Key Takeaways

• The iPhone 15 Pro Max features a significantly improved design with contoured edges and a new titanium material, making it more comfortable to hold and lighter than previous models.
• The A17 Pro chip offers better performance, with a 10% faster CPU, 20% faster GPU, and a new Neural Engine that is twice as fast as the previous generation.
• The camera system has been enhanced, with a 5x telephoto camera, improved low-light performance, and the ability to take 24MP photos from the main camera for more detail. The addition of USB-C makes charging and connectivity easier.

Apple released its 2023 iPhone lineup to the masses, and with it comes the new iPhone 15 Pro Max, packing the best hardware that Apple has to offer for users who want it. This year's Pro iPhone brings subtle but impactful design changes, a new processor with a pro moniker, multiple camera improvements, USB-C, and a few other nifty features.

Despite the initial overheating concerns at release, does it live up to the hype? Let’s find out.

A New Titanium Design

The Pro iPhone models offer a new material that replaces the stainless steel from before: titanium. This material has shown up on other Apple devices, such as the Apple Watch Ultra and the titanium Apple Watch Edition (but is no longer available to buy).

Aside from the different feel, the biggest improvement the new material brings is reducing the phone's weight. If you own an iPhone 13 Pro Max or 14 Pro Max, you will notice the difference with this year’s model since it's about 19 grams lighter.

Along with the new material, the phone now features contoured edges. Apple says that this design change makes the iPhone more comfortable to hold.

Since the iPhone switched to a squared-edge design with the iPhone 12, the edges have been sharper and less comfortable to hold than rounded-edge iPhones. You'll feel the difference right away with the contoured edges of the 15 series.

Additionally, the bezels on the iPhone 15 Pro Max are slightly slimmer, making the phone look a little more modern.

When it comes to color choice, the iPhone 15 Pro Max comes in four colors: Black Titanium, Silver Titanium, Natural Titanium, and Blue Titanium. I chose Natural and Blue, and both look fantastic.

At Apple's reveal event, the Blue Titanium color seemed to resemble the Pacific Blue color that was on the iPhone 12 Pro. However, when you see Blue Titanium in person, it is more of a navy blue, which I prefer. I hope both Natural Titanium and Blue Titanium stick around on future iPhones.

Lastly, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is slightly shorter than the previous 14 Pro Max. While it is minimal on paper, it is somewhat noticeable when you hold the phone. It seems to make it easier to use Apple’s larger model.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max's design feels like what the 14 Pro Max should have been, since that model was the final version of the iPhone 12 cycle. Regardless, I like the 15 Pro Max's design a lot. It may very well be one of my favorite smartphone designs ever. It almost makes me want to go without a case, but I'm not that bold.

The Display

The iPhone 15 Pro Max features the same display as its predecessor. It’s a 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR display with a resolution of 2796 x 1290. The display can reach 2000 nits of peak brightness when the phone is outdoors, making it easier to view in sunlight. Since this is a Pro iPhone, the 15 Pro Max also includes up to a 120Hz adaptable refresh rate.

Therefore, you can enjoy smooth animations when swiping between home screen pages, scrolling, and more. The iPhone 15 Pro Max still features Dynamic Island, Apple’s version of a hole punch display cutout, which remains unchanged this year. Although there are no changes to the display this time around, it’s still excellent, so no complaints here.

The Action Button

The physical Silent Mode switch has existed on every iPhone since the start. But smartly, Apple decided to replace that switch with the Action button. This button is customizable, allowing you to map it to a specific action (even Silient Mode, if you can't live without it!)

It initially showed up on the first-generation Apple Watch Ultra and has now made its way to the iPhone.

Only on the Pro models, the Action button can be used to open the camera, turn on the LED flash, enable a Focus Mode, and more. But you can also configure it to any Shortcut (read our beginner's guide to Shortcuts on the iPhone), which lets you do things such as open a specific app or even lock and unlock a Tesla. To trigger an action, you have to press and hold the button instead of just clicking it once.

I think this was a smart decision. The Action button on the Apple Watch Ultra only needs to be momentarily pressed for it to activate, which has led to accidentally triggering the flashlight, in my experience. Having to press and hold requires more intention.

It’s puzzling that Apple didn't replace the physical Silent switch sooner. I always have my phone on mute, so the switch has been useless to me for years. The Action button is an excellent addition to the iPhone, since it’s multipurpose and adds a bit of customization. I’m interested in seeing if it will come to the standard iPhone models in 2024.

The A17 Pro Chip

Powering the iPhone 15 Pro models, you'll find a new chip: the A17 Pro. The A17 Pro is the first 3nm chip in any smartphone, which translates to better performance than a chipset built on a larger nanometer process. Apple claims the A17 Pro has a 10 percent faster CPU and a 20 percent faster GPU. It features a new Neural Engine that's twice as fast as the A16 Bionic, as well as a 6-core CPU and a 6-core GPU; that's one additional GPU core compared to the A16. Lastly, there is now 8GB of RAM, up from 6GB.

For Geekbench 6 benchmark testing, here is how the iPhone 15 Pro Max scored against the 14 Pro Max:

One thing to note about the A17 Pro is that Apple is marketing it as a gaming powerhouse. During Apple’s “Wonderlust” event, it showed off AAA games such as Resident Evil Village and the Resident Evil 4 remake running on the phone. If the games perform as advertised, it certainly will be impressive that a smartphone can run demanding games normally only playable on consoles and PCs. Unfortunately, those particular games have not been released at the time of review. So, we'll have to wait and see how they perform on the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Despite reports of some iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max units overheating during regular use, I haven't experienced this on either of the devices I own. The phone is usually cool and performs well except for some occasional heat and animation stutters, but the stutters will hopefully be resolved in future software updates. Apple released iOS 17.0.3 to address the overheating issue for the iPhone 15 Pro series, as well as for older iPhones.

The Camera System

Just like every year, the new Pro iPhones come with improvements to their camera systems. To start, the iPhone 15 Pro Max now takes 24MP photos from the main camera by default compared to 12MP on the previous iPhones, thanks to an updated Photonic Engine. The reason for using 24MP is to provide more detail in your photos without needing to switch to ProRAW to use the full 48MP camera.

The photos themselves turn out very well. The 24MP photos contain solid detail for the new default setting, without seeming to compromise on other aspects of the photos. You can notice the difference in detail, especially if you zoom in on parts of photos. The iPhone 15 Pro Max still has a good ultra-wide camera for wider shots and macro photos still look great, even if those are a mere 12MP.

Photos also don't appear to come out over-processed, which previously could occur on the iPhone 14 Pro series.

Low light photos are also impressive on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. When taking the bar sample photo above, I didn’t notice in person that the wall had blue stripes on it. The iPhone was able to bring that out. The photo certainly makes it look like the room was brighter than it was, but again, without feeling overly processed.

Unlike in 2022, the larger iPhone model has an exclusive camera feature this year: the 5x telephoto camera that includes what Apple calls a "tetraprism" design. In short, you can now zoom further in on a subject without sacrificing detail as you would with digital zoom.

The iPhone previously only had a 3x zoom, while other smartphones like the Pixel 7 Pro and Galaxy S23 Ultra have either a 5x or 10x zoom in their camera systems. Regardless, the 5x zoom option still enables you to take exceptional images. You can still use the 25x digital zoom that the iPhone 15 Pro Max offers, but the image quality of your photo will suffer since it isn't optical.

Even though it doesn’t offer the same level of optical zoom as the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the 5x telephoto camera is a welcome addition that lets you take photos from a farther distance without sacrificing quality.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max also features a main camera that enables multiple focal lengths from within the camera app. With it, you can choose between three focal lengths, two of which are new: 24mm, 28 m, and 35mm. However, the 28mm and 35mm options are made possible by cropping, not with actual lenses, which MacRumors details in its article. I don't see myself using the additional focal lengths often, but the option is there for you.

There are additional new features for the camera system that we didn’t cover in detail here, such as Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) support, LOG video recording, and more. Lastly, the iPhone 15 Pro models will offer an exclusive feature coming later in 2023: you'll be able to take "spatial videos" (stereoscopic) to view on Apple Vision Pro.

Apple needed to add something like this to the iPhone because I don’t see the people who will buy Apple Vision Pro wearing it to take 3D videos, despite what Apple wants us to believe.

The Battery Life

In my experience, the battery life on the iPhone 15 Pro Max is essentially the same as the 14 Pro Max. Apple didn't mention any improvement to the Pro model's battery life and claims the same 29 hours of video playback, though that benchmark typically doesn't tell the whole story of a device's battery life.

During an average day of usage, I get around 40-45% left on the battery when taking the iPhone off the charger right before 8 a.m. and ending the day after midnight. With light use, the phone had 58% battery left at the end of the day. While it isn’t the best battery life I have experienced on a smartphone, it has consistently gotten me through a full day, even with heavier use.

It's possible that the battery life will improve somewhat after Apple releases iOS 17.1, but we will have to wait and see.

Finally: USB-C

It’s long overdue, but Lightning is dead (thank you, EU). In its place is USB-C, the same port that is on most, if not all Android smartphones, as well as iPads and MacBooks. While it may seem like an annoyance to have to ditch your Lightning cables and accessories for USB-C ones, in the long term, this is the best move. With the iPhone now offering USB-C, you can use one cable for all your devices. You won’t need to worry about not having the right cable to use with your iPhone.

You can now use your iPhone to charge your AirPods or Apple Watch through the USB-C port with the proper cable, too. It may not be reverse wireless charging, but it’s great to have at least the option to charge those types of products without needing a power brick.

However, one distinction between the iPhone 15 and the 15 Pro models regarding the USB-C port is the transfer speeds. Unlike the regular iPhone 15, the 15 Pro and Pro Max offer USB 3 speeds (up to 10 Gbps), which allow you to transfer files from your iPhone faster than the regular iPhone models, which still use USB 2.0 speeds (up to 480 Mbps). If you regularly move large files from your smartphone to another device, you will appreciate the faster speeds on the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

If you want to record the absolute best quality videos that the 15 Pro Max is capable of (by which we mean, 4K 60FPS ProRes), you'll need to use some external storage over USB-C.

Should You Buy the iPhone 15 Pro Max?

Even though, on the surface, there don’t seem to be many massive upgrades, the iPhone 15 Pro Max offers multiple compelling quality-of-life improvements. The design is much improved, introducing new colors and the feel of the titanium and contoured edges. It adds a 5x telephoto option to one of the best smartphone camera systems on the market, and it finally brings USB-C, eliminating a barrier for Android users to switch over and making charging simpler for people who own multiple devices.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max is a great buy if you are due for an upgrade.