Skilled’s Score
Execs
- USB-C
- Lighter weight
- A couple of good digicam enhancements
- Motion button
Cons
- Related battery life to iPhone 14 Professional
- Very costly
- 5x zoom is reserved for Professional Max
Our Verdict
The iPhone 15 Professional makes a number of secure, predictable enhancements over final yr’s mannequin, however not one of the options are value getting very excited over. This can be a good improve for telephones greater than three years outdated, however newer telephones can anticipate subsequent yr.
Worth When Reviewed
$999
Greatest Costs At present: Apple iPhone 15 Professional (128GB)
$999.99
Apple’s newest iPhone Professional is quicker, has a greater digicam, and has a number of good conveniences. There’s not quite a lot of innovation right here, just a few minor however noticeable enhancements alongside largely predictable traces.
The titanium body makes the cellphone considerably lighter, USB-C brings Apple as much as the requirements of 5 years in the past, and the brand new Motion Button is an easy, smart alternative for the age-old mute swap. The digicam {hardware} seems to be totally unchanged from final yr’s iPhone 14 Professional, although the processing has improved, with a brand new 24MP default, three “1x” crop choices, and a few good “professional” video choices like Log colour.
For a whole image of the iPhone 15 Professional, take a look at our evaluate of the iPhone 15 Professional Max, the place we dive into all of the adjustments and options in depth. Apart from the scale, the iPhone 15 Professional is an identical, save for 3 issues: the battery life is shorter (as is widespread with smaller iPhones), it doesn’t have the brand new 5x telephoto digicam, and it’s obtainable with 128GB of storage (the Professional Max begins at 256GB). This evaluate will deal with these variations alone.
3x telephoto vs 5x telephoto
It will seem that the iPhone 15 Professional has the very same sensors and lenses because the iPhone 14 Professional, although Apple says there are new lens coatings that ought to assist scale back glare (hotspot glare remains to be an issue on all iPhones, coating or not). The brand new 24MP foremost digicam default dimension provides extra element with out as a lot over-sharpening, however Apple’s picture processing pipeline nonetheless introduces a considerably unnaturally punchy, saturated, smoothed-out picture.
Apple stays unmatched in total video high quality, and the brand new capability to shoot in a Log colour area (sadly solely with ProRes) will likely be very welcome to execs and lovers who wish to colour grade their very own footage and get the perfect outcomes.
The true distinction between the 15 Professional Max and 15 Professional is that the bigger cellphone will get a brand new 5x periscope digicam, whereas the smaller Professional has the identical 3x zoom as final yr. It doesn’t seem that the 5x zoom takes up a lot extra inner area that Apple couldn’t have made it match within the smaller Professional cellphone—the choice seems like an arbitrary power to push customers to the larger mannequin, and I might be shocked if the smaller mannequin didn’t have the 5x periscope zoom subsequent yr.
Nonetheless, Apple’s iPhone 15 Professional has probably the greatest cameras within the enterprise, and in case you care extra about video than the rest, arguably the greatest. It’s only a disgrace that it’s a must to purchase the a lot larger and costlier iPhone 15 Professional Max to get a 5x telephoto digicam.
Efficiency and battery life
Except for that one telephoto digicam, the specs of the iPhone 15 Professional are an identical to the iPhone 15 Professional Max. You’ll be able to anticipate the identical efficiency, and that’s precisely what we noticed. CPU efficiency is round 10 % sooner, graphics efficiency is round 20 % sooner.
After all, a smaller cellphone means a smaller battery and one can anticipate the iPhone 15 Professional to have a shorter battery life than the iPhone 15 Professional Max; the bigger iPhones all the time have longer battery life.
However the iPhone 15 Professional is not any slouch in comparison with different 6.1-inch telephones. It lasts longer than the iPhone 14 Professional Max by a small margin in our Geekbench rundown check. In each day sensible use, you’ll discover it’s not very completely different–Apple has the identical battery life specs for the iPhone 14 Professional and 15 Professional, and people expectations are certainly met.
Must you purchase the iPhone 15 Professional?
If you need the perfect iPhone, you get the most recent iPhone “Professional” mannequin. And you then select both the Professional or Professional Max, relying on which dimension you discover extra comfy and usable. The Professional Max mannequin has longer battery life, however that doesn’t matter in case you hate the way it doesn’t slot in your pocket or requires two fingers, for instance.
It’s unlucky that you simply miss out on the enjoyable 5x telephoto digicam in case you don’t like actually large telephones, however on the upside, you may get the smaller mannequin for “solely” $999 as an alternative of the $1,199 beginning worth of the iPhone 15 Professional Max.
Whereas it’s true that the iPhone 15 Professional is the perfect iPhone but (apart from the Professional Max, because of the telephoto digicam), the enhancements are minor sufficient in order to not encourage improve envy. Most customers gained’t discover the velocity enchancment or battery life distinction. So it’s a bit lighter, with a barely higher digicam system, an Motion button as an alternative of a mute swap, and the transition to USB-C that everybody else made a few years in the past (together with Apple on a lot of its merchandise).
That’s by no means dangerous, nevertheless it’s uninspiring, making the iPhone 15 Professional a wonderful improve for these with an iPhone 12 or earlier, however encouraging these with more moderen fashions to see what comes out of Cupertino subsequent yr.