Rarely has the basic iPhone made as little sense as this year. Apple advertises the iPhone 15 as a “huge step forward”, but in reality you don’t get much more than the iPhone 14 which itself was almost identical to the iPhone 13. With the difference of $200/€250/£ 200 between the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Pro, we think the entry-level iPhone 15 is not a good buy and these are our main reasons.
Lower display
While the iPhone 15 gets the updated Dynamic Island cutout and increased brightness, all other aspects of the display are just as before. It’s still a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display with the same resolution, and it still refreshes at 60Hz.
If Apple switched to 90Hz it would erase some of the criticism, but the Vanilla 15’s panel lags far behind the 15 Pro’s 120Hz LTPO OLED which also retains the unique Always-On Display (AOD) functionality. Oh, and Apple also shrunk the bezels of the 15 Pro making it much sleeker than the vanilla 15.
Performance gap
The A16 chipset inside the iPhone 15 is an iterative upgrade over the A15 used in iPhones from two previous generations: a 6-core CPU with 2 performance and 4 efficiency cores along with a 5-core GPU and Neural Engine 16 cores. Sure, it’s manufactured on a 4nm process versus the older 5nm A15 but, as we saw in last year’s iPhone 14 Pro review, the performance improvements are subtle at best.
The 15 Pro on the other hand features a brand new 3nm Apple A17 Pro chip, the first of its kind on the market. It promises 10% faster CPU performance and a 20% improvement on the GPU side. Apple is also pushing gaming capabilities on the 15 Pro series with PC/console games like Resident Evil Village and Assassin’s Creed Mirage coming to the iPhone 15 Pro series next year with hardware-accelerated Ray Tracing.
We should also mention the 2GB RAM gap between the Vanilla and Pro models: the 15 comes with 6GB of RAM while the 15 Pro has 8GB of RAM, which should result in better long-term support.
Less capable cameras
The iPhone 15 has received a boost on its main camera which now features a 48MP sensor but, as usual, Apple reserves the best cameras for its Pro models. The 15 Pro features a 48MP main sensor plus large with 1.22 µm pre-binned pixels, an f/1.78 aperture, and second-generation sensor-shift stabilization. The Pro also has exclusive rights to ProRAW image capture, allowing you to make the most of the sensor and enable all of Apple’s computational photography enhancements.
There’s a proper telephoto module on the 15 Pro with 3x optical zoom, which is nowhere to be found on the standard iPhone 15. The 15 Pro also supports 28mm and 35mm digital zoom modes for more vibrant portraits, and you can also choose one focal length by default. Selfies on the 15 Pro also benefit from OIS on the 12MP front camera.
The new A17 chip also allows the 15 Pro models to capture 4K 60fps in ProRes RAW with support for the ACES color profile and 3D spatial video that will be compatible with Vision Pro headphones.
Slower USB-C speeds
USB-C is a nice addition to the iPhone 15 but it won’t bring a significant data transfer speed upgrade via the Lighting connector since it’s still USB 2.0 at its core. This means you’ll get the same maximum transfer speeds of 480 Mbit/s while the USB Type-C 3.0 connector on the 15 Pro is rated up to 10 Gbps, which is over 20 times faster.
One specific area where the faster speeds stand out is the transfer of large video files. You’ll also be able to shoot ProRes 4K video at 60fps directly to an external SSD for larger projects, which is a great addition for videographers. You’ll need to supply your own Thunderbolt cable, though, as Apple ships all new iPhone 15 models with USB 2.0 Type-C cables.
PS If price is the main deciding factor, you can still buy an iPhone 13 which will be offered by Apple at a reduced starting price of $599 / €729 / £599. You won’t be missing out on much compared to the vanilla iPhone 15.
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