iPhone 15 vs. iPhone 15 Pro: Which One Fits Your Lifestyle?

While Apple fans patiently wait for the rumored iPhone 16, the iPhone 15 series remains the tech giant’s most advanced flagship lineup. It consists of a base iPhone 15 and a larger iPhone 15 Plus, which have similar specs to one another. Then there’s the higher-end iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, the latter of which has a few features that make it stand out more than previous Max models. Apple unveiled all four at its Wonderlust event last September, alongside the Watch Series 9 and the Watch Ultra 2. 

If you’re considering an upgrade to the iPhone 15 series, it’s worth knowing how the four models stack up. For starters, the Dynamic Island, the shape-shifting cutout introduced in iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, is now standard across the entire iPhone 15 series. The entire lineup has also now switched to USB-C for charging. But that’s where the similarities end, more or less, with each iPhone model standing out via its design, camera, general features and, more recently, AI-powered features.  

Earlier this week, differentiated its iPhone 15 base models from its iPhone 15 Pros even more. At the company’s annual developer event, Apple revealed Apple Intelligence, an AI platform it says is integrated into the core of your iPhone, among other Apple devices. It underpins new features including a suite of so-called Writing Tools that help you craft copy quickly and even Siri’s touted new capabilities to understand conversational context and perform multi-step tasks. However, only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will get Apple Intelligence at launch because they’re the only iPhones with the A17 Pro processor. 

Apart from these upcoming AI features, there are more differences to consider. Apple eliminated the toggle switch on the Pro models in favor of what it calls the “Action button.” Essentially, it’s a multifunction button that lets you program it for a wide range of tasks, like taking a photo or launching a timer.

Colors vary across the entry-level and Pro lineups. The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus come in brighter color options like pink, yellow, green and blue along with a darker black. However with the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max now coming in a titanium chassis, those phones come in darker shades that Apple is labeling natural titanium, blue titanium, white titanium and black titanium.

Watch this: One Month Check-In: We Tested the iPhone 15 Pro’s and Pro Max’s Batteries

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That USB-C port arrives to the iPhone 15 line after a European Union mandate, and will allow the iPhone to make use of the same charging cables that power Android phones, recent iPads and other electronics. While all four models use USB-C charging as a standard, the speed of data transfer varies between base and Pro models. Only the Pro models support USB 3, which offers faster 10Gbps speeds. But if you want to take advantage of those faster speeds, you’ll need to buy your own USB 3 cable since Apple ships all phones with just a USB 2 cable. 

As for the cameras, the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus have two cameras on the back, while the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max get three. You get a 48-megapixel wide lens, which has telephoto capabilities, and a 12-megapixel ultrawide lens with either regular model. The Pro models feature a 12-megapixel telephoto lens complete with 3x optical zoom. You can also shoot at multiple focal lengths with the Pro models: 24mm, 28mm and 35mm. 

Further to that, the iPhone 15 Pro Max has its own exclusive camera perk via the upgrade to a new telephoto lens with 5x optical zoom, the most that has ever been included on an iPhone. 

Both iPhone 15 Pro phones can shoot spatial video, which is essentially a 3D video that can be viewed on Apple’s forthcoming Vision Pro headset.

And like the iPhone 14 line, the iPhone 15 line includes different processors depending on the model. The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus will run on the A16 Bionic chip, which debuted last year on the iPhone 14 Pro. Meanwhile the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max phones will ship with the new A17 Pro chip (as mentioned earlier), which Apple says will make the higher-end iPhone better suited for graphics, gaming and compatible with Apple Intelligence. 

To check out more differences between the different iPhone 15 models, check out our specs chart below.