iPhone 16 Professional Max vs. iPhone 15 Professional Max

Whoever comes within the Apple ecosystem, stays within the Apple ecosystem, proper? If that’s the case, you might be possibly seeking to improve your older iPhone however seeing these profitable iPhone 15 Professional Max value tags makes you ponder whether the additional few hundred bucks for the newer iPhone 16 Professional Max are justifiable.

Desk of Contents:

For starters, you may evaluate the whole specs sheets or instantly proceed with our editor’s evaluation within the following textual content.

Although Apple has formally discontinued the iPhone 15 Professional Max, you may nonetheless discover some items mendacity round for about €/$400-450 much less. And let’s be sincere, iPhone upgrades have gotten fairly stale currently. Let’s discover out if Apple was in a position to spice issues up this 12 months.

Measurement comparability

Design-wise, there’s little to no change within the iPhone 16 Professional Max, in comparison with the 15 Professional Max. Nonetheless, the newer Max grew in measurement and added a bit little bit of weight. The burden half is not as noticeable, however for the reason that 16 Professional Max is now constructed round an enormous 6.9-inch show, albeit with thinner bezels, it is noticeably taller and a tad wider too.

There is no significant distinction within the “constructing blocks” both. Positive, the 16 Professional Max makes use of newer era Ceramic Defend glass for its back and front, however we doubt this may tip the dimensions for anybody. Each handsets are exceptionally constructed and boast IP68 ingress safety.

The iPhone 16 Professional Max this 12 months comes with a barely bigger display screen diagonal and even slimmer bezels. The decision can be increased to keep up the identical pixel density.

Aside from that, the 15 Professional Max has the identical high quality display screen. They each assist the identical HDR requirements (as much as Dolby Imaginative and prescient). They each peak at round 1,700-1,800 nits of max brightness, based on our checks, and so they can each go as much as 120Hz.

Battery life

The already glorious iPhone 15 Professional Max battery life is topped by the 16 Professional Max battery endurance rating. The distinction within the total rating is reasonably minimal, however as we glance carefully on the outcomes, we see that the newer Professional Max positive factors some additional runtime on the 4G name and internet looking checks.

Admittedly, the distinction is not large, but when battery life is utmost significance to you, then the 16 Professional Max is the suitable selection.

Charging pace

Sadly, there is not any improve within the charging division for yet one more 12 months. The iPhone 16 Professional Max expenses for roughly the identical time as its predecessor, based on our checks. Apple does not promote the rated max charging energy however our checks clearly present about the identical charging charge within the first 15 to half-hour after which slows down considerably.

The older 15 Professional Max expenses from 0 to 100% in 109 minutes, whereas the 16 Professional Max does that 8 minutes slower. The marginally longer charging time in all probability as a result of bigger capability.

Speaker check

The latest 16 Professional Max comes with improved loudspeaker high quality with out being quieter. They provide the identical stage of loudness however at increased high quality.

Music tracks sound extra pure, hotter and with extra depth to them due to the extra pronounced bass. Curiously sufficient, that does not appear to have an effect on vocals in a nasty means. The vocals and highs are simply as clear as on the 15 Professional Max, possibly even cleaner.

Efficiency

As with each new iPhone, the 16 Professional Max provides newer, quicker and extra environment friendly chipset. It has the Apple A18 Professional on board with a hexa-core CPU and it is primarily based on the 3nm manufacturing course of. The Apple A17 Professional powering up the 15 Professional Max has related specs – hexa-core CPU with hexa-core GPU.

The brand new A18 Professional chipset additionally has significantly higher AI capabilities due to its 16-core NPU.

Reminiscence configurations stay unchanged with each gadgets beginning at 8GB/256GB and going all the way in which as much as 8GB/1TB.

Benchmark efficiency

Although the modifications could sound refined, the 16 Professional Max provides virtually 26% higher CPU efficiency as per Geekbench 6, about 27% increased mixed efficiency based on AnTuTu 10 and outpaces the 15 Professional Max in GPU-heavy workloads by 27%.

Moreover, the 16 Professional Max fares higher in our CPU and GPU throttle checks, displaying higher sustained efficiency.

Total, the efficiency leap is much from trivial however will seemingly stay underutilized in case you are not into cell gaming that a lot.

Digital camera comparability

The iPhone 16 Professional Max brings a notable improve to its digicam system with the addition of a brand new HDR adjustment setting and a Digital camera Management button function, although the latter stays incomplete at launch and with reasonably questionable utility.

The largest shift comes with the ultrawide digicam, the place the earlier 12MP sensor has been changed by a 48MP (1/2.55″, 0.7µm) Quad Bayer-type sensor. Regardless of this enhance in decision, the bodily measurement of the ultrawide sensor stays about the identical as earlier than, indicating a 1/2.55″ sensor measurement like its predecessor. Whereas these upgrades push the ultrawide to new heights, the selfie digicam, that includes a 12MP sensor with PDAF and a 23mm f/1.9 lens, carries over from the earlier era with none main modifications. Video recording capabilities throughout the system embody as much as 4K at 120fps for the principle digicam and as much as 4K at 60fps for the ultrawide, telephoto, and entrance cameras.

Picture high quality

Because the minor {hardware} modifications entail, there’s little to no distinction of how the 2 iPhones shoot their stills and movies. We battle to seek out any notable distinction within the images and movies in relation to high quality, processing, and so forth.

iPhone 16 Professional Max: 0.6 • 1x • 2x • 5x

Telephone 15 Professional Max: 0.6 • 1x • 2x • 5x

Selfie samples: iPhone 16 Professional Max • iPhone 15 Professional Max

After some pixel-peeping, although, we did discover a barely noticeable distinction between the ultrawide cameras, which is predicted provided that the one {hardware} change is on this division. The newer iPhone appears to supply barely hotter stills and with brighter highlights, however as soon as once more, we doubt that most individuals would discover. It is a trivial change.

iPhone 16 Professional Max: 0.6 • 1x • 2x • 5x

iPhone 15 Professional Max: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 5x

Video high quality

The identical goes for the video recording. We see no obvious distinction in how these two telephones report movies apart from the ultrawide the place the 16 Professional Max produces clips with barely hotter shade temperature.

iPhone 16 Professional Max daylight video samples: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 5x

iPhone 15 Professional Max daylight video samples: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 5x

iPhone 16 Professional Max low-light video samples: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 5x

iPhone 15 Professional Max low-light video samples: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 5x

Verdict

So is the iPhone 16 Professional Max higher than its predecessor? Most actually, sure. Objectively talking, the 16 Professional Max has barely higher battery life, significantly increased efficiency, nicer audio system and since it is a newer cellphone, count on one additional 12 months of software program assist. The 16 Professional Max additionally has a Digital camera Management button, which left us with blended emotions however some customers prefer it.

However is it round €500 higher than the iPhone 15 Professional Max? Most likely not. If you could find a 15 Professional Max on the shop cabinets, you’re going to get roughly the identical consumer expertise for lots much less. We discover it exhausting to justify the large value hole with the reasonably modest {hardware} upgrades, particularly since there aren’t any positive factors within the digicam division.