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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom from TechChap and I'm filming this entire review on the new iPhone 15 Pro
00:04and Pro Max.
00:06So let me know what you make of it.
00:07Does it look like it's been shot on iPhone?
00:09And actually, if I show you what I'm looking at, you can see this is my producer, James,
00:13with the 15 Pro recording his new 4K60 ProRes onto an SSD plugged into the USB port.
00:21So for me, actually, the new USB-C port is incredibly helpful because I can transfer
00:26files off.
00:27So if you want to shoot something like 10 gigs per minute in 4K60 ProRes, plug it in
00:31your laptop and away you go.
00:34But as well as being able to shoot 4K60 ProRes for the first time on the new iPhone 15 Pro,
00:38you can also now record in HDR and LOG.
00:41Now I still don't think an iPhone is going to replace your fancy mirrorless or DSLR camera,
00:45but you know, often the best camera is the one you have in your pocket.
00:48It's a good tool to have, although I would be kind of surprised if my, I don't know,
00:52professional wedding videographer turned up to my wedding shooting on an iPhone.
00:56But with the new options you have, with the higher quality video and photos, which we'll
01:00come back to in a second, oh that just got bright, it's a pretty big step up.
01:04Anyway, enough about ProRes, the headline upgrade with the new 15 series is the switch
01:08to USB-C. The ubiquity, the universality of USB-C, how every MacBook, iPad, well except
01:15the cheapest 9th gen model, every Windows laptop, Android phone and every charging port
01:19in new cars, they're all Type-C.
01:22And while you could faff around with adapters or just rely on wireless charging and airdrop,
01:26going forward it means if you run out of battery on your iPhone 15 and your friends
01:30are on Android, then you can use the same charging cable, and vice versa.
01:34Now I had hoped the switch to USB-C may have meant we'd also get faster charging, but alas
01:39no, still tops out at 20 watts with Apple's charger, which of course doesn't come bundled
01:43in the box, although you do get the nice C2C braided cable now, and also the regular 15s,
01:48not the Pros, actually have a USB 2.0 spec rather than 3.0, so the same speed as the
01:52old lightning connector.
01:53So it feels like a little half-hearted sort of switch to USB-C, although there are other
01:58benefits, obviously we've got this transfer of footage that I'm recording ProRes on right
02:02now, also you can now output to a TV or monitor at 4K60 HDR, previously topped out at 1080p
02:0730, although I'm not sure if Apple made this switch out of the pure goodness of their heart,
02:11so everything could be universal and lovely, I think it had something to do with the EU
02:15regulations coming in next year which kind of forced them to switch to USB-C if they
02:18wanted to keep selling these phones in Europe.
02:21Regardless of why they did it, it is certainly a nice upgrade.
02:24It will take a minute for Apple's accessories to catch up, only the AirPods Pro 2 have been
02:28refreshed with a USB-C case, all other AirPods, the Max's, Apple's power bank, and obviously
02:33still their Mac peripherals all need updating, but I suspect that'll happen pretty quickly.
02:38And I'm also excited by all the new third-party accessories and chargers coming out that will
02:41work with, well, everything.
02:44But there's a lot more here than just USB-C and some fancy video options, although I'll
02:48come back to the camera in just a second.
02:50Let's talk about this design, and while on the face of it not a whole lot has changed
02:55in the last, well, 4 years I guess since the iPhone 11 Pro, with the most obvious refresh
03:00being last year's Dynamic Island, which I'm pleased to see has made its way to the regular
03:04iPhone 15s now and it is a genuinely useful little notification bar, especially as more
03:08apps have now been optimised to use it.
03:10I'll tell you what though, the first thing you notice, how much lighter this is.
03:13The 15 Pros have a new titanium band around the edge, and together with an aluminium frame
03:18inside actually reduces the weight by 19 grams.
03:21240, 221.
03:22And particularly with the Pro Max, which is a pretty chunky phone, it is a very welcome
03:28upgrade.
03:29They've also slimmed down the bezels, and it means they've been able to reduce the overall
03:32size of the phone.
03:33It's almost a millimetre narrower and shorter, although it is about half a millimetre thicker,
03:37but they've maintained the same 6.1 and 6.7 inch screen sizes.
03:41The bezels have also slightly contoured just the corners of the frame here on the back,
03:45so it's a little bit smoother and sits in your hand a bit more comfortably, although
03:48it is quite subtle.
03:50And as someone who used the 14 Pro Max as their main phone for most of last year, these
03:54changes do add up to make it just a little bit more comfortable to use.
03:57We also get a couple of new colours.
03:59This is the natural titanium, which for my money I think is the best new flavour.
04:04It's kind of this sort of stony greyish colour.
04:06We also get a dark blue, a black and a white.
04:10Although more importantly, they've actually redesigned the entire frame and layout of
04:13the 15 Pros, so the back glass can now be repaired much more easily, and crucially much
04:18more cheaply than before.
04:20I've also just realised this is going to be my 1000th video on YouTube.
04:24We're at 999.
04:26This is my next video.
04:27Holy moly.
04:28A thousand videos.
04:29If you haven't already subscribed, I feel like now is a pretty good time.
04:31Let's see what happens over the next thousand videos.
04:34I'm going to be so old.
04:38Anyway, back to the iPhone, and let's talk about this action button.
04:41It is still a mute switch by default.
04:43You just long press it to change between loud and silent, and the dynamic island will also
04:46react to the change.
04:48And if you are muted, you'll also be able to see the icon at the top left of the screen.
04:51But now you can customise it to do pretty much anything.
04:53Torch, voice recording, launch an app.
04:56Although I reckon for most of us, myself included, you'll just make it the shortcut for the camera.
05:00And then it also acts as a shutter button.
05:01Yes, the volume down does also work as a shutter, but you can do anything with it really, and
05:06I also appreciate that you can use this to toggle on or off a lot of accessibility settings.
05:10I think for some people, this will be a really big deal.
05:13Don't get too close to me when I'm cooking, babe.
05:19I'm playing a preview of Resident Evil Village using what I'm told are PS4 assets, natively
05:25on the 15 Pro Max, albeit at 720p and 30fps and, well, low to medium settings.
05:31But still, for a phone, this is incredible, and for now at least, it's only possible with
05:35the new Apple A17 Pro chip that powers the new 15 Pro and Pro Max, which also happens
05:40to be the first 3nm architecture chip we've had on a mobile.
05:44We're also going to have the likes of Resident Evil 4 Remake, Death Stranding, The Division
05:48Resurgence, and even next year, Assassin's Creed Mirage, which is the first time a full
05:53console version of an Assassin's game will be on mobile.
05:56Definitely recommend a controller, though.
05:58This is the Backbone One for PlayStation slash Android, although they do now sell an iOS
06:04USB-C version for the iPhone 15.
06:06Highly recommend, because playing Resident Evil Village with the virtual touchscreen
06:09controls isn't ideal.
06:12So it's all pretty exciting, because yes, we have the usual 10% bump in processor performance,
06:17we actually get double the neural engine performance, but these are kind of just abstract upgrades
06:21that we see year on year and rarely make a noticeable difference.
06:24But the reason the A17 Pro is called the Pro is because of this completely redesigned graphics
06:29chip, the GPU, which is not only a lot more powerful, but supports features like hardware
06:33ray tracing.
06:35Which isn't new, you're right, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the flagship Dimensity 9200 I believe
06:40is from MediaTek, they both support hardware ray tracing, actually we're going to have
06:44new versions of both those chips like next month, so they will compete with the A17 Pro.
06:49Hopefully it means more developers will actually make use of it in their games.
06:53Now as strong as these new titanium frame phones are, they can still break, they can
06:57still fall out of your pocket, off tables.
07:01So I've teamed up with the lovely folks over at Casetify, who have sent me a whole range
07:05of new cases to protect my iPhones.
07:08So Casetify have refreshed their lineup for the new iPhone 15 and 15 Pros, and I've got
07:13three of the most popular models here, I've got the Impact, the Bounce, and their brand
07:18new Ultra Bounce, each tougher than the last.
07:22And in case you're wondering, yeah my real name is Tom, I'm not the tech chap.
07:27And what I really do like about Casetify is how they combine the creativity and the personality
07:32of their cases, I mean there are literally so many options to choose from and you can
07:36customise your own with proper tough protection.
07:39In fact, all Casetify protective cases are lined with their EcoShock material, which
07:44increases protection and also makes them able to absorb more of the shock if you happen
07:48to be a little bit clumsy and knock your phone off your desk over and over and over again.
07:54And actually, the Impact case meets the 4X military grade, we get 5X on the Ultra Impact,
08:006 on the Bounce, and a whopping 10X on the Ultra Bounce, which is the strongest case
08:04they have ever created, and it also has a built in lens protector for the camera.
08:09You can literally drop this thing from over 30 feet, and maybe I will, but I'll save that
08:13for my next video.
08:14Just make sure you pair a Casetify case with a screen protector though, because even if
08:18your phone survives a fall, you don't want that screen to be scratched.
08:22So they're tough, they look good, and Casetify are making their products even more sustainable
08:25and environmentally friendly than ever.
08:27So before your shiny new iPhone arrives, click my link in the description below to get 15%
08:32off your next order at Casetify.
08:35Now versus last year's 14 Pros, the new 15 Pro and Pro Max get an extra 2GB of RAM,
08:40so we're now up to 8GB, and of course we have that new A17 Pro chip replacing the A16
08:45Bionic, and in this 3DMark Wildlife Extreme test, we're looking at around a 25% uptick
08:50in performance.
08:51Although in this new Solar Bay benchmark, which includes ray tracing, it's 44% faster.
08:56However, if we switch back but run the 20 minute stress test, the stability is lower,
09:01the new chip throttles more, although it's still 8% faster even at its lowest score.
09:05But you can also see the 15 Pro Max lost 5% of its battery versus just 2% on the 14 Pro
09:10Max during this test, although we'll talk more about battery in just a second.
09:14But actually, even versus last year's 14 Pro Max, which as I say, I've been using pretty
09:18much every day, this does feel noticeably nippier, more responsive, apps seem to load
09:23just a touch quicker, and also I haven't had any of those sort of random slowdowns
09:26or stutters that did occasionally crop up on my 14 Pro.
09:30It's also a big deal because the 15 Pros are the only phones, for now at least, that
09:34will run these upcoming console level games.
09:36This does now support WiFi 6E, although you will of course need a compatible 6E router
09:41to make best use of it.
09:43But overall, I would say it's a solid step up, and with the new graphics chip, along
09:47with USB-C, it makes this one of the most future-proof iPhones we've had in years.
09:52Okay, before we dive into the camera, which I know you're waiting to see, I just want
09:56to mention the battery life.
09:58Because we didn't see the much rumoured increase in battery size, but for the first
10:02time, the 15 support the Qi 2 standard, so if you have a new Qi 2 wireless charger or
10:07power bank, that can now match the MagSafe's 15 watts, double the previous 7.5.
10:13Which is a nice little upgrade.
10:15And actually, even though Apple claim the new 15 series will have the same battery as
10:20the 14 series, that's not been quite my experience so far.
10:24After an hour of YouTube, an hour of TikTok, half an hour of gaming, and 15 minutes of
10:27shooting 4K60, both the 15 Pro and Pro Max were 3 percentage points lower than the 14
10:34Pro and Pro Max.
10:35All phones with 100% battery capacity, and I actually bought these two 14 Pros last week,
10:39so they're all brand new like the 15s.
10:41So more importantly, what I'm very keen to see is how the battery health fares over time
10:46because my iPhone 14 Pro Max, which I've been using for a year, is down to 88% of its battery
10:51health.
10:52Now to be fair, other brands don't really share that information, so there's not a lot
10:55to compare it to, but I do know versus previous iPhones I've used for a long time, that degradation
11:00in battery capacity is a lot faster, it's more significant.
11:03So I'm hoping there's improvements with this, obviously it'll take a while to figure that
11:07out.
11:08I'm just trying to get a photo.
11:09No more, I'm out.
11:11If I bring up the camera specs for both, you can see the main hardware change this year
11:15is that the optical zoom with the Pro Max is getting a new 5x telephoto, whereas the
11:20Pro is sticking with 3x.
11:22Aside from that, the hardware is pretty similar, same sensors and same resolutions as last
11:26year's 14 Pros.
11:28However, there is more to the story, with some pretty big software and processing improvements.
11:34For example, the iPhone 15 Pros now combine your usual 4 into 1 pixel binned 12 megapixel
11:40photo with a full fat 48 megapixel photo, giving us a more detailed 24 megapixel shot.
11:46And also, despite having double the megapixels, the file size of each photo is only about
11:5050% bigger.
11:52Apple have also introduced three different focal length options for the main camera,
11:56so you've got the default 1x, which is 24mm, tap once for 28 and tap again for 35, equivalent
12:03to a 1, 1.2 and 1.5x optical zoom, using some clever cropping of that 48 megapixel
12:09sensor.
12:10This is definitely aimed at more enthusiast photographers who have a particular focal
12:13length in mind, although it's a shame these new focal length options don't transfer
12:17over to video.
12:19But I reckon one of the most exciting new features is how even in the regular photo
12:23mode, if the camera detects a face, a cat or a dog, or even if you just simply tap on
12:27a subject, it will now capture a depth map so you can actually turn this regular photo
12:31into a portrait, where you can then adjust the bokeh level and also the focal point.
12:36So if you see this little f-stop icon pop up, then you know it's capturing the portrait
12:39info and you can tap it if you want to preview that bokeh.
12:43And then if you press edit on the photo, there is this new portrait button that turns it
12:46into a portrait with that tasty background blur.
12:50So the idea is you don't have to worry about whether I should take a regular photo or a
12:53portrait which previously had higher shutter lag and missed out on smart HDR, because now
12:58with these next generation portraits, as Apple calls it, portraits now use the same photonic
13:03engine pipeline, so their fancy background processing, as a regular photo, so there's
13:07no compromise in quality or shutter lag.
13:10And for me, this is one of the most significant camera upgrades this year.
13:14Night mode shots, as well as the new portraits, also benefit from Apple's fancy photonic
13:18engine and deep fusion processing now, and according to Apple, we're looking at up
13:22to two times better low light quality.
13:24And the latest smart HDR 5 processing should improve dynamic range, colour and detail across
13:29all cameras and modes.
13:31Up front we have the same 12 megapixel true depth selfie camera as before, but this also
13:35gets next gen portraits, so again, your regular selfies can now be turned into portraits after
13:40the fact, plus we get all the benefits of that new smart HDR 5.
13:43As for video, the main difference now is that you can shoot that ProRes at 4K60, we have
13:47new log and HDR options, and the video quality, particularly in low light, should be improved.
13:55Now usually, the selfie camera gets forgotten in many phones, but not so much with the iPhone,
14:00and also not so much with video, and actually this can also shoot at 4K60, also now in ProRes
14:05with log and HDR.
14:06Yes, it's lower megapixel than the rear camera, but it has pretty much all the same
14:10features as well as smart HDR and the next gen portraits for photos.
14:16So all that sounds great, but is the camera quality really that much better than last
14:20year?
14:21Well, let me show you a few side by sides, and also make sure you have subscribed as
14:24I have a full camera comparison with the Galaxy S23 Ultra in the works.
14:28But my takeaway is that there isn't a huge amount in it, I think the most obvious change
14:32is how the 15 Pros lean towards a warmer white balance, which I would say is a little bit
14:36more accurate.
14:37Some shots are also noticeably less over sharpened, some photos on the 14's look like someone's
14:42just turned the clarity slider up in Lightroom too far.
14:45Now photos look more natural, and actually if we crop in, so just literally pinch in
14:49on that one time shot, you can see there is more detail, and that's thanks to the new
14:5248 plus 12 megapixel combined shot.
14:55Although on the face of it, you may be hard pressed to notice.
15:01Now to answer the question of is the 15 Pro Max's zoom better than the Pro's, well
15:06it comes down to what you want really.
15:08So between 1 and 2.9 times zoom, they're basically the same.
15:12Between 3 and 4.9, the Pro wins, but then 5 to 25 times, the Pro Max wins.
15:17Makes sense given the hardware.
15:18And of course, in an ideal world, we'd see the Pro Max with full lenses like the S23
15:22Ultra, so there isn't a compromise.
15:25But the question is, do you prefer a 3x portrait or a 5x portrait?
15:2984mm or 120mm?
15:32You can obviously shoot both on both phones, although the quality isn't going to be the
15:35same, and the real world difference with the Pro Max is that you just have to take 2 or
15:383 steps back.
15:39What you can now do, as my cameraman James is demonstrating, is jump between all the
15:46different lenses while shooting at 4K60.
15:49Previously you couldn't go to ultra wide or telephoto, depending on which one you started
15:52with, but now at that highest resolution and frame rate you can switch between them all.
15:56And I'm kind of curious how it looks going between those lenses, just darting in and
16:00out.
16:01Obviously I can't see, but hopefully you'll let me know in the comments.
16:03What do you think?
16:04How's that 5x stability?
16:05Although I had hoped they would have made some changes and upgrades to the cinematic
16:10mode, still stuck to 4K30, no ProRes or LOG options, it still looks pretty good, particularly
16:15in nice lighting, but there is no kind of new next gen mode of cinematic where if you
16:20shoot regular video you can then add depth stuff afterwards, maybe next year.
16:25I'm also pleased to see that they have slightly reduced the lens flare.
16:29It's definitely still there and we get those sort of light floaters as I call them, but
16:32in this particular shot you can no longer see the camera lens outline.
16:36But what do you think of this new camera system?
16:38Would it tempt you to upgrade?
16:40Another upgrade is actually the price.
16:43Now cheaper, or at least here in the UK, Apple always set their prices by US dollars first
16:47and then look at other currencies and adjust for inflation and tax and things, but the
16:51iPhone 15, the regular one, is actually £50 cheaper now in the UK starting at £799, down
16:57from £849.
16:58The 15 Pro is £100 cheaper, now starting at £999 rather than £1099, and the 15 Pro
17:04Max is actually the same price, £1199, but now with 256GB of storage.
17:10Anyway, let's wrap up this review.
17:11Should you buy a 15 Pro and Pro Max?
17:13Well, it all depends if you do an upgrade.
17:15How old is your current phone?
17:16I reckon anyone with an iPhone 11 or older, yes, go for it.
17:20In terms of the Pro versus the Pro Max, for me it comes down to the bigger battery.
17:24That's why I want this guy and also I prefer the bigger screen which is actually now a
17:28lot more comfortable to use because of the sort of smaller form factor, but I reckon
17:31even if as a package it's not that significantly different from 14 Pro Max, there are lots
17:37of nice incremental upgrades, and as I say, with the Pro GPU, with USB-C, this is kind
17:42of like the new baseline for iPhones.
17:44If you buy anything older, without USB-C, you're kind of restricted to last gen stuff.
17:48But what do you reckon?
17:49Are you tempted to upgrade?
17:51Have you already ordered one?
17:52Let me know what you make of the new 15 Pros in the comments below.
17:54Thank you so much for watching guys, and I'll see you next time right here on the Tech Chat.