iPhone 17 vs iPhone 15: The upgrade Apple fans have been waiting for

If you bought an iPhone 15, you might feel cheated. The iPhone 17 fixes almost everything Apple held back last time.

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Person holding a green iPhone and a white iPhone side by side.

Intro


The iPhone 17 has just arrived, bringing a 120Hz ProMotion display, faster charging, a 48 MP ultrawide camera, more base storage, and a brand-new 18 MP Center Stage selfie camera.

If you are an iPhone 15 owner, you might be wondering how it stacks up against its two-year old predecessor — a phone that still offers good performance, great cameras, and can easily be found for less than $799 on the second-hand and refurbished markets.

If you already own the iPhone 15, or if you’re choosing between the two, the big question is whether the iPhone 17 offers enough improvements to justify the upgrade.

To find out, we put both phones through our in-house tests for battery life, camera quality, display performance, and raw speed. We spent quality with both devices to see how they perform in real life. In this detailed comparison, we’ll share our results and help you decide which phone is the smarter choice for your needs.

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Apple iPhone 15

6.1-inch
Dual camera
3349 mAh
6GB
$386 at Amazon

iPhone 17 vs iPhone 15 differences:


7.7
Apple iPhone 17
7
Apple iPhone 15
5.9
7.6
6.8
6.1
7.6
8.6
8.5
8
8.2
8
8
10
Battery Life
Photo Quality
Video Quality
Charging
Performance Heavy
Performance Light
Display Quality
Design
Wireless Charging
Biometrics
Audio
Software
5.7
7.4
6.4
4.8
5.9
5.9
8
7
7.8
8
8
10

Table of Contents:

Design and Display Quality

A larger phone, but a more durable one


The iPhone 15 introduced a more comfortable aluminum frame and pastel colors, keeping the Dynamic Island design. The iPhone 17 looks similar, but it comes with Ceramic Shield 2 on the front, which is more scratch resistant compared to the first generation. The back is still reinforced glass, though.



In terms of size, the iPhone 17 is slightly larger and heavier than the iPhone 15, though still very manageable at 177 grams compared to 171 grams on the iPhone 15. It also has slimmer bezels around its larger 6.3-inch screen, giving it a more modern look.

Apple is also refreshing the color lineup. The iPhone 17 colors come in Black, Lavender, Mist Blue, Sage, and White, while the iPhone 15 colors were Black, Blue, Green, Pink, and Yellow.

The iPhone 17 continues to feature the rather uncomfortable Camera Control Button introduced with the iPhone 16 series, alongside the familiar Action button and USB-C port that came with the iPhone 15.


The iPhone 15 features a 6.1-inch OLED panel capped at 60Hz, which was already behind the competition when it launched.

The iPhone 17 jumps to a 6.3-inch OLED with a variable refresh rate of 1-120Hz, making it more power-efficient and smoother. It also dramatically improves brightness, with up to 3000 nits peak outdoors compared to 2000 nits on the iPhone 15. Both can hit 1600 nits in HDR.

An added benefit of the iPhone 17's minimum 1Hz display refresh rate is that it supports the Always-On feature now, which shows at-a-glancei nformation on the screen without the need to wake the phone up.

Apple now applies a seven-layer anti-reflective coating to the iPhone 17 series.

It is less advanced than what you find on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, yet side-by-side footage from MrWhoseTheBoss shows a clear reduction in reflections compared to the iPhone 16.

Face ID remains the biometric option on both, with the Dynamic Island still in place and without any changes.

Display Measurements:



The iPhone 17’s 6.3" OLED screen goes up to 2672 nits (20% APL) vs 2117 nits on iPhone 15, and holds strong at 1054 nits at full screen white. Color accuracy has also improved: Delta E 1.85 vs 2.96 (RGB), though grayscale tracking is only average. Side by side, the iPhone 17 looks brighter outdoors.

Performance and Software

A19 with Apple Intelligence


The iPhone 15 runs on the A16 Bionic (4nm), a capable chip that still delivers smooth performance. But it wasn't built with Apple’s upcoming AI push in mind.

The iPhone 17 debuts the A19 chip, paired with 8 GB RAM and now starting at 256 GB storage. This brings efficiency improvements, better sustained performance, and full support for Apple Intelligence, Apple’s on-device AI suite.


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Both phones run iOS 26, which introduces the new Liquid Glass design, Live Translate, Call Screening, smarter Messages, and a redesigned Camera app. Apple Intelligence is available on the iPhone 17 but limited on the iPhone 15 due to hardware constraints.

CPU Performance Benchmarks:


Geekbench 6
SingleHigher is better
Apple iPhone 173527
Apple iPhone 152595
Geekbench 6
MultiHigher is better
Apple iPhone 178798
Apple iPhone 156651


On the CPU side, the A19 chip shows a big step forward: 3527 single-core vs 2595 on the iPhone 15, and 8798 multi-core vs 6651. That’s roughly a 35% gain in single-core and 32% in multi-core performance.

GPU Performance:


3DMark Extreme(High)Higher is better
Apple iPhone 175172
Apple iPhone 152950
3DMark Extreme(Low)Higher is better
Apple iPhone 173295
Apple iPhone 151896

In GPU benchmarks, the iPhone 17 crushes the 15, with 5172 vs 2950 (high) and 3295 vs 1896 (low). That means it is much better equipped to handle the increasingly demanding video and photo editing apps, or for more graphically intensive games.

Camera

Sharper selfies and a much better ultrawide


The iPhone 15 was the first base iPhone with a 48 MP main sensor, but its ultrawide stayed at 12 MP, and selfies were limited to 12 MP.

The iPhone 17's main camera is still 48 MP but now the ultrawide has also been upgraded to 48 MP (defaults to 24 MP), unlocking sharper detail and improved macro shots.

Arguably more exciting, however, is the selfie camera, which now comes with 18 MP and Center Stage. It debutes a larger, square sensor that stabilizes 4K HDR video with optical image stabilization. You also get the ability to record with the front and back cameras simultaneously using the new Dual Capture feature.

The unique square shape of the new front image sensor allows users to take horizontal selfies and capture more in the shot without the need to turn the phone sideways.

Portrait mode has also been enhanced with Focus Control, letting you shift focus after capture, and better low-light performance thanks to Apple’s Photonic Engine.

PhoneArena Camera Score:


Photo
Video
Phone Camera
Score
Photo
Score
Main
(wide)
Ultra
Wide
Selfie Zoom
Apple iPhone 17 150 156 84 24 28 21
Apple iPhone 15 148 154 82 23 28 20
Phone Camera
Score
Video
Score
Main
(wide)
Ultra
Wide
Selfie Zoom
Apple iPhone 17 150 145 77 23 26 18
Apple iPhone 15 148 143 77 23 26 18
Find out more details about photo and video scores for all phones we have tested on our PhoneArena Camera Score page

The iPhone 17 earns a 150 overall camera score vs 148 for the iPhone 15. The gains are modest: wide and selfie stay about the same, while ultrawide and zoom see slight bumps thanks to the new sensor and updated processing.

Main Camera




I see little to no difference between the main cameras on the iPhone 17 and iPhone 15 besides the way they've calculated the white balance. The 17 seems to have a tendency to make the images much warmer than they actually look in real life, which is prominant across all cameras.

Zoom Quality




Since the 2x sensor crop is cropping in on the main image sensor, we see the same differences when shooting regular photos at the 1x zoom range.

Ultra-wide Camera




If you pixel peep you can see that the iPhone 17's new 48 MP ultrawide camera offers higher detail. Again, the image is a tad on the warm side as far as white balance goes. Besides those differences, though, the two are rather similar.

Selfies




I barely notice any differences between the new 18 MP camera on the iPhone 17 and the 12 MP one on the iPhone 15. The image from the 17 does look somewhat more detailed, but nothing too obvious. Both don't get the skin colors right, and both have oversaturated the image a bit.

More Camera Samples




Video Quality


Video Thumbnail


Battery Life and Charging

Longer battery life, faster speeds, broader compatibility


Apple doesn’t disclose battery capacities, but officially:
  • iPhone 17 (3692 mAh): up to 30 hours video playback (27 hours streamed).
  • iPhone 15 (3349 mAh): up to 20 hours video playback (16 hours streamed).

That's a +50% increase for local video playback and a +69% for streamed video playback. Not too shabby, and much needed.

The iPhone 17 benefits from a new stacked battery design, which improves energy density and durability. It also charges much faster: up to 40W wired (50% in ~20 minutes) with Apple’s new 40W adapter, and up to 25W wireless with MagSafe or Qi2.2-certified chargers.

The iPhone 15 remains limited to 20W wired (50% in ~30 minutes) and 15W MagSafe wireless charging. Both use USB-C with USB 2.0.


PhoneArena Battery and Charging Test Results:


Battery Life
Charging
Phone Battery Life
estimate
Browsing Video Gaming
Apple iPhone 17
3692 mAh
6h 13min 16h 47min 7h 19min 9h 12min
Apple iPhone 15
3349 mAh
5h 41min 13h 25min 7h 51min 8h 24min
Phone Full Charging 30 min Charge
Wired Wireless Wired Wireless
Apple iPhone 17
3692 mAh
1h 16min Untested 67% Untested
Apple iPhone 15
3349 mAh
1h 55min 2h 33min 60% 27%
Find out more details about battery and charging for all phones we have tested on our PhoneArena Battery Score page

Battery life results are mixed: the iPhone 17 delivers 16 hours and 47 minutes in our browsing test vs 13 hours 25 minutes, but slightly falls behind in our video and gaming tests. Still, the 17's significantly better performance for browsing brought it to a higher estimated battery life of 6 hours and 2 minutes vs 5 hours and 41 minutes on the iPhone 15.

Charging is much quicker with the iPhone 17. It took the phone almsot 40 minutes less to reach 100%, despite having a larger battery. It also charged 7% more in the first 30 minutes vs the iPhone 15.

Audio Quality and Haptics


Speakers on the iPhone 17 are louder and fuller than the iPhone 15’s, with improved bass response and cleaner mids. Music sounds less compressed, and voices are clearer.

Haptics remain among the best in the industry, and the iPhone 15 feels just as good as the iPhone 17 when typing of experiencing any other haptic feedback.

Specs Comparison


Here's a quick look at the iPhone 17 vs iPhone15 specs comparison: 



Summary



The iPhone 15 was a solid update in its time, but the iPhone 17 finally fixes the biggest complaints: slow charging, a basic selfie camera, and a 60Hz screen.

Now you get a 120Hz ProMotion display, a sharper ultrawide, an 18 MP Center Stage selfie, much faster charging, and longer battery life, all while keeping the price at $799 with double the storage.

If you’re still on the iPhone 15, the upgrade is absolutely worth considering. And if you’re buying fresh, the iPhone 17 is hands-down the smarter choice.

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