iPhone 15 & iPhone 15 Plus Review: The Verdict
The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus may only have small updates on paper, but the devices punch well above what you'd expect. While we may be past the time of groundbreaking phone innovations, with these handsets Apple has proved itself the master of the incremental update.
What we love
- Amazing battery life all around
- Cameras outperform the iPhone 14 Pro
- Joyful UI
What could be improved
- USB 2 speeds only
- Last year's chipset
The essentials
- Performance: The second best you'll find on a phone.
- Battery: Six to seven hours of screen time on the standard 15 and eight to nine on the Plus. Should easily last most users one and a half to two days depending on the model.
- Screen: Gorgeous. No complaints.
- Camera: A huge jump up in quality - enough to convince some amateur phone photographers to save money and go for the base model rather than the Pros.
90/100
Small but significant. I must have uttered that phrase a thousand times since I got my hands on the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus.
Small.
Significant.
Incremental updates have become standard for phones, and while the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus have followed this trend these tiny changes add up. Some extra MP, a new take on an animation, curvier edges. Both the scale of, and feats of the updates are small but their total sum makes these phones feel like something brand new.
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Little lens, large leg up
Of the thoughtful improvements, those on the camera are among the most impactful on the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus. Android phone manufacturers have a tendency to throw in bonus megapixels without paying much attention to the quality of the finished shot. Apple has done the opposite, and in doing so the base models are outshooting last year’s Pros.
Both devices benefit from the upgrade to a 48MP sensor on the primary camera, resulting in sharper shots with more true-to-life colour. Simple snaps from the iPhone 15 main lens are visibly better than the same shot from the iPhone 14 Pro. Take this shot below. Where my dog’s eye is hard to make out with all the dark fur on the iPhone 14 Pro shot, it is significantly clearer on the iPhone 15 Plus version. There is also more depth of colour on both the couch, and her brown fur coming down her paws. While the iPhone 14 Pro shot is clear and sharp, it looks hazy next to the iPhone 15’s crisp clarity.
Shot on iPhone 14 Pro
Shot on iPhone 15
This clarity is less of a result of the lens itself, and more from the MP count on the finished product. Last year's Pro models used a similar 48MP camera, but the resulting shots were compressed to 12MP unless you shot in ProRAW. More pixels means more detail.
The exception to this 24MP rule is using night mode when the sensor drops down to 12MP again. While you lose the MP count using night mode for low-light photography, the results are still overwhelmingly better with it. See these flowers both with and without night mode - despite the higher MP without, the night mode shot shows better detail within the florals and the leaves.
Night mode off
Night mode on
There are a handful of other fun additions to the camera, but the one you’ll probably use the most is the new Portrait. When a frame shows a subject with a face an ‘f’ button will turn up on screen, tapping that will switch that shot to portrait mode while you’re snapping away. This effect can also be applied later on, on any picture labelled “portrait” in your gallery. It works just as well whether you’re shooting live or fixing it up in post, but like any portrait mode the better defined the edges of the subject are the better it will turn out.
In the past, photography fiends would certainly need to flock to the 15 Pro and Pro Max, but the iPhone 15 series brings the best of both worlds to the base models. While they lack the additional telephoto lens, the upgrades make a compelling argument for even avid phone photographers to save money and forgo the Pro.
iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus camera samples
Check out these camera samples taken on the iPhone 15 family. Click or tap on any photo to see a larger version.
Dainty design developments
Apple’s most significant design changes for the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus have been digital rather than physical. Playful animations, and the persistent UI of the Dynamic Island bring a fresh feel to the user experience that makes the phones feel further apart from its predecessors.
Dynamic Island replaced the Notch in the Pro models last year and has slowly gained more functionality as developers leant into the tech. As more apps add interactive Island elements the pill becomes a more useful way to navigate active functions without leaving your home screen. As with the iPhone 14 Pro series, you shouldn’t upgrade specifically because of the Dynamic Island but the more you play with it the more entertaining it is.
Ultimately, the pill is a playful way to interact with your phone - it expands, multiplies, shrinks, undulates - it reminds me of a Windows Media Player animation circa 2010. It also seemingly has paved the way for Apple to lean further into the quirkiness of the horizontal lava lamp with its other animations.
iPhone 15 comes with iOS 17 which has an array of new, entirely joyful animations. I won’t go into too much depth, but the style of these new animations are bright, colourful, and at times include playful haptics. The Tap to Share AirDrop animation in particular is an absolute delight. The two phones seemingly pull from the charger upward, warping your apps as a cloud of sparkles travels up the phone until they meet and bounce back to normal. Your phones are then connected and ready to AirDrop. Apple didn’t need to make this animation so effervescent, but it did and in doing so set a fresh tone for its tech.
The multitude of small animation changes in the iPhone 15 design make a deft impact on the air in which you use the iPhone. Adding an almost childish flavour with these choices gives the new phones a different character to previous iterations, and ultimately makes the tech fun in a way it hasn’t felt in a long time.
What's in a port?
The switch from Lightning to USB-C is the biggest change to the iPhone moving forward, but it would be a footnote in any other review. This really shouldn’t be such a big deal, but in a very unApple move the manufacturer didn’t build in ecosystem-specific limitations to the port, and as such opened up iPhone users to a world of possibilities.
iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus both come with USB 2 which has a max transfer speed of 480Mbps. It is not the best-case scenario by any means, but base model 15s can be used to reverse charge pretty much anything that you can plug a USB-C into. I’ve used it to connect microphones, charge up headphones, and transfer photos from a camera to my phone. This is only scratching the surface - in our iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max review another editor hooked up a range of instruments to the devices. There are plenty of possibilities. The thing I am most looking forward to, however, is only needing to pack one kind of charging cable next trip. It really is the small things.
Some things have stayed consistent with these models - namely the battery life and performance. Since the iPhone 15 has the same A16 Bionic chipset, performance is exactly the same as the iPhone 14 Pros from last year. You’ll likely notice an uptick in speed when upgrading from the iPhone 12 or older, but anything newer than that the improvements will be marginal.
Battery life is about the same as last year’s base models, with the Plus clocking in a whopping eight to nine hours of screen time per charge and the 15 at around six to seven hours. Both of these devices will give you about a day-and-a-half of ordinary use between charges, so you won’t need to worry about topping up before heading out in the evening.
iPhone 15 & iPhone 15 Plus - Final Thoughts
The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus will become the poster children for incremental updates done well. The cadence of updates on Apple products has slowed but the ones that were made on these devices have proven to have a tangible impact on the user experience. It is how it should be - measured, and deliberate decisions that add value, not just tick boxes on a spec sheet.
Improvements to the camera, and user experience on top of the solid foundation of previous iPhones make the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus the right choice for more people than ever.
Anula Wiwatowska
Offsite Editorial Lead | Instagram
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