Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max & iPhone 15 Plus Review: Same Old Story

The new iPhone 15 models are here. They launched in India last week and the response has been absolutely crazy. Fights are breaking out in stores because people want to get their hands on this phone.

In fact, it's just not India. In Dubai, in China, in the US. The response has been very, very impressive, despite the updates being rather iterative. There's nothing really game changing on these new phones. But the overall combination of the updates will give you an experience that is perhaps the best that you can get right now. So let's dive in deep into the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the iPhone 15 Plus.

Design

The design of the iPhone is classic, iconic, familiar and some would say rather boring. And for the people who call it boring, well, nothing majorly has changed but there are subtle improvements to the iPhone 15 models, both the 15 and 15 Pro models.

The Pro models now get a brand new titanium frame and the end result of that is, especially in the case of the Pro Max, the weight has come down by 19 grams. It's a very subtle change but it is quite dramatic because if you use the iPhone 15 Pro Max with a case, it feels as heavy as an iPhone 15 Plus or iPhone 14 Plus. That's a dramatic change and the edges are now beveled so it doesn't dig in the palm of your hands and it feels very premium. Titanium, grade 5 titanium is stronger and lighter and a more premium material and the side rails have got this brushed finish which looks pretty nice and will probably not get scratched very easily.

In the case of the 15 and 15 Plus, the back has got this frosted finish and again the edges are beveled so it's a very nice phone to hold now on the whole. I would say, there is an argument to be made that the standard iPhone 15 models have a better in-hand feel than the Pro models. It is a subtle thing and in this pink colour that I have tested it looks like candy floss in your hands.

But overall, there are no major changes out here. This is still the familiar, classic and iconic look. Apple is doing what luxury brands do in the automotive, audio, fashion or even the watch space — changes in the design of iconic products are subtle. There are improvements while keeping the a familiar aesthetic— you see it in cars — you can spot a Mercedes from far away, same goes for a Ferrari or Porsche. A Rolex or a Tag Heuer or Omega are the same way, luxury fashion brands like Hermes, Luis Vuitton or Burberry are similar too. Apple is no different. Heck, even other smartphone brands like Samsung aren’t that different for that matter.

If you're looking for a bold reimagining of the iPhone, well that's not happening. You still get the dynamic island. Now it's there on the standard issue 15 models as well. So, it's a pretty decent change but not a major one and in the case of the 15 Pro Max and in the 15 Pro, the phone has become ever so slightly smaller because the bezels are absolutely minute now. So, this is a true edge to edge screen now.

So, those old cases may not fit properly but I think it's a very small price to pay in the scheme of things.

The other visual change on the exterior is the addition of USB Type-C. We have been praying for it for years but Apple didn't budge. But then EU kind of forced Apple's hand and here we have it. In the case of the 15 Plus and 15 models, you get USB 2 and in the case of the Pro and Pro Max you get up to USB 3 speeds that is 10x more.

With the addition of USB Type-C, there are going to be a bunch of things that users can now do about which I'm going to elaborate upon a little bit later. But it is a very nice change even though you still don't get fast charging out here. You still get only 20 watt wired charging and of course, you have wireless charging on both these phones.

Display

Coming back to the screen, the screens are gorgeous on both the iPhone 15 Plus and the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Now the brightness level goes up to 2000 nits which is just insane and if you are using the phone in the hot Delhi sun and if you had a problem with the brightness levels which shouldn't be a major issue for most people, then this phone is going to be absolutely incredible.

Now that there are some really crazy gaming features touted by Apple, this bright screen particularly on the Pro Max is going to come in handy.

Yes, in the case of the iPhone 15 Plus, still no ProMotion but iOS is well optimised and most people are not going to really worry about that.

Performance

One of the headlining features of the iPhone 15 Pro Max is the addition of the A17 Pro chip. It's the world's first 3nm processor.

The CPU, GPU and NPU all are in for some impressive upgrades. The CPU has got the smallest update. You get up to 10% performance boost out and better sustained performance. But the GPU is a huge update with the addition of ray tracing and overall 20% performance boost.

And in the case of the NPU, now it can run 35 trillion operations per second. And the NPU is critical for all the crazy AI stuff the iPhone does on-device. Like the new smart keyboard that iOS 17 has, which has improved your issues with typos majorly. And also the stuff that's happening with the camera because it's a fully computational camera.

And now with ray tracing, Apple is promising. Console class games like Resident Evil Village,

Assassin's Creed Mirage and even Death Stranding, which launched on the PS4 couple of years ago. We're definitely looking at graphics that are somewhere upwards of the PS4, maybe PS4 Pro level of graphics, which is insane for a smartphone.

And thanks to USB type C, now you can output 4K video at 60 frames per second, which means that you can literally connect an HDMI cable via USB type C using an adapter and turn your iPhone into a console, connect the PlayStation controller over Bluetooth and boom, can be playing Resident Evil Village, which is launching next month.

And it's a really beautiful game.

I also ran benchmarks on this phone and now the performance of the iPhone 15 Pro Max is in the realm of the M1 MacBooks from 2020. That is insane. But most people will not see this extra headroom, but instead, its advantage will be felt 4 years down the road when you’re upgrading to iOS 21 and you’ll be like “nah I’m fine”. I am sure that will happen to a lot of people this year too, but every year, there are more and more people who will not need to update as Apple Silicon becomes even more efficient.

Camera

The camera also is propelled by this chip. Of course, on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the highlight is the new 5x telephoto zoom, optical zoom, thanks to a tetraprism lens and it is one of the nicest 5x zooms I've seen on a smartphone.

In terms of low-light performance, this could be the best 5x zoom we have seen during night time but even during the day, it takes great photos and allows you to zoom in to objects that are much further back and it can go up to 25x with digital zoom. This happens to the large sensor and f/2.8 aperture and the brand new 3D sensor shift stabilisation system.

Definitely, I would say Google's Super Res Zoom is slightly better than this, especially when we are talking about lossless digital zoom but overall, this is a pretty good experience.

Other features include a brand new 48-megapixel sensor which has an f1.78 aperture and it shoots photos at 24 megapixels and with Apple's improvements to the photonic engine, smart HDR, the entire computational photography pipeline helped by the A17 Pro chip, you are looking at a more robust camera which has better dynamic range and can take generally better photos all across.

If you were to compare the iPhone 14 Pro Max and the 15 Pro Max, you won't find a lot of difference in the images but the user experience is better.

You will find scenarios where the iPhone 15 Pro Max does not need to engage the night mode while the iPhone 14 Pro Max will engage the night mode. The portrait mode is smarter now. It is a way faster camera which takes photos at a higher resolution at most times.

You don't need to engage the portrait mode manually if you are shooting humans or pets. It can automatically detect it and you can go into the photos app and change a photo to a portrait shot, change the depth, change the focus.

And overall, the edge detection, it will detect all the minutest hair strands in a much better way and now it's up there with Samsung's Galaxy S23 Ultra.

And in terms of video, the iPhone remains the absolute king of mobile photography.

Well, you get a much better cinematic mode but now the iPhone can shoot video in log. So if you are big on colour grading your videos, you're going to take the footage to FCP, then this is the camera that you would want. This is the phone that you want to be shooting professional videos with. In fact, now you can attach a hard drive via USB Type-C and directly shoot the footage onto the hard drive. You don't need to worry about having the 1TB model of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. 256GB can more than suffice. will more than suffice. In the case of the iPhone 15 Plus, you get a brand new 48MP camera with f1.6 aperture which means its low light performance again is super impressive.

Apple has actually improved low light portraits by 2 times so you can take really nice crisp portrait shots when it's almost pitch dark so overall the camera on this phone is also dramatically better.

I've been really impressed by the cameras on both these iPhones but anyone who would be coming from an iPhone 14 to an iPhone 15 wouldn't see a dramatic change in the image quality. It's the experience of shooting those photos that has improved massively.

Battery Life

Now, Apple claimed that the battery life of the iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 15 Plus is more or less the same as the 14 Pro Max and the 14 Plus. But teardowns have revealed that the battery size is actually bigger than those older phones.

But in use, the battery life is more or less the same. The case of the 15 Pro Max, if you are going to charge the phone early in the morning and going to use it in a hectic way till the end of the day, you are going to be left with around 25 to 30% battery, which is excellent. You can easily use this phone through the day and not worry about the charger.

But in the case of the 15 Plus, you can be left with as much as 45% battery life, which is absolutely insane. And that is very impressive.

But I am a little disappointed here because I was hoping the battery life to go back to the levels of the iPhone 13 Pro Max. And well, that has not happened. But still, this is really excellent battery life. The bummer is that despite the addition of USB Type C, we still do not get super fast charging, just get it at 20 watts, while there are other phones by Android manufacturers that can do charging up to 150 watts and can be fully juiced up with much larger batteries in less than 30 minutes.

Apple, please add this feature, please, pretty please.

And be warned, Apple has now said this officially, don’t try to use those 150-watt chargers from the likes of OnePlus, Xiaomi, Realme and what not. Apple says it is one of the reasons your iPhone is overheating. You should buy an Apple recommended charging brick. This welcomes iPhone users to the complexity of the USB Type C standard which is quite fragmented.

Extras

Some other bits out here, iOS 17, for instance, it is the biggest iOS update for years. Features like name drop, contact postcards are really nice quality of life updates, the better privacy features, you get the new smart keyboard, which makes things much easier to type. It's a really nice update.

On top of it, you get one of the best speakers that I've ever heard on a smartphone. And you get really solid call and network.

And you get really good call quality. In the case of the Pro Max, there's the new action button.

The action button replaces the old ringer and silent mode toggle switch. And you can configure it to do anything. You can launch the camera app, you can launch any app actually.

And if you map it to the shortcuts app, you can literally do anything by just pressing that button, which also gives you a very supple haptic response. It's a very clever feature, and I love it. But I do wish that it was placed lower on the phone, not as high up. It's ergonomically not ideal.

Verdict

And as predicted, the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the iPhone 15 Plus do offer a great experience. Undoubtedly, these are amongst the best phones you can buy. And if you are looking for the best of the best, and you are fully invested in the Apple ecosystem, these phones are no brainers.

My recommendation would be iPhone 15 Plus for most people because of its sublime in-hand feel and dramatic improvement on the camera side. Also, it is also the iPhone which offers the best battery life.

But if you are a professional, and you are going to be using the camera for a lot of pro workloads, and you want to be gaming a lot, or you just want the most premium iPhone, then it has to be the Pro Max.

And it is a hell of a phone.

Sure, there have been some reports of overheating. We haven't really experienced that, but that is something we will keep testing. Though it is quite a bit of a phone for quite a lot of money. We've been testing the 1TB version, it goes up to Rs. 1,99,900, starts at Rs. 1,59,900, while the iPhone 15 Plus starts at Rs. 89,900.