The iPhone 15 Pro succeeds 2022's iPhone 14 Pro, bringing 40 new features and improvements to Apple's high-end smartphones. This buyer's guide breaks down every major difference you should be aware of between the two generations.
In 2022, Apple unveiled the iPhone 14 Pro as the successor to the popular iPhone 13 Pro, introducing an always-on display, the Dynamic Island, a 48-megapixel camera, the A16 Bionic chip, longer battery life, and more. The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max have now been discontinued by Apple, and as slightly older models, lower prices can be found for the device at third-party resellers. As such, some customers who own an older device may be weighing up whether to upgrade to an iPhone 14 Pro or an iPhone 15 Pro.
As the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro share a large number of features, should you consider buying or sticking with the iPhone 14 Pro to save money? Our guide helps to answer the question of how to decide which of these two iPhone models is best for you, and serves as a way to clearly see the all of the differences that the iPhone 15 Pro brings to the table. This article focuses on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro, Apple's high-end iPhone models, but to understand the differences between the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15, see our other buyer's guide:
Although the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro share most of their basic features, the iPhone 15 Pro offers a large number of notable upgrades over its predecessor, such as a titanium design, Action button, USB-C port, and A17 Bionic chip.
| iPhone 14 Pro | iPhone 15 Pro |
|---|---|
| Surgical-grade stainless steel chassis with squared-off edges | Aerospace-grade titanium chassis with contoured edges |
| More repairable design | |
| Thinner borders around the display for slightly smaller overall footprint | |
| 7.85mm depth | 8.25mm depth (0.4mm thicker) |
| 206g or 240g weight | 187g or 221g weight (19g lighter) |
| Ring/Silent switch | Action button |
| A16 Bionic chip (5nm) | A17 Pro chip (3nm) |
| 6-core CPU | 6-core CPU (up to 10% faster) |
| 5-core GPU | 6-core GPU with with hardware-accelerated ray tracing (up to 20% faster) |
| 16-core Neural Engine | 16-core Neural Engine (up to 2x faster) |
| Dedicated AV1 decoder | |
| 6GB memory | 8GB memory |
| Telephoto camera with second-generation sensor-shift optical image stabilization | Telephoto camera with larger sensor, folded tetraprism design, optical image stabilization, and autofocus 3D sensor-shift module (Pro Max only) |
| Anti-reflective coating on camera lenses | |
| 0.5x, 1x, 2x, and 3x optical zoom | 0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x, and 5x optical zoom (5x on Pro Max only) |
| 13mm, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 77mm, and 120mm focal length picker (120mm on Pro Max only) | |
| 48-megapixel super-high-resolution photos | 24- and 48-megapixel super-high-resolution photos |
| Smart HDR 4 | Smart HDR 5 |
| Portrait mode with Focus and Depth Control | Next-generation portraits with Focus and Depth Control |
| Night mode and Night mode portraits | Improved Night mode and Night mode portraits |
| Shoot and instantly transfer 48-megapixel ProRAW images to Mac via USB 3 | |
| Record video directly to an external drive | |
| ProRes video recording up to 4K at 30 fps | ProRes video recording up to 4K at 60 fps with external recording |
| Action mode | Improved Action mode and low-light video |
| Log video recording | |
| Academy Color Encoding System | |
| Record spatial video for Apple Vision Pro | |
| Improved audio quality on phone calls | |
| Wi‑Fi 6 connectivity | Wi‑Fi 6E connectivity |
| Thread networking technology | |
| First-generation Ultra Wideband chip | Second-generation Ultra Wideband chip (connects from 3x further away) |
| Precision Finding for Find My friends | |
| Lightning port | USB-C port |
| USB 2 transfer speeds (up to 480Mb/s) | USB 3 transfer speeds (up to 10Gb/s, 20x faster) |
| DisplayPort support for up to 4K HDR video output | |
| Support for Qi wireless charging | Support for Qi 2 wireless charging |
| Setting to prevent charging above 80% | |
| Battery manufacture date, first use, and cycle count information in Settings | |
| 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options | 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options (no 128GB tier on Pro Max) |
| Deep Purple, Gold, Silver, and Space Black color options | Natural Titanium, Blue Titanium, White Titanium, and Black Titanium color options |
Overall, the iPhone 15 Pro is a fairly significant upgrade over the iPhone 14 Pro, introducing meaningful quality-of-life features like the USB-C port and Action button that change the methods of interaction with the device. The new, considerably more lightweight titanium design, slimmer borders around the display, and contoured edges result in a noticeably different aesthetic and feel in the hand.
The iPhone 15 Pro also brings advancements to photography and videography, adding support for 24-megapixel high-resolution photos, Smart HDR 5, and next-generation portraits – practical features that most users can take advantage of. The iPhone 15 Pro Max takes things to the next level with its tetraprism telephoto camera, offering up to 5x optical zoom on the iPhone for the first time. Features like 48-megapixel HEIF capture, external and log recording, Academy Color Encoding System, and fast data transfer via USB 3 are also major upgrades for professionals.
This is not to mention Roadside Assistance via satellite, new color options, the second-generation ultra wideband chip, and the A17 Pro chip – Apple's first chip made with a 3nm fabrication process, which radically improves the gaming capabilities of the device.
Due to the scale and breadth of these improvements, some iPhone 14 Pro users can justify upgrading to the iPhone 15 Pro, especially if they value the new design, USB-C port, Action button, and camera improvements. It is worth sticking with the iPhone 14 Pro if you are holding off for an even more substantial upgrade in the future.
Customers coming from an older model also have good reason to preference the latest model over the iPhone 14 Pro due to the relatively large number of improvements and additional features offered by the iPhone 15 Pro, but it depends on just how inexpensively last year's Pro models can now be obtained.
