iPhone 15 Pro Max review – a subtle shift into the future
iPhone 15 Pro Max: One-minute preview
The iPhone 15 Pro Max represents the biggest and best of Apple phones, with the device sporting a new 5x optical zoom telephoto camera that promises to give the rear camera array more flexibility than ever before.
With the new 3-nanometer A17 Pro at its core, the iPhone 15 Pro Max has a chipset that not only promises 19 billion transistors of blazing performance, but also uses its neural processing powers to carry out even smarter functions than we've come to expect from Apple processors in the past.
Speaking of which, the new Action button that replaces the alert slider on previous iPhones can trigger a number of apps and features through a series of quick and long presses, offering a fast way to access your favorite apps and tools without swiping through home screens and menus.
The USB-C port makes its long-awaited iPhone debut too, and completing the iPhone 15 Pro Max upgrade recipe is a new rounded design that harkens back to the iPhone 11 series, but which is also lighter and more durable thanks to the use of a titanium frame.
In short, the iPhone 15 Pro Max looks set to be a contender for a seriously high spot on our best phones list. But we'll need more time to put Apple's latest flagship through its paces to know for sure.
I got some hands-on time with the iPhone 15 Pro Max backstage at Apple's headquarters, touching that luxurious titanium, marveling at the so-thin bezel, pressing that Action button and generally examining all that's new (hey, 5x optical zoom!) and what's not (48MP, still?).
Hands-on iPhone 15 Pro Max review: Price and availability
The iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at $1,199 / £1,399 / AU$2,099 , which is a price hike over its predecessor the iPhone 14 Pro Max (but you do get twice the storage in the base model: 256GB). This also puts the iPhone 15 Pro Max at a higher price than the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, which is a difficult place to be.
Pre-orders for the iPhone 15 Pro Max start are open now, and the phone will be shipped from September 22.
Hands-on iPhone 15 Pro Max review: Specs
Check out the iPhone 15 Pro Max's full specs below:
Hands-on iPhone 15 Pro Max review: Design
There can be a big difference between what you want and what you get, and depending on the gap between expectation and reality you may feel cheated or just slightly disgruntled. However, sometimes, you get enough other stuff that the things you didn't get are all but forgotten. Apple's flagship iPhone 15 Pro Max, the 6.7-inch giant, brings with it enough exciting updates that cut across quality of life, innovation and welcome design changes that, yes, I almost forgot about the things Apple didn't give us.
Let's start with the design; and yes, some but certainly not all of this is reflected in the rest of the iPhone 15 lineup.
With its latest flagship, Apple has split the difference between the classic curved-edge design of, say, the iPhone 11 Pro Max and the last-generation iPhone 14 Pro Max with a hybrid design that smooths the edges but leaves more than enough of a flat plane around the perimeter of the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
The body is now a combination of ceramic shield-covered glass on the front, ultra-hard glass on the back, and the new titanium frame. The benefit of this new-to-Apple material is that it's strong and light – much lighter, in fact, than the stainless steel found on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max. In my hand, the iPhone 15 Pro Max felt noticeably lighter than the iPhone 14 Pro Max (it weighs 221g, whereas the iPhone 14 Pro Max clocks in at 240g). It really is a shame that most people will carry these phones in cases, and never feel the brushed elegance of the metal and the newly softened edges. I enjoyed holding the phone.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max also boasts super-thin display bezels that measure just 1.5mm and are, quite frankly, almost invisible to the naked eye (at this rate, we wouldn't be surprised if Apple manages to do away with screen bezels entirely on the iPhone 16 Pro Max).
The most significant design upgrades to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, however, are more functional than aesthetic. The first is an Apple Watch Ultra-style Action button, which arrives in place of the physical mute switch used on every iPhone model, well, ever.
In essence, the Action button is customizable, and can be configured to trigger a wide variety of actions (up to nine). It makes this phone, and the iPhone 15 Pro, a much more versatile device than its predecessor, and we're glad to see Apple finally ditch a switch that has become redundant for many users.
As you know, I was no fan of the silent/ring slider button. I mean, I didn't hate it, but I found it mostly useless, like a vestigial but no longer useful organ.
The Action button, which looks perfectly at home on the side of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, is a wonderful addition. It's easy to use and configure; I pressed it once to see in the Dynamic Island that I was not in silent mode, and a long press put me in silent mode. Better yet, I could go into the settings and choose the primary Action button function, including flashlight, voice message and camera shutter. It's a truly welcome little update.
There are little haptic bumps each time you use the Action button, which I felt quite clearly. In the case of silent/ring, those bumps mimic the ones resident on your iPhone 14 Pro, which means in-pocket switching is possible.
The second big design change is a USB-C port, which replaces Apple’s proprietary Lightning port on every model in the iPhone 15 lineup). This pill-shaped port is the latest universal standard for the wired connection of smart devices, meaning Apple's iPhone 15 phones are instantly more compatible with a wider range of devices than previous iPhones (though it's worth remembering that Apple has only opted to adorn its latest crop of iPhones with these ports in order to comply with European regulation).
As for how this transition from Lightning to USB-C affects the functionality of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, it's hard to say without actually testing the phone and its connection. I know intuitively that it will accept virtually any of my USB-C cables for charging, and Apple made a big deal about the USB 3 compatibility, which translates to much higher data transfer speeds (up to 10GBps). This should mean you'll be able to download ProRes video to your Mac much more quickly and, if you connect the iPhone 15 Pro Max to a Mac via a high-speed USB 3 cable, see high-res photos almost immediately on the Mac screen. Again, I'll have to test this to know for sure.
Hands-on iPhone 15 Pro Max review: Display
The iPhone 15 Pro Max sticks with its predecessor’s (beautiful) 6.7-inch Super XDR OLED screen, which uses Apple’s ProMotion technology to vary the refresh rate between 10Hz and 120Hz, depending on the content displayed on screen.
The Dynamic Island digital cutout also returns from iPhone 14 Pro Max – though this notch replacement is no longer a Pro-exclusive feature, having made its way onto the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus too – and, as mentioned, the phone's display bezels are largely non-existent. In my relatively brief hands-on time with the phone, I didn't find that Dynamic Island worked any differently than before, and it remains the best place for all sorts of at-a-glance info about the state of your phone, directions, calls, and more.
As for the tightened bezels, I think it simply makes Apple's biggest iPhone that much more immersive. When I used it for photography or to view photos, I didn't even see the ultra-thin black bezel between the image and the actual edge of any photo. It's another instance of a small change that, I think, will translate to big benefits.
The screen looks as bright (still 2,000 nits max brightness) and color-rich as ever – every photo I looked at on the big display popped.
In short, I think that by not messing with a winning formula, and giving us just a tiny bit more screen, the iPhone 15 Pro Max's display will remain one of the best in the smartphone business.
Hands-on iPhone 15 Pro Max review: Cameras
If there's any frustration in my initial assessment of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, it's that Apple has fallen short of my photography expectations. I truly believed this was the year of the Apple iPhone periscope camera, and we did not get that, exactly. More on that in a bit.
Apple has not sat still in the camera space; far from it. In fact, it's the first time in a while that the Pro Max edition outstrips even its 6.1-inch Pro sibling.
Specifically, the iPhone 15 Pro Max finally has a 5x optical zoom. No, it's not the 10x periscope-driven 10x optical zoom you'll find on the stellar Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Still, this is a 12MP 5x zoom backed by optical image stabilization and a prism design that, instead of one periscope turn through a single prism apparently bounces the image four times between the lens and sensor. I'm not clear as to why this didn't result in a higher zoom, but there is a chance that we get higher quality out of the lower effective zoom.
In my brief time with the 5x zoom camera, I did find that it could get you right into the action, and I'm looking forward to spending more time with it. The iPhone 15 Pro, by the way, sticks with last year's 3x optical zoom. There's a calculation here on Apple's part: it knows that Pro Max models sell like hotcakes, maybe even more than the Pro, so why not throw all your camera eggs in your bestselling basket?
The phone's Sony IMX903 sensor is the biggest camera sensor ever used in an iPhone (the sensor is bigger than the one found on the iPhone 15). Had this been paired with a 10x optical zoom, the iPhone 15 Pro Max would have stood a good chance of dethroning the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra as the best camera phone on the market in 2023. As it is, it may come down to a toss-up.
In addition to its 5x telephoto lens, the iPhone 15 Pro Max boasts a 48MP quad-pixel main camera and a 12MP ultra-wide. On the front is a 12MP front-facing TrueDepth camera, which Apple has carried over from the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Apple's iPhone 15 Pro Max (and all the other iPhone 15 models) will shoot 24MP photos by default that use a combination of the best 12MP and the detail from the full 48MP sensor. There are also new Pro-level settings for shooting at a wide variety of focal length settings (13mm macro, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm), although I suspect most consumers will ignore these somewhat buried options.
On paper, the iPhone 15 Pro Max camera specs are not wildly different to those of the iPhone 14 Pro Max (aside from the telephoto change); but with the better lenses, improved image processing, and that powerful A17 Pro Apple silicon, it's a lock that the iPhone 15 Pro Max will manage many impressive photography feats.
Hands-on iPhone 15 Pro Max review: Performance and software
I have many questions about Apple's new A17 Pro silicon. It's obviously a break from the Bionic nomenclature of the past, but it's more than that. The drop from the A16 Bionic's 4nm process to the A17 Pro's 3nm should mean significant power savings. Naturally, when paired with 19 billion transistors and a load of other features on the graphics side, including hardware-based ray tracing, the A17 Pro should be a beast of a mobile CPU.
No smartphone CPU I've tested in the last few years has bested Apple silicon, and the A17 Pro looks set to extend Apple's lead significantly. While the speed will be formidable, it's the graphics capabilities that may turn the mobile industry on its head. Apple demonstrated console-level gaming on the iPhone 15 Pro Max (and 15 Pro). and having seen it in person I can say it's impressive. I can't wait to show it to some of the real gamers I live with.
Naturally, right now, I can't tell you all that much about real-world performance in general because I spent less than an hour with the iPhone 15 Pro Max. I'll need benchmarking and some hardcore gaming tests to find out just how fast this phone is. All I can say is that most of the few things I did do on the iPhone 15 Pro Max were smooth and trouble-free, and it will surely outperform the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
This is also the first iPhone to support Wi-Fi 6E, which is nice to know for when you get that new router, or are in a new office with upgraded Wi-Fi.
The iPhone 15 Pro also ships with iOS 17 installed as standard.
Hands-on iPhone 15 Pro Max review: Battery life
As usual, Apple hasn’t revealed the official size of the battery powering the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but we're quietly confident that the phone is rocking an 18% larger cell than the one used in the iPhone 14 Pro Max (4,852mAh versus 4,323mAh).
In theory, then, the iPhone 15 Pro Max should boast superior battery life over its predecessor, but we'll have to wait until we've run full battery tests before confirming as much. Apple, for its part, claims that you'll get "all-day battery life" from the iPhone 15 Pro Max and, in the specs, quotes 29 hours of video playback. I want my iPhone to last from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep, whatever time that is, and I should have the best chance of that being the case with the larger iPhone 15 Pro Max.
Naturally, the iPhone 15 Pro Max still supports wireless MagSafe charging and, now, can be charged with a USB-C cable. I expect that to ship in the box, but you'll likely be using your last USB-C Apple charging adapter or another one you have lying around. At least you know you can get those fast USB 3 data speeds (assuming you have the right cable).
Apple made no mention of fast charging (wired or wireless). The iPhone 15 Pro Max can be charged to 50% in 30 minutes with a 28W charger, essentially the same as the iPhone 14 Pro Max; for whatever reason, Apple still isn't prioritizing truly fast charging.
Hands-on iPhone 15 Pro Max review: Early verdict
Apple hasn't reinvented the iPhone, but it has brought a handful of big changes to its iPhone 15 Pro Max that I think will add up to make this what could be the most powerful smartphone on the market, while also being the most useful and fun.
The smoother titanium design is, even at this early stage, is a clear winner for style and feel. The Action button is instantly several times more useful than the old silent/ring switch. The USB-C port will be considered a big win in the end, even if it possibly causes some short-term frustration when you can't use old cables. The A17 Pro chip is exciting, and I can't even imagine the graphic benchmark numbers we're about to see. The 5x optical zoom is welcome, if not everything I was wishing for.
All in all, I think this is a more exciting iPhone update than many people realize. I fully expect it to take a high spot our best phones list, and to become a bestseller for Apple.
First tested August 2023
