Reviews of the iPhone 15 Pro: More Than Just USB-C

This Friday, September 22, is when Apple’s new iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will go on sale and start to arrive for customers. Some media sites and YouTube channels have already released the first reviews of the gadgets.

The iPhone 15 Pro models come with several new features like a USB-C port, a lightweight titanium frame, an Action button that can be customized, a faster A17 Pro chip, an increased RAM of 8GB, thinner bezels around the screen, and improved cameras with a Telephoto lens that can zoom up to 5 times on the Pro Max model.

Written Reviews

Tom’s Guide‘s Mark Spoonaeur on battery life:

On our battery test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness, the iPhone 15 Pro lasted 10 hours and 53 minutes. That’s 40 minutes longer than the iPhone 14 Pro and nearly 2 hours longer than the Pixel 7 Pro. We consider 11 hours or more to be excellent.

The Verge‘s Allison Johnson on the USB-C port:

“I know we all have a lot of mixed feelings about USB-C, but let me tell you about a beautiful thing that happened: the 15 Pro Max’s battery was low, so I unplugged the USB-C charging cable from my MacBook Air and plugged it right into the phone. No searching for another cable. No dongles. Just a USB-C charger powering a USB-C iPhone.”

Johnson claims that while the Camera app is active, the Action button—rather than the volume buttons—can act as a real shutter button:

“I set the Action Button on the 15 Pro Max to open the camera, which I thought I’d really like. It even acts as a shutter when you use the Action Button to open the camera, and I love a physical shutter button. But it’s a bit of a reach, and after the first week, I’m not finding it any easier than swiping the homescreen to launch the camera and pressing the volume down button to snap shots. I have some other ideas for the Action Button, though, and the beauty is you can experiment with it until you find something you like.”

Kif Leswing of CNBC on the titanium frame:

Apple says that the 6-inch iPhone 15 Pro is 187 grams, or 9% lighter than last year’s model. The iPhone 15 Pro Max, with a bigger 6.7-inch screen, weighs 8% less. But in practice, it feels like an even bigger reduction. Going back to my old iPhone 14 Pro, it feels like a brick. The weight difference between this year’s Pros and last year’s is noticeable even with a case.

Video Reviews