iPhone 15 Pro Max vs iPhone 15 Plus: Battle of the heavyweights

The overall feel of the phones is similar. If you wander whether titanium makes a huge difference, we don't feel like it does. It's nice to the touch and looks cool but the weight difference is not that big, and the overall user experience while holding both the iPhone 15 Plus and the iPhone 15 Pro Max is very similar. Add a case to that equation and you'll further mitigate any design and feel differences.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max comes equipped with the latest and greatest in mobile silicon technology, the Apple A17 Pro chipset. This chip is built on a 3nm technology node and has the potential to bring huge gains over its predecessor, both in performance and efficiency. Apple claims that this six-core chipset is 20% faster than the A16 and our synthetic benchmarks corroborate this.

3D Mark



That being said, Apple's silicon has been at the top of most synthetic benchmarks for years, and this fact, paired with the great software optimization, means that you won't feel a major difference between the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the iPhone 15 Plus, despite the fact that the latter uses last year's A16.

The RAM situation is similar, with the iPhone 15 Pro Max sporting 8GB of RAM while the Plus comes with "only" 6GB. In practice, you probably won't feel any difference in day-to-day performance between these two phones. We're practically living with both phones now, and we haven't spotted much of a difference in fluidity and smoothness, regarding the pure speed of both phones.

Despite the differences in hardware, both the iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 15 Plus run on the very same iOS 17 software. Apple's next big mobile software upgrade comes with a variety of new features. The Phone, Messages, and FaceTime apps receive significant updates; there's a cool new NameDrop functionality, and the autocorrect feature has been improved as well.

Apple already rolled out iOS 17.1 with some bug fixes and improvements to AirDrop and StandBy. With this update you'll be able to continue your AirDrop transfers through the cloud, even if the devices are no longer close to one another. There are some improvements in Apple Music as well: 

We're actually at iOS 17.2 right now, and even though the latest update was mainly focused on bug fixes and improving the performance, Apple brought Spatial Video to the Pro models. It's meant to be viewed on the Apple Vision Pro headset, so you shouldn't pay much attention to it right now, given the fact that the Vision Pro is still some time away from its official launch and widespread market release. You can update your phone by going to Settings > General > Software Update and following the instructions on the screen.

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And if you also want to reserve a front-row seat to countless movies and TV series, we suggest you sign up for Apple TV+. For just $6.99, the service allows you to enjoy new Apple Originals every month, with the option to stream on various Apple devices.

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Camera

5x zoom wins the race

The segregation between the Pro and non-Pro models when it comes to the camera system has carried over this year. The iPhone 15 Pro Max comes equipped with three cameras on the back, while the iPhone 15 Plus has only two.

Both phones feature a 48-megapixel main camera, but the iPhone 15 Pro Max comes with a different aperture (f/1.6 vs f/1.78 on the Plus) and two optical-quality zoom ranges - 1.2x and 1.5x. When shooting in good lighting conditions both phones produce quite pleasant images, the iPhone 15 Pro Max being able to catch just a tad more details. The Pro Max sample also looks warmer, while the Plus seems to overexpose just a little. All in all, not a huge difference in quality when it comes to the main camera.

The ultra-wide camera is very similar on both phones, featuring a 12MP sensor and 13mm focal length. There's a small difference in aperture, the Pro Max comes with an ultra-wide camera with f/2.2, while the Plus has f/2.4. In reality, the images taken with both phones are almost identical, so no clear winner here. You can always check out our other comparisons to see how the iPhones perform against other brands, but if you're choosing between these to, and you use the main and ultrawide cameras most of the time, we think you'll be fine with either model.

The big difference is called the tetraprism zoom lens, and it's found on the new iPhone 15 Pro Max model. This next-gen optical zoom system allows for 5x zoom levels, making the Pro Max a much better option if you're into portraits or use telephoto a lot in your daily photo adventures. The iPhone 15 Plus relies on 2x crop images from the main 48MP sensor to achieve what Apple calls Optical-quality telephoto. As you can see from the samples, the iPhone 15 Pro Max obliterates the Plus at any zoom range above 2X.

Both the iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 15 Plus feature identical front cameras, and unsurprisingly, the results are also identical, give or take the tiny variables in framing the shots. Selfie shots look good, with decent level of detail, natural colors and balanced exposure.

The video quality is great on both phones, there are no major differences when it comes to colors, image detail, stabilization, exposure, etc. The only big difference again comes from the zoom capabilities, the iPhone 15 Pro Max can zoom up to 9X during recording, while the Plus model caps at 6X. The zoom quality is also better on the Pro Max.

The final verdict after we had done all of our camera/video tests is that you're getting a very similar photo and video quality from the main and ultrawide cameras, and the deciding factor is the tetraprism camera on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. If you like to zoom a lot, you'll love the iPhone 15 Pro Max, if you don't care about zoom shots, you'll get almost identical shots from the iPhone 15 Plus.

Audio Quality and Haptics

Don't fix what's not broken

Both the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the iPhone 15 Plus come with a stereo speaker configuration: one bottom-firing main speaker and a secondary speaker located in the earpiece.

The audio quality has been pretty good ever since the iPhone 13 series, and the sheer size of both phones allows for more resonance and bass, so these two have similar audio performance. There's no 3.5mm audio jack on either of these, but we're now used to the omission. Both phones sounded rich and detailed in our tests, a pleasure to listen to, whether you're watching a Netflix series or just checking out the latest Rhianna video.

In terms of haptics, the Taptic Engine is on duty, and given the great results Apple has been getting with the system over the years, both the iPhone 15 Plus and the iPhone 15 Pro Max feature industry-leading haptics. The vibration is tight and prominent, you won't miss a call or a notification. We were very pleased by the results we got from both the iPhone 15 Plus and iPhone 15 Pro Max during our haptic tests.

Battery Life and Charging

USB-C on both, but different?

Both the iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 15 Plus have received a slight upgrade in battery capacity. The top model now features a 4,422mAh cell, while the Plus comes equipped with a 4,383mAh battery. Funnily enough, the Plus seems to beat the Pro Max in our YouTube and Gaming tests, while the Pro Max takes the win in the Web Browsing category. This might have something to do with the A17 Pro chipset getting hot and throttling, but we might have to run those tests again just to be sure.

Battery Test Results:

The USB-C port makes its first appearance on an iPhone device this year. All iPhone 15 models come equipped with this port. However, there is a difference between the USB standard on Pro and non-Pro models. The iPhone 15 Pro Max features the USB 3.2 Gen (10Gbps), while the Plus gets only USB 2.0 (0.5Gbps).

Even though we now have USB-C onboard, the charging speeds remain the same, Apple cites 50% charge in 30 minutes with a 20W charger for both the iPhone 15 Plus and the iPhone 15 Pro Max. In reality, we achieved another peculiar result in our charging test, the iPhone 15 Plus was able to charge to full 30 minutes faster than the Pro Max. 15 and 30 minutes charging times are nearly identical, so again there might be some thermal management going on when topping the battery up to 100%.

The same MagSafe wireless charging technology is also present on both phones, allowing for wireless charging speeds up to 15W, and also the ability to slap a bunch of cool accessories on the back of both phones.

Specs Comparison