I upgraded from an iPhone 14 Pro to an iPhone 15 and haven't looked back

I don’t need to get a new iPhone every year, just the change procedure with various authentications is sometimes a bit annoying. Plus, the iPhone has matured so much that there are only evolutionary changes from year to year, rarely an innovation that really lets me down.

A new device every three to four years, possibly a replacement battery in between, is more than enough. After three to four years, a new iPhone seems truly revolutionary compared to the old one.

But now I’m in the situation of having to change every year for professional reasons. Because even though innovations from generation to generation are rather rare, I must familiarize myself with each annual update to be sure to give our valued readers the best possible information. But which model is best for me?

Deciding on a downgrade

Over the past few years, I’ve had a red iPhone 11, a green iPhone 12, a lilac-colored iPhone 13, and a gold iPhone 14 Pro in constant use. I didn’t buy any myself, most were test models from Apple that we returned after a year, well maintained and in good condition.

But what does a spoiled iPhone user buy when they’ve been using the iPhone 14 Pro for a whole year? Your mileage may vary, but I opted for an iPhone 15, without the “Pro.”

Apple

Why is that? Of course, price plays a role. Would the features of the iPhone 15 Pro justify the extra cost? Six months after making the change, I have an answer.

Current best price: iPhone 15

$791

$797.99

$798

$816

$819

$819

$829.99

$829.99

$836.22

$837.26

$849

$949

iPhone 15 128 GB – Black – No contract

$784.71

The camera: Just as good, without the zoom

Most people now make their purchasing decision based on the smartphone’s camera, so most smartphone reviews are actually camera reviews. I had always used the normal model with its wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle lens until I got a telephoto lens with the iPhone 14 Pro.

It made a difference compared to the previous iPhone 13, there’s no doubt about it. On vacation, I was able for the first time to leave the other cameras at home (one a compact digital camera with 6x zoom, the other a system camera with 3x zoom), especially since the ‘iPhone simply takes better photos.

Okay, I like the computer processing of the actual images on the iPhone better, but I can’t really judge whether the images are really better.

Apple

At the end of 2023, Apple also gave the standard iPhone a 2x zoom. The trick is that the scene photographed with the 48-megapixel sensor only uses the center 12-megapixel, which is a sort of crop zoom.

As a result, the 2x magnification works like an optical zoom without the resolution suffering and the photo becoming grainy. And even at 3x zoom, although digitally enlarged, it wasn’t a problem.

When the Alps seem to start just behind Munich on a clear day, you can’t adequately capture it in a photo with a triple zoom, whereas the digital zoom shows the Zugspitze large, but quite blurry. The change has not taken away the pleasure of the iPhone in terms of the camera, the 5x zoom (optical) of the iPhone 15 Pro Max would have been a good reason for a greater investment, but the Pro Max is too big for me.

Let’s see if the rumors are true and the iPhone 16 Pro also gets 5x or even 6x zoom in a size I can tolerate. Will I have to pass on the 15th after only one year in the family? My son with his iPhone 11 might be interested.

The processor: I don’t notice any difference

What will soon apply to M-series Mac chips has been the rule for a few years now for the A-Bionics of iPhones: year-over-year improvements are measurable but incremental, but every few years a new chip causes a sensation thanks to the additional shrinkage of the manufacturing process.

In 2023, this happened with the A17 Pro, the first chip manufactured using the 3nm process. But that’s no reason for me to buy the more expensive iPhone 15 Pro, because I don’t really need hardware ray tracing; I’m a casual gamer at best, and preferably I play chess.

Apple

My move from the iPhone 14 Pro to the iPhone 15 therefore meant sticking with the same chip, the A16 Bionic with its 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU and 16-core neutral engine: a wonderful technology which is still ahead of the pack and is quite sufficient for my daily use.

Things probably won’t be much different in the next big move, but if Apple uses AI more in iOS 18, its functions might not work on all older iPhones. You can get all the latest AI features with the A18 Pro, so even an iPhone 15 Pro wouldn’t help me much here. And I would hardly have noticed its better performance compared to the iPhone 15. So I’m not missing anything regarding the chip.

Current best price: iPhone 15 Pro

$1039

$1049

$1054.47

$1059

$1059.99

$1069

$1079

$1199

iPhone 15 Pro 128 GB – Titan Black – No contract

$997.89

Color and shape: a matter of taste

You can consider an iPhone to be an iPhone only if the case is black. I respect that, but I’m not. My second iPhone, a 4S, was white. Then I favored gold, then red, light green, lilac, white gold and now: light blue. Of course, the titanium colors of the iPhone 15 Pro are very chic, let’s see what Apple offers for the iPhone 16 Pro.

The iPhone 15’s colors are a bit pale, especially compared to previous generations, but that doesn’t bother me. Green, yellow and even blue are mostly white with a hint of the main color, only black and pink are a bit bolder.

To be honest, the gold iPhone 14 Pro was pretty unfortunate in terms of color. The gold was very pale, the back more milky white than anything else.

Apple

I would have hesitated to say goodbye to the damn chic Deep Purple color or the Sierra Blue of the iPhone 13 Pro, but I don’t miss anything. On the contrary: I like the color so much that I don’t want to hide it and I bought a transparent case. But after six months, it is already noticeably yellowed.

I have Apple Care+, so maybe I should use the iPhone without the case? It feels really comfortable in my hand, much better than the iPhone 14 Pro without a case.

Display: the main reason to go Pro

Apple carries over some innovations from the Pro models to the next-generation regular iPhones, like sensor-shift image stabilization, which was initially only included in the iPhone 12 Pro Max and a year later in all iPhones 13.

Other features are reserved for Pros for longer, or even end up not being included at all in the second division. (Or should we rather talk about the Champions League and the Europa League? Classic iPhones are much better than the second division!)

So far, that includes ProMotion, the adaptive screen refresh rate that Apple has included with the iPad Pro for years and has only used with the iPhone since the iPhone 14 Pro. iPhone reviewers have complained that there’s still no 120Hz display for non-Pro models, but that’s just one end of the spectrum.

A higher refresh rate leads to a better experience in many games, which, as mentioned above, isn’t that important to me. And I don’t notice that it’s smoother to scroll through websites, for example.

Zaawely Graphics / Shutterstock.com

On the other end of the spectrum, however, there is something I miss in the iPhone 15, perhaps the only feature of the iPhone 14 Pro: the always-on display, which uses a refresh rate of 1 Hz.

This was a bit unusual at the time and nothing new to Android users, and not all Apple users approved of this feature. However, I liked it and wish Apple would at least carry this feature over from the iPhone 14 Pro to the iPhone 15. But that will happen at some point, and my iPhone 15 is definitely not my latest iPhone.

This article was originally published on Macwelt and was translated by Jason Cross.