iPhone 15 Pro Max Intro
What’s new in iPhone 15 Pro Max
- New titanium build material
- Weighs much less than before
- Faster A17 Pro processor
- USB Type-C charging and data port with USB 3 speeds
- New 5x zoom camera
- Camera now shoots 24 MP photos, instead of 12 MP
- Same screen size, thinner bezels
- New Action Button instead of Mute switch
Table of Contents:
iPhone 15 Pro Max Unboxing
(Image Credit – PhoneArena) iPhone 15 Pro has a USB-C cable, but no charger in the box
What you do get in the box is a braided USB-C cable in white, but do keep in mind that this is a USB 2 cable, while the iPhone itself supports the USB 3 standard, so if you want to use these faster transfer rates, you would need to purchase a USB 3 cable separately.
iPhone 15 Pro Max Specs
Another year another processor… oh, is that USB C?
| Specs | iPhone 15 Pro Max |
|---|---|
| Size and Weight | 6.30 x 3.02 x 0.32 inches (159.9 x 76.7 x 8.25 mm) 7.80 oz (221.0 g) |
| Display | 6.7″ OLED 120Hz ProMotion 2,000 nits peak |
| Processor | A17 Pro 3 nm |
| Storage and Price | 256 GB – $1,199 512 GB – $1,399 1 TB – $1,599 |
| Software | iOS 17 |
| Cameras | 48 MP main 12 MP ultra 12 MP 5X zoom 12 MP front |
| Battery Size | 4,422 mAh |
| Charging Speeds | 27 W wired 15 W MagSafe |
iPhone 15 Pro Max Design & Colors
Attack on Titanium
(Image Credit – PhoneArena)
The rest is as it should be — a massive camera bump with three lenses on the back, a flat metal frame, and a screen with a Dynamic Island cutout on the front.
By default, the Action button will still function as a mute switch. But you can also customize it to do various actions upon holding it down — turn on the flashlight, open an app, enter a Focus Mode, but best of all you can use the Shortcuts app to do literally anything and everything. Some clever suggestions include setting the Action button to run the Google Assistant, start a Spotify playlist, and we are looking forward to your ideas in the comments.
As for that USB-C port on the bottom, it is here thanks to European legislation rather than Apple’s own will, but that’s for the better as it means the end of cable clutter. And the new Apple A17 Pro chip allows for super-fast data transfer speeds (finally), which lets you copy files from your iPhone at up to 10 Gbps.
iPhone 15 Pro Max Display
(Image Credit – PhoneArena)
The iPhone 15 Pro Max sticks to a 6.7-inch OLED panel, as before. And yes, it still has the Dynamic Island cutout we first saw on the 14 Pro series.
We get to enjoy that 120 Hz ProMotion refresh rate, the Always On feature (which used to be a bit too “on”, but iOS settings now let us tone it down), and super-high brightness capabilities for watching HDR video in any situation.
Display Benchmarks
In our lab tests, we found similar results as the previous model, but we hoped for lower minimum brightness for more comfortable use of the phone in bed, but that has not happened.
iPhone 15 Pro Max Camera
Up periscope! Uh… I mean — up tetraprism!
(Image Credit – PhoneArena) Familiar stove design
The iPhone 15 Pro Max has the familiar triple camera with a LiDAR system, and now uses its internal room to house a new 5x zoom lens (120 mm equivalent).
- 48 MP main/wide camera
- 12 MP ultra-wide
- 12 MP 5x zoom telephoto lens
The telephoto lens now has a tetraprism design, which allows for a 5x optical zoom — that’s an upgrade over last year’s 3x. When you punch in the digital zoom, the iPhone 15 Pro Max can go up to 25x, which is up from the previous model’s 15x.
Tetraprism lens
What about zoom levels between 1x and 5x? Especially for portrait shots? Well, Apple is very confident in its ability to harness the power of the 48 MP sensor to give us “lossless” zoom not only 2X (48mm), but now also at 1.2X (28mm) and 1.5X (35mm). These are super popular focal lengths and you can even set your iPhone to default to say a 1.5X mode, which is definitely something we will do.
You can definitely see a big improvement in quality at 5X and 10X zoom levels with clean detail and excellent stabilization, so shots turn out crisp both during the day and in low light.
You can now also shoot 48 MP photos in HEIF instead of RAW, which is much more storage-efficient. And, thanks to the USB 3 port, videographers can record 4K 60 FPS footage in ProRes straight to an external storage device for easier transfer of work files.
One thing that has not changed much is the ultra-wide camera, which still takes 12MP shots, so it does not quite have the impressive detail of the new main camera. If we were the betting kind, we would bet on an upgraded ultra-wide camera in the next iPhone 16 Pro series.
Selfies are another area which has remained mostly the same with some tweaks to skin tones and HDR processing, but nothing major.
Low Light Photo Quality
The main camera captures clean, detailed shots in low light with improvements to Smart HDR.
The ultra-wide camera captures similar photos with some slight improvements.
With the 5X camera you win some, but you also lose some. Notice that at 3X zoom the level of detail is quite low simply because you no longer have a 3X lens on this phone, but when you go to 5X the quality is really improved and even at 10X in night time conditions you get a plenty good picture (even if it has some noise).
Video Quality
When it comes to video quality, the iPhone 15 Pro Max remains unbeaten: you get super crisp footage with excellent video stabilization at up to 4K60 quality.
And that new 5X zoom lens is incredibly well stabilized and thanks to its larger aperture you can even get some shots with it in low light (but of course it’s grainy in the dark, it’s still a small sensor after all).
The real kicker, however, is USB-C and ProRes. Yes, you can record directly to an SSD, and yes, it’s as easy as plug and play, an icon appears in the camera app and all your footage goes to a separate folder on the SSD. Incredibly easy and the ProRes quality is just really, really impressive. Of course, that remains a very niche and pro feature: ProRes video is ginormous and just one minute can take nearly 15GB of space, but those who care about video will absolutely love it.
iPhone 15 Pro Max Performance & Benchmarks
3 nm of goodness
(Image Credit – PhoneArena)
Another year, another new chip for the iPhones — it is called the Apple A17 Pro this time around. But this time it’s an even bigger jump up than usual — with a 20% faster GPU that now provides for hardware-accelerated raytracing and a 10% improvement in the performance cores of the CPU.
The Apple A17 Pro is the world’s first 3 nm smartphone chipset. Long story short, the nm here signifies transistor size. Smaller transistors means you have more room on the chip. Plus, the pathways between them are much shorter. So, you get more transistors that can do more work, but transfer information to one another with less energy needed. That’s why we say it will be more energy-efficient — more calculations for less battery drained. In theory.
Performance Benchmarks
In real-world testing the improvements are indeed very significant, but we did notice that the phone can get a bit warmer than usual with these higher speeds.
Some big games coming to the iPhone 15 Pro — Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil are two of the big names
As for storage, the 128 GB base variant is gone, the iPhone 15 Pro Max starts from 256 GB, then goes up to 512 GB and 1 TB. Don’t be quick to celebrate though — Apple did not upgrade the lowest tier, it removed it. Meaning that the iPhone 15 Pro Max now starts at $1,199 for 256 GB — the $1,099 option is gone.
We also get Wi-Fi 6E on the Pro models, for the fastest Wi-Fi protocols.
iPhone 15 Pro Max Software: iOS 17
Apple’s iPhones are known to get iOS updates for years on end — commonly 5 years of support is what you should expect. So, the iPhone 15 Pro will launch with iOS 17 in 2023 and should get:
- iOS 18 in 2024
- iOS 19 in 2025
- iOS 20 in 2026
- iOS 21 in 2027
- iOS 22 in 2028, end of life
iPhone 15 Pro Max Battery
Pro Max battery for a Pro Max life
(Image Credit – PhoneArena)
The iPhone 15 Pro Max comes with a 4,422 mAh battery, a very slight increase over the 4,323 mAh battery on the 14 Pro Max, but that phones already was a marathon runner.
We put the 15 Pro Max through the paces using our independent tests and here are the exact battery life numbers we got.
PhoneArena Battery Test Results:
As you can see, in the lighter web browsing test, the 15 Pro Max lasts just as long as its predecessor, but in more demanding conditions like on our YouTube test the 15 Pro Max lasted less than the previous model.
iPhone 15 Pro Max Charging Speeds
The iPhone 15 Pro Max may have USB Type-C, but Apple is in no hurry to add some kind of crazy-fast charging.
The iPhone 15 series is also ready for the new Qi2 wireless charging standard, with the first pucks ready to hit the market by the end of 2023. It’s basically no different for iPhone users — it sticks with magnets and charges with 15 W.
iPhone 15 Pro Max Audio Quality and Haptics
The iPhones always have a clear, detailed sound, with a noticeable bottom end and a V-shaped EQ. They sound good, but have been beaten out by other premium devices like Asus’ excellent ROG Phones, or even the Xperia 1 V, which may sound a bit boxy but doesn’t distort in the high end like the iPhones sometimes do.
All that said, there are no big changes to the iPhone 15 Pro Max speakers.
As for haptics — don’t fix what’s not broken. In the case here, it’s the Taptic Engine, which has been excellent for years now, and has been the standard in “how phone feedback should feel”.
iPhone 15 Pro Max Summary
(Image Credit – PhoneArena)
At the end of the day, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is another upgrade cycle in the tick tock style (not to be confused with TikTok).
And while it’s not huge if you are coming from an iPhone 14 Pro Max, it is very noticeable if you are on an older model.
iPhones are predictably solid, but this year Apple has pushed the boundaries with the lighter weight, the big camera upgrades, and the new USB-C port. But has the company done enough to convince you to buy it? Let us know in the comments!
