this one,the last iPhone, the Samsungs,the Pixels of the world,so much of the differencesbetween them is softwarethat it's hardly even consistent anymore.So if you are lookingfor like a hard verdicton like iPhone 15 Pro side by sideversus Samsung versus Pixelor Oppo, whatever else,you kind of just have tomake it up after a while,like, yeah, there aregonna be certain instances,like exact zoom focal lengthswhere one is sharper than the other,but honestly, at at the end of the day,a lot of it is gonna be taste.And so, yeah, you justkind of have to figure outwhich one you like as far as image qualityand especially UI,just the actual way youshoot photos and videos.Which reminds me, I do wanna mention,this RAW Max button is hilarious.This is a button to takeyour full res 48 megapixel Pro RAW photos,but it just says RAW Max, okay.And if you want a 48 megapixel JPEG,you have to jump back into theSettings app, switch it over,then bounce back, and nowthe button says JPEG Max,which is also hilarious.Last thing I gotta say though,this new Pro phone has an Action Buttonon this new Pro iPhone onlybecause only pros need customization.Look, I kind of love the Action Button,but I also need to realizethat it's kind of eitheroverrated or underrated,depending on who you are.Like, on one hand, it'sliterally a customizable button,like, who even saw this coming?It replaces the least used buttonthat was on previous iPhonesbecause your phone shouldalways be on mute anyway.And so, then, you canmap this Action Buttonto basically anything you want.You can keep it as a mute switchand it has the same strong hapticsso you can tell if it's muted or unmutedin your pocket without looking.But there's also a bunchof other cool functionsyou can pick from,from launching yourcamera to a voice recorderto just literally any app on your phoneyou want through a Siri Shortcut.Your favorite YouTube channel right nowis probably making a tutorialon the best Siri Shortcutsto map to the ActionButton from launching apps,to the specific things inside of apps,from unlocking your car,to not just launching myfavorite task manager app,but launching a new taskinside of my task manager app.It just lets me, it's great,it's awesome, honestly,I hope it gets copied,even though a bunch of phoneswere doing this years agoand then they stopped.I hope they bring itback now in a responseto how great this is.But on the other hand,I do kind of feel like,for a lot of people,this is gonna be one of those thingsthat they play with forlike three or four daysand then just kind of forget about itand never use it again.And I mostly think that'sbecause it's not super reachable.Like, it's not a one handable buttonwhere your fingersusually rest for everyone,especially on the Pro Max,it's way up there on the cornerabove the volume buttons.It could be a cool shutterbutton for the camera,but the volume buttons already do that,so yeah, I feel like you might as welljust end up setting itback to a mute switchand forgetting about it after a few weeks.But I guess that's fine too.It's one of those thingsthat you'll just figureout which user you areafter you use it for a while.Kinda like I've been usingthat Eight Sleep mattresscover that I was talking about,I've been using it forabout three months now,this is the pod coverthat goes on your mattressthat either warms you up orcools you down, helps you sleep.Like, now that I've used it for a while,I've understood, like Iwas a skeptic at first,but honestly, it's one of those thingswhere I go to a hotel bed andI have a harder time sleeping,which it used to be the other way around,but I just sleep so muchbetter in the Eight Sleep bed'cause it's cooled downto let you get sleep earlyand then warms up in themorning to help you wake up.And it's become really clear thattemperature is one of themost important factorswhen it comes to sleep,and it's become real obvious to methat falling asleep faster,getting better quality sleepand then being able to depend on itis something I wouldn'ttrade for anything.It's just, it took mesome time to learn that.Plus there's an app that shows meall my info about my sleep every nightand it lets me adjustthe autopilot if I want.If your partner sleeps at adifferent side on the same bed,they can adjust the temperaturein the app too, it's great.So I'll leave a link to it below,and since they're a great sponsor,they're actually giving youguys $200 off the pod coverif you use code \"MKBHD\"at eightsleep.com/mkbhd.But anyway, what's the verdict?What's the verdict withthe new Pro iPhone of 2023?It's one of those things where likeI have conversations with friendsand I always end up havingto try to condense it alland summarize it into like one sentence,and the truth is like,it's the same phone as last year with USB,a little bit of a faster chip,a little bit of a brighter screen,a little bit of thinner bezels,and like, I don't know, bettercameras, that's kind of it.So you have to decide how muchof that is important to you.Are any of those things important to you?Honestly, USB might bethe most important thingabout the new iPhone, despitewhat Apple was hoping.Welcome to the club, my friends.Thanks for watching,catch you guys in the next one, peace.(upbeat music)\n"