iPhone 15 Pro Max preview: scope the difference

• New 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 titanium build material
• New Action Button instead of Mute switch

It’s no shock that we will get a new processor this year, sure. However, the new Apple A17 chip has earned a new name — not Bionic, it’s called the

Apple A17

Pro. It now allows for USB 3 speeds for data transfers over the USB C port (10 gigabits per second or 20 times faster than USB 2.0 and Lightning). The bad news is that the press release wording is a bit dodgy — it kind of sounds like Apple will sell its own (or certified) USB 3 cables with MFi chips to allow for the quick transfers. It definitely sounds like you won’t get one in the box — Apple says the USB 3 cable is “optional”.

The

iPhone 15 Pro Max

looks very much like iPhone 14 Pro Max before it, but there are some notable differences. One, the frame is now a brushed titanium finish, so no more smudges on a stainless steel frame. Secondly, the bezels around the

iPhone 15 Pro Max

‘s screen are noticeably thinner, making the entire phone ever so slightly smaller.

The combo of power and volume buttons are also untouched, but a stable of the iPhone — the mute switch — has been removed from the

iPhone 15 Pro

series. Instead, we get a new Action button that works like the one found on an

Apple Watch

Ultra.

As for that port on the bottom — the EU regulators have now said that small electronic devices need to adhere to a standard, that being the USB C standard. So, the

iPhone 15 Pro Max

will say bye-bye to Lighting. And the new

Apple A17

Pro chip allows for super-fast data transfer speeds (finally), which will let you copy files from your iPhone at up to 10 Gbps.

The colors are, as usual — muted and non-intrusive. We now have a raw titanium color to celebrate the new build material. But all other shades are also titanium-themed. The iPhone 15 Pro colors are Natural Titanium, White Titanium, Blue Titanium, and Black Titanium.

iPhone 15 Pro Max

Display

The

iPhone 15 Pro Max

will stick 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’ll 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.

There was no upgrade to the peak brightness this year, but that’s fine — 2,000 nits peak is still plenty of light, more than you would typically need.

iPhone 15 Pro Max

Camera

Up periscope! Uh… I mean — up tetraprism!

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

Of course, that 48 MP sensor was introduced with the iPhone 14 Pro series and was a leap from the 12 MP of before. But, this year, Apple improves the way it processes data from that sensor. Instead of taking 12 MP photos by default, we will now get 24 MP pictures for more detail without sacrificing light data thanks to upgraded Photonic Engine and HDR algorithms.

Pro Mode will now be able to save raw 48 MP photos in HEIF, which should be much, much more storage-efficient. And, thanks to the USB 3 port, videographers will be able to record 4K 60 FPS footage in ProRes straight to an external storage device for easier transfer of work files.

iPhone 15 Pro Max

Performance & Benchmarks

3 nm of goodness

Another year, another new chip for the iPhones — it is called the

Apple A17

Pro this time around. And it sounds like a respectable jump up — 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.

Apple does not talk about RAM on its phones. Supposedly we are getting 8 GB of RAM now — a small bump over the 6 GB in the

iPhone 14 Pro

. But we will have to wait for 3rd party benchmarks or teardowns to reveal the truth. iOS is pretty efficient at freezing background stuff, which is why Apple rarely pushes the RAM envelope. In 2023, 8 GB isn’t that insane a number, but it does “catch up” with what

Android

flagships will have at a baseline.

Apple showed us what iOS 17 is going to look like way back at WWDC and, of course, we were playing around with betas all summer. The first official build will

launch

on

September

18th, coming to all eligible iPhones.

This year, we get the Contact Poster, which is a new way to share your contact details and allows you to customize how you appear to people you call. Apple has also went back and improved the autocorrect and predictive typing with the keyboard — it should now remember your style of expression and adapt to you better. There’s also a new Journal app, which will help us figure out what to actually write in it with suggestions and questions. And cool stuff like transcripting voicemails or audio messages in

iMessage

, so you can just glance at what is being said.

Of course, these features will also be landing on any phone that support

iOS 17

(that’ll be iPhone XS era and newer).

• 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

Of course, Apple doesn’t like to talk about such tiny details like “battery capacity”. We’ll have to wait for a teardown to see what’s inside that titanium chassis. But, considering the design info about the

iPhone 15 Pro Max

, it should have a battery about the same size as the one in the

iPhone 14 Pro Max

.

Of course, we may get some fluctuations due to the new processor — that energy efficiency may give us better battery endurance, but on the other hand, if the chip is noticeably more powerful than before, then the power draw and efficiency might even out to give us about the same results.

iPhone 15 Pro Max Charging Speeds

The

iPhone 15 Pro Max

may be getting USB Type-C but Apple is in no hurry to add some kind of crazy-fast charging. We get the same 20 W power draw on the wire and 15 W charging with a MagSafe puck. 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.

iPhone 15 Pro Max

Summary