iPhone 14 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro Buyer's Guide: 40 Upgrades Compared

[Apple_Robert]

This post made my MR day. 😁

Your post reminded me of one of my fav movies.

 

[imtoretto]

Nor would I. But a 13 Pro Max, or in my case the 13 Pro, yeah, it's a nice upgrade.

HEY MATE, JUST REPEAT AFTER ME: I DONT NEED IT, I WANT IT. LOL

 

[lietsche]

Overall, the iPhone 15 Pro is a fairly significant upgrade...

For me it seems that the author is trying to justify the purchase for himself here.
Or hoping that Apple gives MR some Kudos for giving their readers incentive to upgrade.

Because in the end it is not a significant upgrade.

 

[mrmod]

minor upgrade and the iPhone 14 can do satellite roadside assistance too

 

[spinedoc77]

Man, I went from waiting in line for an iPhone, to just rushing to work to catch the whole keynote, to just browsing the keynote highlights, to maybe glancing at some major points of the keynote the next day. These phones are really now meant to last 3-5 years with the lack of upgrades, although I will say the 5x zoom is enticing. But otherwise just meh, even though my 13 pro max isn't my daily driver anymore I don't think I have much interest in upgrading beyond it. Not just lack of updates, but they took away functionality IMO with the loss of the sound toggle and the 14s loss of the physical SIM card. USB-C is nice if it wasn't for Apple gouging consumers even more with their MiFi certification crap.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

I am interested in comparison between iPhone 14 Pro to iPhone 15

 

[Böhme417]

I have just installed iOS17 RC on my 14 PM and under Camera settings I can now select HEIF 48 Mega Pixels. It is not exclusive of 15 Pro; same i believe for Roadside Assistance.

Yeah, MR really needs to fix their inaccurate chart.

 

[JitteryJimmy]

The era of the annual upgrades I feel is largely over save the early adopters and YouTube tech people.

Was there ever an era for annual upgrades, save the early adopters and YouTube Influs?

Back in the day of "service contracts", the typical plan centered around a 2-year device replacement schedule

 

[JohnRckr]

All these fancy names like "aero grade titanium", "tetraprism" and so on. So typical of Apple. No wonder the easy minded people always fall for it.

 

[Skyscraperfan]

As some YouTubers pointed out adding "Pro" to the A17 name seems like a strange decision, because the jump from last year's processor is smaller than in most other years. Just 20% more graphics performance for example. That is the minimum to expect when having six instead of five graphics cores.

So will the "A17 Pro" still keep the "Pro" when it lands in the iPhone 16 next year?

It is sad that they use the thin bezels to make the pro iPhones smaller instead of making the screens larger. Doesn't that also mean that the new phones have less space for components?

 

[spinedoc77]

As a current 14 Pro user, I hear you. But I don't think Apple is targeting those that upgrade every year no matter what. Why would they? They don't need to. Those customers represent a much smaller percentage of the overall iPhone user base than some here may realize. Thus, and wisely, Apple is focused the 2-3 year upgrader (and beyond). Through that lens, these upgrades are much more significant. Even moving from a 13 Pro sees some pretty nice updates. I know their yearly updater expects Apple to reinvent science every tear, but that's just not as doable as some would hope.

As a yearly upgrader, I'm most looking forward to the device weigh savings and camera advancements. Should be fun.

But that still means less sales, of course that's assuming that in the past yearly upgraders were a significant portion of sales. I suspect (although have no numbers) that yearly upgraders were indeed significant until 3 or 4 years ago when iPhone updates became very stagnated in relation to what your average consumer might care for: a good enough camera and large screen. I used to be hardcore upgrade every single year regardless of what changed, but I've hung onto my 13 pro max and have really almost zero (maaayyyybbbeee the 5x zoom) incentive to ugprade. But yeah, I'm sure Apple still has the 2-3 year upgrader all wrapped up.

 

[macduke]

This isn't accurate as it's coming to the 14 Pro as well: Emergency SOS via satellite and Roadside Assistance via satellite

This isn't really a feature, because it doesn't support the full feature set of Qi 2, just does 7.5W charging unless you use official magsafe (by this standard 14 Pro also does this): Support for Qi 2 wireless charging

 

[Umacga]

Shill? They’re a company that sells phones. That’s not “shilling”, that’s selling their product. What the heck are you on?

"We know what you're really trying to do with this 'ad campaign,' Honda. You're just trying to trick us into buying more cars but we're onto you."

 

[dashtekahe]

The iPhone 15 Pro succeeds 2022's iPhone 14 Pro, bringing over 35 new features and improvements to Apple's high-end smartphones. This buyer's guide breaks down every major difference you should be aware of between the two generations.

In 2022, Apple unveiled the iPhone 14 Pro as the successor to the popular iPhone 13 Pro, introducing an always-on display, the Dynamic Island, a 48-megapixel camera, the A16 Bionic chip, longer battery life, and more. The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have now been discontinued by Apple, and as slightly older models, lower prices can be found for the device at third-party resellers. As such, some customers who own an older device may be weighing up whether to upgrade to an iPhone 14 Pro or an iPhone 15 Pro.

As the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro share a large number of features, should you consider buying or sticking with the iPhone 14 Pro to save money? Our guide helps to answer the question of how to decide which of these two iPhone models is best for you, and serves as a way to clearly see the all of the differences that the iPhone 15 Pro brings to the table.

Although the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro share most of their basic features, the iPhone 15 Pro offers a large number of notable upgrades over its predecessor, such as a titanium design, Action button, USB-C port, and A17 Bionic chip.

iPhone 14 Pro	iPhone 15 Pro
Surgical-grade stainless steel chassis with squared-off edges	Aerospace-grade titanium chassis with contoured edges
–	Thinner borders around the display for slightly smaller overall footprint
7.85mm depth	8.25mm depth (0.4mm thicker)
206g or 240g weight	187g or 221g weight (19g lighter)
Ring/Silent switch	Action button
A16 Bionic chip (5nm)	A17 Pro chip (3nm)
6-core CPU	6-core CPU (up to 10% faster)
5-core GPU	6-core GPU with with hardware-accelerated ray tracing (up to 20% faster)
16-core Neural Engine	16-core Neural Engine (up to 2x faster)
–	Dedicated AV1 decoder
6GB memory	8GB memory
Telephoto camera with second-generation sensor-shift optical image stabilization	Telephoto camera with larger sensor, folded tetraprism design, optical image stabilization, and autofocus 3D sensor-shift module (Pro Max only)
0.5x, 1x, 2x, and 3x optical zoom	0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x, and 5x optical zoom (5x on Pro Max only)
–	13mm, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 77mm, and 120mm focal length picker (120mm on Pro Max only)
48-megapixel super-high-resolution photos	24- and 48-megapixel super-high-resolution photos
48-megapixel ProRAW capture	48-megapixel ProRAW and 48-megapixel HEIF capture with 4x more resolution
Smart HDR 4	Smart HDR 5
Portrait mode with Focus and Depth Control	Next-generation portraits with Focus and Depth Control
Night mode and Night mode portraits	Improved Night mode and Night mode portraits
ProRes video recording up to 4K at 30 fps	ProRes video recording up to 4K at 60 fps with external recording
Action mode	Improved Action mode and low-light video
–	Log video recording
–	Academy Color Encoding System
–	Record spatial video for Apple Vision Pro
–	Shoot and instantly transfer 48-megapixel ProRAW images to Mac via USB 3
–	Improved audio quality on phone calls
Wi‑Fi 6 connectivity	Wi‑Fi 6E connectivity
–	Thread networking technology
First-generation Ultra Wideband chip	Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip (connects from 3x further away)
–	Precision Finding for Find My friends
Emergency SOS via satellite	Emergency SOS via satellite and Roadside Assistance via satellite
Lightning port	USB-C port
USB 2 transfer speeds (up to 480Mb/s)	USB 3 transfer speeds (up to 10Gb/s, 20x faster)
Support for Qi wireless charging	Support for Qi 2 wireless charging
128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options	128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options (no 128GB tier on Pro Max)
Available in Deep Purple, Gold, Silver, and Space Black	Natural Titanium, Blue Titanium, White Titanium, and Black Titanium

Overall, the iPhone 15 Pro is a fairly significant upg... Click here to read rest of article

Article Link: iPhone 14 Pro vs. iPhone 15 Pro Buyer's Guide: 35+ Upgrades Compared

I think I will stay with 13pro for another 2 or 3 years. Most of the new things introduced with iPhone 15 sound gimmick in reality.

 

[MrGuder]

This is a great article.
I can’t believe the 14 pro was over 200 grams.

I’m seriously considering upgrading my 11 pro (188 grams) to the 15 pro (187 grams) I think it will be a nice upgrade.

I’m also thinking I might go up in size to the 15 pro max. Not sure yet.

 

[rhaezorblue]

I say this every year, but remember to take into consideration depreciation. If you know you will upgrade in a year or two, this can be an important factor not to forget. This probably wont matter to folks who hold onto their phones for 8 years until the wheels fall off, to turn a phrase.

Carriers will typically give much more $ to a 1 year old iPhone vs a 2 or 3 year old device. I have no skin in this game if you upgrade or not, but just something to think about.

The scenario would be holding onto your iphone for 2 years, then trading it in to "save money" - check with trade in deals, it can actually save more to get the higher trade in value.

 

[PowerMac5500]

Used to be an annual upgrader but I have absolutely zero interest in this year’s iPhones. 9% decrease in weight, same main camera sensor, action button that doesn’t really change anything.. is it worth another $600+ (not including tax)?

Buying out my 14 PM on the iUP and waiting to see what the 16 PM is like.

On top of that, I think this is possibly the ugliest iPhone yet.

 

[Kiwamu]

As some YouTubers pointed out adding "Pro" to the A17 name seems like a strange decision, because the jump from last year's processor is smaller than in most other years. Just 20% more graphics performance for example. That is the minimum to expect when having six instead of five graphics cores.

So will the "A17 Pro" still keep the "Pro" when it lands in the iPhone 16 next year?

I would wager, this is a way to justify a specced down coming A17 for the coming iP16 so the IP15Pro will still "shine."

They already noticed, that they can offer the newest chip in the pro, instead of the base iPhone and I guess this is a way to make use of "faulty" chips that have less cores enabled.

 

[dashtekahe]

Completely, I'll be holding on to 14 pro for 2-4 years.

I’ll be holding on to 13pro for another 2 years at least.

 

[bdhokie]

Would love to see a similar breakdown from the iPhone 13 Pro/Max phones. This is a great post though making it easy to see the upgrades of each feature and component.

 

[floral]

Good article - but I wish you had included the actual dimensions of the two phones. You elude to smaller physical dimensions due to thinner borders, but the only dimension you give is thickness - which is actually an increase.

Overall, I think this upgrade is completely underwhelming. The "average" user (i.e. not photographers or gamers) will only notice 3 improvements: a bit lighter, the action button (although I'm not convinced it's much more useful than the existing double-tap-on-the-back, which can also have custom actions), and the 5x optical zoom on the Max. The move to USB-C is either a big nothing-burger for most people or even a negative if they had invested in lightning-based peripherals. The data speed improvements of USB (apparently only on the Pro models) are probably going to be useless to most people as they probably rarely connect their phones to anything anymore, except to charge them.

The most interesting thing announced yesterday was the possibility of generous trade-ins via the partners. If my wife and I can upgrade our 14 Pro Max for a 15 Pro Max for only $200, it'll be worth it to us because of the lighter design.

The "average" user would also buy the normal iPhone 15, not the Pro one...


The Pro model is, surprisingly, for professional users.

 

[airwalk331]

I kind of throw up in my mouth a little every year Apple advertises the "dynamic island" and "thinner bezels" as "features". Like, really? I'd much rather have a sleek interface WITHOUT the large black spot at the top of the screen.

 

[macos9rules]

I disagree with the 15 pro being a “significant” upgrade over the 14 pro. Its a nice refinement. You can always count on the new iphone being better than the last but If i was to upgrade from my 14 pro i doubt i would ever notice a difference.

Same. I’ll definitely keep my iPhone Pro Max 14.

 

[Saturn1217]

View attachment 2260788


iPhone 14 pro can do HEIF 48 MP

Does this mean the "Most Compatible" format option is gone?!

Not sure how I feel about that.

 

[urbZZ]

It is only worth sticking with the ‌iPhone 14 Pro‌ if you are holding off for an even more substantial upgrade in the future.

That`s a joke, right? How much is the author paid by Apple?? I own a 11pro max and even I see absolutely no substantial upgrade here for me in daily use! I bet battery life is even better on the 11 pro max than on 15…