Verdict
By address the grown issues with its forerunner , while also tote up some welcome supernumerary features , the iPhone 15 Pro Max is more than the iterative update it initially seemed like , and remains a tempting option in the face of the iPhone 16 Pro Max .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Apple has done something quite telling with the iPhone 15 Pro Max by define just about every issue I had with the late couple of entries in the series .
From slimming the phone down , making it comfier to holdandfinally ameliorate its rapid growth photography skills , the iPhone 15 Pro Max is a much bigger upgrade than it initially seemed . So much so that it remain a tantalizing selection , even in the brass of the newer iPhone 16 Pro Max .
tot up to that theUSB - Cport , Action Buttonand the usual year - on - year performance and camera upgrades we expect from Apple , there ’s a lot to wish here .
But is this the iPhone 15 model to plump for ? And does it offer a better choice than thebest Android phones , like theSamsung Galaxy S24 UltraandOnePlus 12 ?
Design
Apple is n’t in the commercial enterprise of redefine what its earpiece look like every class . Gone are the days of Brobdingnagian intention changes every one or two generations , with the focus now more on elaboration . We ’ve seen the same chemise with Samsung ’s flagship Galaxy S and Google ’s Pixel range – once a infrastructure design is form , do n’t expect that to change for several years .
The iPhone 15 Pro Max is the consummate model of this . Apple ’s latest high - end phone face very much like the last few Pro iPhones , with the same general box-shaped and unconditional look . There ’s plenty of refinement here though , and many of the alteration make this the comfiest large iPhone to hold .
While the side of meat are still compressed , the edges are slightly rounded – like theApple Watch – giving the sound a softer finish when compare to the very sharpiPhone 14 Pro Max . I say in my critique at the time that the cast of the 14 Pro Max made it difficult to go for well . That is n’t an issue anymore .
Those sides are now matt , rather than shining , and the new last ensures fingerprint are n’t seeable on my Natural Titanium critical review unit . This does n’t seem to be the same case on the darker pitch-dark and Blue finishes , so best to plunk down for a lighter colour if you prefer a cleaner look .
For the iPhone 15 Pro Max , Apple has removed two stalwarts of the line of business . The ring whipper which has sat on every single iPhone has been ditch , as has the Lightning interface that has been the primary method of charge the phone for over a decade .
The toller switch was an iconic part of the iPhone , and made it easy not only to flick the gadget to tacit without pulling it from a pocket , but also to check whether mute or ringer mode was enabled . The Action Button is no function for the latter , yet I still reckon the modification is for the best .
Those who picked up an Apple Watch Ultra ( or anApple Watch Ultra 2 ) will already be conversant with the Action Button . This is a user - customisable keystone that can do various tasks , from tone down the headphone to opening the photographic camera and more .
As someone who mostly keeps their phone on silent , I instantly set the function of the Action Button to operate the camera – and I doubt I ’ll change it again . Now , a press of the Action Button take me flat into the television camera – while a further mechanical press acts as a shutter button .
lead into options and the button can be changed to give the flashlight , go recording a vocalism memo , enable availableness zoom or enact any shortcut devised in the Shortcut app . It ’s nifty to see Apple get to the employment of this button up to anything , even if there ’s still plentitude of room for improvement .
For representative , having one functionality set to a single press and another to double press seems like a no - brainer – allowing me to press once for the camera and twice to ensure the phone is in dumb mode . This could also work with long and shorter presses .
You do miss out on the unexampled Capture Control clit by prefer for the iPhone 15 Pro Max in lieu of the 16 Pro Max , however . The Modern button not only allows you to activate the photographic camera shutter via a forcible clitoris , but with a tinge - enable surface , you’re able to swipe to access television camera controls and even zoom . Whether this is worth the extra hard cash is largely down to your use - case , however .
The replacement for the Lightning larboard isUSB - C , a connector found on MacBooks , iPads , Android phone , cameras , theNintendo Switchand much more besides . It ’s taken long enough for Apple to adopt the standard larboard , and we ’ve likely make newfangled EU statute law to give thanks for the move .
There ’s little to say about the port wine . It ’s great being able to charge a MacBook , iPhone and iPad from a individual cable – but if you ’ve got Lightning cables , accessories or AirPods consist around then you ’ll still need multiple cable system to charge everything .
Another big modification this class is the electrical switch from a untainted steel body to one finish with grade 5 titanium . Apple is really perish big on titanium with its merchandising for the fresh phone , plastering it across idiot box spots and adverts . In my two weeks with the phone , it feel to me like the variety has been good .
Switching to titanium has had a noticeable effect on the phone ’s overall weight . The iPhone 15 Pro Max is around 19 gram light than the 14 Pro Max , which might go minimal but in use make a world of difference . I always felt the Pro Max series has been far too heavy , and thankfully that ’s no longer an topic .
atomic number 22 should also add some extra strength to the sides of the phone , although after a solid year of use – all without a causa – my iPhone 14 Pro Max remains in inviolable pristine condition . Thankfully , that ’s also the sheath here after nearly a year of constant use .
AnIP68rating for protection from piddle and detritus remains , and Apple’sCeramic Shieldremains to total protection to the screen . The slightly sheer screen will likely make apply screen protectors a slight trickier , but so far my filmdom has remained free of any notable scratch .
Now , as ever with an Apple launch , there has been some controversy . Online bend trial have shown the 15 Pro Max to be well-off to bend and snap than previous iPhones , in all likelihood due to the new intention that makes repairing the back part of the phone well-off and cheaper than before . While I ca n’t say you wo n’t disclose the phone if you deform it , I would n’t paint a picture trying that and I would be very surprised if this telephone set break due to the novel design in general use .
Making the glass portion of the back capable to be fix without have the twist apart is important in numerous ways . It appropriate Apple to charge far less for a repair , which means those who crack the back glass are more likely to get it revivify rather than picking up a whole new phone .
Along with make the phone easier to renovate , the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a geomorphologic frame made from 100 % recycled aluminium and a box free of single - use plastic .
Screen
Apple ’s Pro line of phones has always had some of the good screens around , and the adorable 6.7 - inch control board on the 15 Pro Max is no unlike .
In business line with the invention changes , the bezel run around the display is thinner than it was on the iPhone 14 Pro Max . I retrieve this is a obtrusive improvement , especially if you ’re coming from an older iPhone , and it make video content and games a piffling more immersive .
fragile bezel away , the silver screen here matches up to what Apple ship last year . It remains anOLEDpanel , with a sharp 2796 x 1290 resolution , has impressive levels of luminance if you ’re alfresco in cheery condition and feels smooth thanks to theProMotionadaptive refresh charge per unit feature .
If you like find out videos on your telephone , there ’s no better selection than the 15 Pro Max . No other phone I have used bring about an HDR prototype as convincing as this , with the hopeful level work itself at once have intercourse . Spider - Man Across The Spider - Verse inDolby Visionreally down off the screen door with the hopeful colours and deep dividing line making great use of the screen .
TheDynamic Islandalso remains , offering up a secondary screen area for static notifications from certain apps and Live Activities .
I still find the Dynamic Island is a stepping Isidor Feinstein Stone until we get that true all - screen iPhone and it has n’t really been truly used properly by developers . Some apps work fantastically well with it – Fotmob ’s sports rafts and Flighty ’s flight trailing being two of my favourite – but there still seems an curious disconnect between system notifications and Dynamic Island notification that can be confusing . It ’s better than a notch , though and now it ’s present on all the newfangled iPhones , developers could be more keen to use it in interesting means .
It ’s deserving observe that the iPhone 16 Pro Max offers a larger 6.9 - inch concealment with slimmer bezel than the iPhone 15 Pro Max , so it might be worth considering the new version if you want the largest digital canvas possible .
Camera
The big news program regarding the camera for the iPhone 15 Pro Max is that Apple has last improved the quality of the telephotograph zoom , upping it from a 3x zoom to a far more utile 5x ( 120 mm eq ) .
This is still way off what Samsung offers with theGalaxy S23 Ultraand Galaxy S24 Ultra – still the rapid growth champ in my optic – and this added rapid climb is only useable on the Max version , with the smaller Pro sticking to the same 3x telephotograph lens .
Throughout my sentence shooting with the iPhone 15 Pro Max I have found myself punching into the 5x crystalline lens far more than I ever did with the 3x alternative .
Being able-bodied to get that snatch closer is so much more utile and it offer far more versatility . I always plant 3x did n’t really get youthatmuch closer , whereas shooting far aside tall buildings in primal London with the 5x feels worthwhile . The quality of the images is good , specially in daylight situations where colours are robust and elaborated . The plus of OIS and sensor - shift stabilisation help too .
Things are less telling in down - light situations , where the sensor – which is much small than the one inside the main camera – battle and often fills image with noisy item .
I have even noticed in some darker situation that the television camera will ditch the telephoto camera wholly and just zoom in from the chief camera , with no obvious way to stop this happening .
The other two rear television camera and the undivided camera on the front are mostly unaltered – though several tweaks in the software have meliorate the overall photography experience .
The 48 - megapixel f/1.8 main photographic camera , for instance , now shoots 24 - megapixel shots by default , tote up an extra hit of detail for only a marginally larger file size . The 12 - megapixel radical - wide feels a little left out , though still capture nice photos that match the main sensor for colour reproduction .
There ’s also now the option to move the master camera between 24 millimetre ( 1x ) , 28 mm ( 1.2x ) and 35 mm ( 1.5x ) and any of these can be set as the default focal length – great if you do it shoot at 35 mm and want it always at hand . This is all using software system shenanigan , with Apple’sDeep Fusiontech and various methods of commingle multiple shots together . The results are very honest , and do n’t look like simply using digital zoom .
As someone who spends a bunch of time adopt pictures of my pawl , I really care the way portrayal way work on the iPhone 15 Pro Max . Instead of force you into the dedicated portrait style ahead of time , the camera is now smart enough to let you add together that blurry background bokeh effect even after the photo is taken .
This does n’t run at Nox , or for every daylight centering , but if you ’re taking a crack of a person or an animal , you ’ll see an choice in the Photos to tot the portrait effect . It even make with selfies too .
you’re able to also move focus after the fact , giving a lot more freedom to be creative . This all works just as well as starting thing off in portrayal mode , just without sacrificing a shot if the effect does n’t forge .
I still securely consider that which camera telephone is the dependable varies widely depending on what you want from a photo . The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra ( and more recently the Galaxy S24 Ultra ) has more of a puncher to brighter colours , while theGoogle Pixel 8Pro push highlighting and counterpoint up to give a more striking effect . Then there ’s theXiaomi 13 Ultra , which aspire to do as little as possible to the effigy .
For me , the iPhone 15 Pro Max does a little spot of everything : colours are natural and realistic and details are present without looking oversharpened . The iPhone also remain fabulously reliable , producing a usable image moderately much every unmarried time – I ca n’t say this about the Galaxy Ultra series . Apple ’s focus on hard lighter conditions has left universal outside landscape picture taking looking very much the same as it did two or three generations ago . I think landscape painting shot look that great , with a very flat overall range . This can be said for a lot of phones , though .
I will still give Google the upper hand in low - light situation though . Here , I find the iPhone ’s lens still too reflective and this leaves weird reflections on the result image .
The big new addition to the TV skills of the iPhone this yr is the power to shoot in log . This is a format favoured by videographers as it captures a very vapid base image , which can then be colour - graded to give a more distinct stylus .
Shooting in log allows colours to be far more easily match up between different camera , something that pro will take account as long as they are felicitous to pip inProReslog . The iPhone 15 Pro Max ( and the other simulation in the class , for that matter ) frivol away the good video of any earphone we have review .
It ’s worth noting that the new iPhone 16 Pro Max front to offer an raise experience with a new 48MP ultrawide with autofocus that allows it to reduplicate up as a macro lens , and it ’s also open of shoot at an upgraded 4K@120fps for unmatched slow - mo caliber . Results from the primary and 5x telephoto should stay on par , with minimum yr - on - twelvemonth acclivity .
Performance
The iPhone 15 Pro Max is powered by theA17 Prochipset , a change in name from the Bionic branding Apple has used for its chip over the past few years . Base entrepot jumps up to 256 GB – a move that allows Apple to avoid talk of a terms rise – and cash in one’s chips all the way to 1 TB . RAM has derail from 6 GB to 8 GB , too .
There ’s plenty to get frantic about here , and it does seem like that ‘ Pro ’ branding is appropriate .
The Apple A17 Pro packs a 6 - gist CPU , which consist of four eminent - efficiency cores plus two high - public presentation cores for power - intensive workloads . That ’s the same composition of the CPU found inside the A16 Bionic and A15 Bionic mainframe , although the check is now built on the more efficient3nmprocess . There ’s a boost to the GPU too – Apple pronounce around 20 % – and a pile of promise of this cow chip in its graphics accomplishment .
you’re able to see how the iPhone 15 Pro Max performs in our usual suite of benchmarking trial below , but secure to say this phone has a well-to-do lead over its Android counterparts if synthetical benchmark phone number are important .
A high spot for me during Apple ’s launching of the iPhone 15 serial was the news that ‘ console - quality games ’ , including Resident Evil 4 and Assassin ’s Creed Mirage , will be get on the App Store , but the two Resident Evil biz are a motley bag . From tricksy carrying into action to flyspeck menus clearly designed for larger screens , it seems very much like this melodic theme remain in its infancy and hopefully improves in the future tense .
A lot is going on with the A17 Pro chip , though for most the great unwashed the sheer mightiness onboard will in all likelihood be never fully utilised . From an everyday use perspective , the iPhone 15 Pro Max finger fast and antiphonal , but I have order the same about each old iPhone I have review . There ’s nothing perceptibly different here .
It ’s not as tight as the iPhone 16 Pro Max ’s A18 Pro chipset , with year - on - twelvemonth gains of 20 % in the GPU section and 15 % in the CPU department , but it ’s still among the most powerful smartphones you ’ll discover in late 2024 .
The addition of the USB - C embrasure on the bottom does increase the functionality of the earpiece pretty . Unlike the stock USB 2 embrasure on the iPhone 15 , the Pro version have a USB 3 port that offers much quicker file transfers when using a capable cable . Frustratingly , Apple does n’t provide a profligate cable with the phone , so that ’ll need to be picked up severally .
you may also plug away in USB - carbon add-on – an Mount Rushmore State menu lecturer , for exemplar , to quickly import snaps from a tv camera or an SSD to capture ProRes video get around the phone ’s computer memory . It ’s these changes that make this an excellent iPhone upgrade .
Wi - Fi 6Esupport is great for those who have a suffer router , and while a physical SIM slot rest in all models aside from those sell in the USA , eSIMis a welcome option for tramp .
Software
The iPhone 15 Pro Max comes running Io 17 , the same software rolling out to phones as old as theiPhone XRandXS . Apple does n’t confirm how many succeeding software system update this phone will get but expect it to receive big update packed with new features for at least five to six years , and very likely longer .
As the absolute majority of iOS 17 features add up to erstwhile telephone set , there ’s no obvious intellect to upgrade for the new software , Still , there are mickle of exciting additions here .
Highlights for me includeStandBy , a kind of bedside mode that leap into train when the telephone is charging horizontally . I ’ve catch this setup on my bedside board , with TwelveSouth ’s bang-up fiddling Forte dock , so that when I bulge the phone down to file it exhibit a clock , any calendar designation I have and the weather . It do work great as a smart alarm clock , with Live natural process , notifications and euphony playback baked in .
What ’s more , with the upgrade to iOS 18 , the iPhone 15 Pro Max will be one of two model of iPhone 15 that ’ll be able-bodied to tender the full Apple Intelligence experience . That think of that the iPhone 15 Pro Max will offer genAI - power features like a smarter , more responsive Siri , young image editing tools , the ability to create custom emoji and so much more once iOS 18 is released , so Apple Intelligence should n’t be a ground for you to opt for the iPhone 16 Pro Max instead .
Battery Life
Battery life sentence was n’t a notable talking tip during the launch of the iPhone 15 series and if you look at Apple ’s site , it only compares survival against theiPhone 12 Pro . After having used the phone for nearly two calendar week , I can see why it was n’t mentioned much – it ’s almost indistinguishable to that of the iPhone 14 Pro Max .
There ’s no huge advance in survival here , and how long the earphone finis will really depend on how arduous it is push . If you ’re a lighter user , mainly texting throughout the day with some TikTok scrolling and very canonical gambling thrown in then it should last just about two days . turn off the always - on display option , and you ’re almost warrant to get that two day .
labor the phone hard though , and a nightly direction is required . register ProRes footage in the camera hinder battery aliveness , as does swarm HDR content that push the brightness level levels of the cover up .
I ran a bunch of barrage fire tests on the iPhone 15 Pro Max and most of the results are exactly the same as the iPhone 14 Pro Max . An 60 minutes of HDR content streamed from Netflix ate through 8 % on the new phone and 9 % on last year ’s role model . 30 moment of intensive play took off 8 % on the 14 Pro Max , and 9 % here .
Most days throughout the revaluation period I have ended up with 20 - 30 % left in the storage tank – enough to last me a dawning commute If I forget to plug the telephone set in overnight , but not a full 2nd day . This compare to good electric battery life , though nothing out of the ordinary for a phone of this size .
I was expecting Apple to rivet a little more on commove speeds with the move to USB - C , speeding up the time it took the phone to go from 0 - 100 % . This is n’t the case , and it still take roughly 90 minutes for a full bearing and 30 minutes for 50 % . These numbers stayed the same , whether I was using an Apple 20w nag or a 30w capable alternative from Anker .
It ’s pretty clear that Apple , like Samsung and Google , have no interest in combat Taiwanese brands like Oppo , OnePlus and Xiaomi for super - rapid charging speeds .
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Should you buy it?
This is thebest iPhone of the iPhone 15 range of mountains – it ’s as comfortable as that . It has the best photographic camera , the secure screen and the design changes make it the most approachable Max gimmick yet .
While this stay a great sound , the new iPhone 16 Pro Max does offer upgrade in the anatomy of a larger presentation with fragile bezels , a boost ultrawide , debauched public presentation and better battery life-time .
Final Thoughts
The iPhone 15 Pro Max is an exceptional smartphone , even in the face of the newer iPhone 16 Pro Max .
Apple has fixed the telephone number of way out I had with theiPhone 14 Pro Max . The exercising weight has been drastically reduced , the sides rounded for a comfier feel and the defunct Lightning port wine supplant with a much more modern option . Then there are the little changes like the flatness side repelling fingerprints and the bezel being reduce .
It would have been nice if the charging had been faster and a higher - specced USB - C had been included in the box . The Mary Leontyne Price has also jumped up , by process of the bag 128 GB model saying bye - bye . front at the 256 GB models though and the UK cost has actually slightly drop over last year .
The new iPhone 16 Pro Max might have a slightly expectant 6.9 - inch concealment with slimmer bezels , a boost ultrawide and fast public presentation from the A18 Pro chipset , but for the most part , you ’re bewilder the same core iPhone experience with the year - old model , complete with Apple Intelligence financial backing .
Trusted Score
How we test
We prove every mobile phone we brush up good . We use industry received tests to liken features properly and we use the phone as our main twist over the review article period . We ’ll always tell you what we discover and we never , ever , accept money to go over a product .
FAQs
Four colours are available : Black Titanium , Blue Titanium , White Titanium and Natural Titanium .
The telephone set should saddle quickest with chargers between 20 and 30w . A full charge take around 90 minute .
Test Data
Full Specs
