Professional’s Score
Execs
- Excellent cameras
- Tremendous-bright display screen
- USB-C port
Cons
- Charging nonetheless comparatively sluggish
- Doesn’t have 5x zoom of Professional Max
Our Verdict
Outwardly, the iPhone 15 Professional would possibly look the identical as ever however numerous modifications and upgrades make it a best choice, particularly in case your present cellphone is three or extra years previous. For those who already personal an iPhone 13 or 14 Professional, there isn’t sufficient right here to warrant an improve.
Refinement. That’s what I’d decide if I needed to sum up all of the modifications to the iPhone 15 Professional in a single phrase. You would possibly decide iterative or samey, if that’s even a phrase. Whichever approach you chop it, the iPhone 15 Professional isn’t that completely different from the telephones that got here earlier than it. It’s the identical, however higher.
Options & Design
- Titanium + aluminium body
- Motion button
- USB-C
It actually appears to be like the identical, however beneath that iconic pores and skin there are loads of modifications. The very first thing you discover whenever you decide up an iPhone 15 Professional is how mild it feels. It’s about 19g lighter than the iPhone 14 Professional and it makes an enormous distinction, way more so than you’d count on.
By the point you’ve added a case, which just about everybody will, it’s nonetheless solely 213g – just some grams heavier than a caseless iPhone 14 Professional.
It’s a little bit of a disgrace to cowl up the beautiful brushed end, and the blue evaluation cellphone Apple despatched is very good. Being matt, it doesn’t accumulate fingerprints both.
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You would possibly assume titanium is extra proof against scratches or injury than aluminium so that you don’t want a case, however you’d be flawed. Titanium’s trump card is its power. It’s really heavier than aluminium, however you want a lot much less of it for a similar quantity of power, which is why you have a tendency to consider lightness when anybody mentions titanium.
The very first thing you discover whenever you decide up an iPhone 15 Professional is how mild it feels.
The opposite huge design change is the substitute of the mute swap for the motion button. You’ll be able to decide what occurs whenever you press it: mute, launch the digital camera, change focus mode, swap on the torch, begin a voice recording and extra. You too can decide a Shortcut, which implies you are able to do absolutely anything comparable to launching an app enjoying or listening to your favorite playlist.
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You get the identical haptic suggestions with the Motion Button as with the previous mute swap, and haptics are as premium as ever. It’s a ache you possibly can’t simply alter their power, although. It’s attainable however provided that you understand the place to look within the Accessibility settings.
Getting again to the button, it does really feel like a missed alternative as it could do just one factor. For those who set it to launch the digital camera, for instance, it could’t even be a mute button. However it could be simple to outline completely different actions whenever you double-press or long-press it. Perhaps it will are available an iOS replace. Right here’s hoping.
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A extra vital change is that the proprietary Lightning port is gone and there’s a USB-C as a substitute. This brings quite a lot of advantages, the largest of all being you can cost the iPhone 15 Professional with any USB-C cable. Plus, they’re simply and cheaply out there when you lose or break the one which comes within the field.
You too can use the brand new port to cost different units comparable to an Apple Watch, AirPods, or some non-Apple earbuds from the iPhone’s battery. Plus, you possibly can join exterior shows and SSDs.
Display screen & audio system
- 6.1-inch OLED show
- As much as 2000 nits of brightness
With a barely thinner bezel, the iPhone 15 Professional is fractionally smaller than earlier Professional fashions regardless of having the identical 6.1-inch display screen.
Decision stays the identical at 2556 x 1179 pixels, however Apple has bumped peak brightness to 2000 nits. Earlier than the 15 Professional I used to be utilizing a 14 Professional, and the distinction in brightness is kind of wonderful. Usually, if I used to be open air on a sunny day, I wouldn’t count on to have the ability to see the display screen clearly for framing pictures or enjoying video games. However the iPhone 15 Professional’s show goes so vivid, you possibly can nonetheless see it on the brightest of days.
And as you’d count on, it’s a top-quality display screen with incredible colors and viewing angles. Just like the iPhone 14 Professional, it has an always-on mode that exhibits the time, date and notifications.
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Dynamic Island – the black pill-shaped cutout on the prime – is so-called as a result of it modifications form in response to the data it’s displaying. It is a frequent function throughout the complete iPhone 15 vary now, and isn’t a gimmick. I actually like the way it exhibits helpful data whilst you’re utilizing different apps.
It exhibits the period of a cellphone name, a tiny thumbnail of no matter music or podcast you’re listening to and even a countdown timer earlier than an upcoming flight. It’s interactive, too: you possibly can faucet on it to go to the related app.
The show glass has additional safety due to Ceramic Defend, a fabric that incorporates ceramic crystals. Its confirmed itself fairly spectacular on the iPhone 14 Professional in drop assessments, nevertheless it’s value noting that the iPhone 15 Professional’s display screen curves ever so barely on the edges the place the iPhone 14’s display screen was fully flat.
This might find yourself being its downfall when you want your cellphone with no case as a result of it means the display screen is barely happy with the body, leaving it extra uncovered in a fall.
Cameras
- Improved large, ultrawide & 3x telephoto lenses
- Choice to shoot in RAW and ProRes
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Simply because the iPhone 15 Professional’s design is principally unchanged, it could seem that the cameras have been copied and pasted from the 14 Professional. Have a look at the specs and it’s onerous to disagree. Apple says new lens coatings have helped to scale back the flare downside, nevertheless it’s nonetheless there when there are mild sources seen within the body.
Even when the sensors and lenses are the identical, there’s so much happening behind the scenes that every one results in higher portrait and night time pictures, and barely higher pictures general. Macro pictures are superior, and video is elegant.
For normal pointing and capturing, the primary rear digital camera now saves 24-megapixel pictures as an alternative of 12, whereas utilizing solely about 1.5x the cupboard space. It’s a must to zoom proper in to see the additional element in comparison with, say, an iPhone 14 Professional photograph, however the enchancment is there.
Listed here are a choice of unedited pictures from all of the cameras:
The essential factor about any cellphone digital camera is its capability to focus rapidly and precisely time after time, and that’s precisely what the primary digital camera does right here. It’s solely at night time when attempting to {photograph} shifting objects you can find yourself with blurry outcomes.
Nonetheless, if you may get your topic to remain nonetheless, you may get nice pictures – even portrait pictures when there’s not a lot mild.
Right here’s the total zoom vary from ultra-wide to 3x:
Portrait pictures, whether or not from the primary digital camera or front-facing selfie, are excellent. Edge detection stays a problem and the software program nonetheless blurs issues that ought to be in focus, however the reality you possibly can resolve later to show a photograph right into a portrait is a pleasant bonus. It applies solely when an individual, cat or canine has been detected, nevertheless it’s additionally nice that your pet pictures can now have beautiful bokeh.
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I can’t think about many individuals will do it, however you possibly can dig into the settings (within the Settings app – not the digital camera app) to allow RAW mode for pictures and ProRes for movies. You’ll be able to even shoot video in Log and use a USB-C cable to hook up an exterior SSD and document 4K60 on to it.
Together with the brand new A17 Professional chip, that is one other genuinely ‘professional’ function.
There are just a few new options, comparable to having the ability to faucet the 1x button within the digital camera app to toggle between 24, 28 and 35mm, or at the least the digital equal of those fashionable focal lengths. Once more, within the settings you possibly can decide which of those is your default capturing mode, in addition to disabling both or each of the 28 and 35mm modes.
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Equally, the 2x you see within the digital camera app additionally makes use of digital cropping reasonably than a bodily lens, however there are sufficient pixels to make it appear as if there’s one.
If there’s a disappointment, it’s that the brand new 5x periscope lens is unique to the iPhone 15 Professional Max. Meaning if you’d like the smaller, lighter Professional you’ll should reside with 3x.
Efficiency
The A17 Professional chip is the primary to ditch the “Bionic” moniker, however that’s the least necessary element. It’s not massively sooner than the A16 Bionic – Geekbench 6 reveals it’s round a 15% enhance – however the A16 Bionic was already massively quick. The A17 Professional eclipses all the things else at the moment out there – even Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 goes to wrestle to maintain up.
The larger information with the A17 Professional, although, is in graphics efficiency.
Apple says the iPhone 15 Professional is the “finest video games console” as its GPU is now highly effective sufficient to do real-time ray-tracing. Put merely, this elevates the feel and appear of video games to console degree, therefore the declare. Particularly ray-tracing makes lighting and shadows look way more life like.
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Sadly, the AAA titles which help ray-tracing aren’t popping out till later this yr, so I couldn’t see what they seem like first hand, nor test whether or not the iPhone 15 Professional can deal with enjoying them with out overheating or throttling efficiency to keep away from getting too sizzling.
Not many will purchase the 15 Professional particularly to play video games, nevertheless it’s nonetheless spectacular you can successfully play PlayStation video games in your cellphone.
Maybe just a few years down the street, the A17 Professional’s headroom will come into play: proper now it’s actually extra highly effective than you want it to be
You received’t essentially discover the elevated energy elsewhere when you’re coming from a current iPhone, nevertheless it’s nonetheless enabling issues just like the 24-megapixel digital camera mode, the power to show any photograph right into a portait later and the brand new voice isolation function which removes background noise from video and cellphone calls.
And basically use, the iPhone 15 Professional feels no completely different to even an iPhone 13 Professional: each telephones are greater than succesful relating to scrolling via social media feeds, on-line buying and all different stuff you might want to do every day.
Maybe just a few years down the street, the A17 Professional’s headroom will come into play: proper now it’s actually extra highly effective than you want it to be.
I did expertise the extensively reported overheating downside, albeit simply as soon as earlier than the iOS 17.0.3 replace got here out. After that, I by no means felt the cellphone changing into unusually heat.
Connectivity
- Wi-Fi 6E
- Thread radio
- Second-gen ultrawideband chip
Normally, there wouldn’t be an entire lot to say about wi-fi however so much has modified. For starters, there’s Wi-Fi 6E. It’s not the Wi-Fi 7 I’d hoped for, nevertheless it’s hardly a shock on condition that the iPhone 14 vary nonetheless used Wi-Fi 6.
Wi-Fi 6E means the iPhone 15 Professional can at the least faucet into the brand new 6GHz band which might pace issues up whenever you’re related to a suitable router.
There’s additionally a second-gen UWB chip that works as much as thrice additional away when it’s connecting to a different system geared up with this chip. That’s why Apple is shouting about Discover My Associates being so significantly better on the iPhone 15, nevertheless it does imply these mates want an iPhone 15 as effectively.
The 15 Professional can be the primary cellphone to have a built-in Thread radio which is able to enable it to attach on to Thread units. This wasn’t enabled at launch, however with so few Thread units in most houses, it’s one other function that may develop into helpful down the street.
Just like the iPhone 14 Professional, the 15 Professional has satellite tv for pc connectivity for emergencies. The crash detection function can use that if it could’t make a cellphone name or textual content emergency companies. There’s additionally two free years of roadside help for US consumers.
Battery life and charging
Right here’s one space that Apple hasn’t modified. Battery life is identical as earlier than and ‘quick charging’ continues to be 20W solely. Technically it’ll draw as much as 27W utilizing a USB-C charger however the reality is that the battery will be charged round 30% each quarter-hour.
That is perhaps sufficient for you, nevertheless it seems like a definite lack of progress in comparison with some Android telephones, though not Google Pixel vary which is equally sluggish.
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Speaking of USB-C, the bundled USB cable is just USB 2.0, so if you wish to reap the benefits of quick switch speeds you’ll, confusingly, want to purchase a special USB-C cable. Yow will discover out extra in our USB-C cable information.
As ever, the iPhone 15 Professional can be charged wirelessly as much as 15W utilizing a MagSafe charger, or 7.5W when you solely have a Qi charger.
Battery life in the actual world varies fairly a bit to the purpose that some days I’d go to mattress with greater than 40% remaining, however different days I’d be reaching for the charger by 9pm, regardless of doing principally the identical issues and having the display screen on for about the identical period of time. However as I stated, there’s actually no enchancment right here: most days the Low Battery warning would pop up close to bedtime, so it is a one-day cellphone you’ll should cost nearly each night time.
Value & availability
The iPhone 15 Professional prices $999 / £999 for the bottom 128GB mannequin, rising to $1499 / £1499 for 1TB.
With inflation so excessive in the meanwhile, it’s nice to see Apple protecting final yr’s value and even dropping the UK value by £100.
You should buy it from Apple, naturally, however we’ve additionally put collectively a separate information to one of the best iPhone 15 offers.
And when you fancy an improve however can’t justify one other 24-month contract, or the costly of shopping for outright, then do check out one of the best refurbished cellphone offers, or maybe some various suggestions in our roundup of one of the best telephones.
Ought to I purchase the iPhone 15 Professional?
Though there’s loads of upgrades and enhancements, anybody with an iPhone 14 Professional (and even a 13 Professional) ought to assume twice earlier than upgrading.
Considered by itself, although, the iPhone 15 Professional is among the finest smartphones cash can purchase. It’s onerous to fault, and even the gripes about quick charging and the shortage of Wi-Fi 7 are nit-picking.
Hopefully Apple will deliver digital camera parity to the iPhone 16 Professional vary, however because it stands, it’s the absence of the 5x zoom that’s more likely to drive extra folks to purchase the 15 Professional Max.. however provided that they’ll settle for that cellphone’s bigger measurement and weight.
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