I was gifted an iPhone 15 Pro, delivered yesterday morning, by yesterday evening it was being sent back (Network couldn’t sort out my contract).
But during this time I got to play with it, I was upgrading for an iPhone 11 (normal, not pro) and was so excited for the huge difference, but I just didn’t feel it?!
Do you feel you’ve had a big difference from your previous upgrade? I took the same photo on my 11 and 15th and unless you zoomed in, you couldn’t really see the difference. The sound quality on the 15pro I could hear every breath when recording and I also felt like white colours were ‘too strong’ on the screen making videos/photos feel fake on the 15 pro compared to read on the 11. Are you noticing any of these? Did I just not get to play long enough?
Upgrading from 7 to 11 felt HUGE and I was expecting that again, especially with this being a Pro model.
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IPhones literally don’t change much from phone to phone lol
I’m going to turn on my own kind here (that’s a joke, I don’t have brand loyalty), and reveal that Android offerings are no longer far off from this.
The only exceptions I can think of are the folding phones, which are actually a pretty cool innovation (albeit somewhat niche still.)
I have a XR. It’s slowly getting more glitchy now that it’s in its final iOS upgrade cycle. I expect in about a year it will tend toward being too annoying for me. So I also expect to notice a difference when I upgrade, but largely because my old phone is losing utility.
My previous upgrade was 5c to XR. Major difference.
Same feeling here. I upgraded my 11 pro last year for the 14 pro and even tho there are some noticeable upgrades: -Dynamic Island -120hz -way brighter -and major camera upgrades Despite all that, I miss my 11 pro. The heaviest of the 14 pro is too much. And when taking photos, the iPhone does a lot of processing and HDR which at the end the photo kinda looks fake. Don’t get me started talking about battery…
Same here with 11 Pro → 15 Pro “upgrade”, I can totally relate (in a slightly less concise way).
I went from an 11 to a 14 pro max and that jump was ridiculous. The picture quality is insanely better. Like, I thought of course it would be better, but it’s ridiculously better. The speakers are amazing. Hell, I used to always wear my AirPods or hook up a bt speaker but if I’m just in the kitchen or something I can use my phone speaker. The brightness on the 14 is also great. The most important thing is the battery which is light years ahead of the 11. Everything also runs smoothly and faster than my old 11. It’s blowing my mind you said what you said bc I did the same jump basically.
I think prehaps it was clouded by the issues I had
I love my 14PM coming from 12PM
You definitely made a big jump here!
From 11 to 11 Pro is a nice bump.
From 11 to 11 Pro Max is a nice jump.
From 11 to 14 Pro Max is a gap.But had you upgraded from a 11 Pro Max, I’m not so sure that you’d feel that huge of an upgrade.
I have to agree with you. I went from an 11 Pro Max to a 15 Pro. And while there is definitely improvement, I thought it would be more. I don’t regret the upgrade, my 11’s speakers were not really doing a good job anymore. Calling was a nuisance, I’d have to up the volume completely and still have a hard time hearing the person on the other end. The camera upgrades are nice, and the 120 Hz display is a nice bonus as it feels smoother thanks to that. I like the upgrade, but all things considered, if it hadn’t been for my speaker issues, I could have waited another year.
You realize all of these speaker issues can be solved by just cleaning the damn speakers out with alcohol and a brush, right?
I can appreciate sound advice and understand that you might repeatedly encounter this issue with people close to you. It can be very frustrating to see that they won’t listen or work on easily fixable issues with their device. So, when a random gonk on the internet faces the same problem, it’s likely that they also haven’t practiced good phone hygiene.
In this case, I can assure you that the speakers are clean. I probably should have clarified that my issue is with the earpiece, which, as you may know, is also a speaker and has given out over time. Last I checked, hardware can and will fail eventually, and it just so happens that it occurred sooner than I had anticipated in this case. Still, four years is a decent runtime for a phone.
Understood, and absolutely hardware failures are common. Working in IT, I see them every day. It has been my experience that with iPhones, it is much more common for the speakers to become muffled from dust and debris than outright failure, but I have definitely seen both. I also have an 11 Pro Max that has been my daily driver since launch, it’s a solid phone, I just hate to see people give up on these units if it’s truly just a simple fix as cleaning. Yours is more complicated of an issue, and it’s good that you already tried the known solutions. Four years is great, I hope to squeeze more.
The picture quality is insanely better.
some of that is the sensor and some of that is the sharpening and de-noising algorithms as well as smart HDR. honestly most people like this but I am really disappointed that apple doesn’t let us turn it off.
I believe you can now in photos settings. There is a smart HDR toggle. Sadly, find the photos too much with HDR on and the image quality too low with it off. Wish they improved the camera rather than the editing.
This is only true if you have an iPhone 12 or earlier. Do you? 13 onwards removed smart HDR toggle
Nope, and I changed the setting last week. Believe it was released in the most recent update.
I had the same feeling when I upgraded from my 11. Photo didnt wow me, I dont notice 120hz refresh rate anymore since I gotten used to it after a day. The biggest upgrade I would say that I appreciate is the bigger screen since Im using a Pro Max now but other than that, its the same experience. But dont get me wrong, I still love my phone.
I come from a second hand 8 plus to the 15 pro, had a month now and still impressed by how smooth it all is.
Came from a XS Max bought on launch to a 15 Pro Max and besides the battery life which is a huge upgrade, not really no. Smartphones are squarely in the toaster/refrigerator kind of category. Boring but necessary iterative upgrades year over year, which is a good thing as it indicates a mature market segment. The smartphone has been “figured out”.
I’m sorry but if you can’t notice the difference Lord help you. Problem is people have become technically desensitised.
I mean I DID have a bad day with it yesterday. Realising it would have to go back, 12 hours isn’t very long. I did love some features and would have loved more time with it
I upgraded from an 8 to the 15 Pro. Massive difference.
It’s an iPhone. The iPhone has felt the same for the past 5 years…
i’d have to disagree
I can’t disagree with you. Coming from a 11 Pro, I upgraded to a 15 Pro, but I can’t say that it changes my life, at all.
(Grab a much and a blanket, heavy-hearted rang incoming.)
- Initially I wanted a 13 Mini because I prefer the Mini format. But I didn’t want to give up on the x2 zoom, and I was excited for the x3 that only Pro models offer since 13.
→ I’m still happy with my x2 zoom, but the x3 zoom is absolute crap. It feels like a digital zoom of the x2 image. Barely use it. - The macro mode is a welcome addition as I love capturing flowers and insects. However, I can’t say that I feel a huge gain in photo quality since my 11 Pro. I did notice that the photos contain much more pixels, but on the other end, I found out that the AI smoothing algorithm tends to erase details completely. Some details that used to be pixellated are now simply blurry… It depends on the case but even for night mode, I can’t say I’m impressed with the photo quality. Too much AI going on. My X-T3 is nowhere near retirement, that’s for sure.
- I was concerned that my 11 Pro’s battery, after 4 years of distinguished services, was becoming weak (the battery health indicator was bugged though, it’s been stuck at 92% for 2 years). And I read that with iPhone 12 and 13, the battery life had dramatically improved. It turns out that my 15 Pro feels it actually has the same if not less battery life. I’m really surprised by this, I was hoping that OS updates would fix it but… I’m still waiting.
- I was curious about the Always-On Display. Turns out I find it annoying and distracting, because some notifications that you keep for later stay visible, which can be confused with new notifications.
- Dynamic Island is a nice, well-executed gimmick, but still a gimmick. And I actually preferred the infamous notch: it sucked as well, but it was less distracting that this huge blob at the top of the screen.
- Action button sounds great… but after experimenting a bit with it, I’ve reset it back to the default mode: Silence. Not sure that was worth the form factor update…
- I never use cases because they’re annoying and I’m rarely clusmy. I thought 15 Pro would be more resistant than my unbreakable 11 Pro (almost no scratch after 4 years of good care with a few 1m-high drops on wood and asphalt). Turns out my first fall last week already left more marks than any of the falls from my 11 Pro. 11 Pro was the sturdiest phone I’ve ever seen, yet so elegant. 15 Pro feels like a precious, malleable thing.
What I did get in the end:
- Pro Motion sure is pleasant, and iOS does feel a bit snappier than it was on my 11 Pro. But that’s an improvement you mostly feel when you go back to your former device, which was fine as is.
- I like the fact that all pictures store “Portrait mode” data just in case. Having had use of it yet, though.
- Better Wi-Fi, and 5G compatibility. But I’m very happy with good 4G, so I didn’t care that much about it.
- USB-C! Finally. Can’t wait to retire my AirPods Pro and AppleTV remotes to throw away my last Lightning cables.
Seeing how big this post is, it sounds like I’m definitely heavy-hearted about this change!
But in the end I didn’t return the 15 Pro because I gave my 11 Pro to my mother, who upgraded from a 6, which is a monster upgrade for her and she enjoys it a lot.
So to me, the satisfaction in this purchase mostly comes from the warranty renewal, more than the phone itself.
I wouldn’t recommend anyone with an iPhone less than 4-5 years old to upgrade to a 15 Pro or even 15 unless theirs is in poor condition, or if they’re sure that they can really exploit some of the advanced features like the video features or the computing power, which 99% of users don’t need.
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A few years ago when the 8 and X came out, wanting to upgrade my own iPhone 6, I bought the 8 because the X didn’t appeal to me and sounded too expensive. I returned the 8 after 3 days, seeing absolutely no different except a +20% weight increase. I bought the first SE instead, going back to my favorite form factor (4/4S/5/5S), and was super happy with it. Sometimes you just have to listen to reason I guess.
I thought jump from 11 Pro and 15 Pro would be a big jump compared to say jumping from 13 or 14 series.
What were you expecting?
To give you context I’m currently using 11 Pro and it will turning 4 years very soon.
I surely thought so too.
What I was expecting that the 15 Pro did not deliver:
- +20 or +40% bump in battery life vs. the aging battery of my 11 Pro.
→ I can’t really feel a difference, which means that the battery life feels actually worse since the 15 Pro is new and my 11 Pro was 4 yo. Apple’s official specs mention +25% battery life with video playback, +80% with video streaming and +15% with music playback… - A huge gap in picture quality. Macro mode is amazing and most photos feature more details especially in daylight, but as I mentioned in my original post, the level of detail increased but no in dramatic proportions. And when it does, sometimes the AI messes up the details… I took several shots with 11 Pro vs. 15 Pro and sometimes I actually found the 11 Pro more accurate, despite the 4x lower pixel count. That was unexpected.
- I love the x2 zoom and expected a lot from the x3 zoom, but the image in x3 looks very bad even in daylight so I seldom use it.
The only reason I’m keeping the 15 Pro and didn’t go for a 13 Mini instead is the x2 zoom, which I can’t live without.
My dream phone would be a Mini with the current Pro features. Then I wouldn’t mind the specs stagnation, but the smaller, lighter, one-handed friendly form factor would make a huge difference in my daily use.
- +20 or +40% bump in battery life vs. the aging battery of my 11 Pro.
i wouldn’t call the island a gimmick as it’s not really lying to you about anything nor is it “trick” in the definition sense. I actually use it a lot and think it’s a smart way around just having a notch. I listen to music a lot though so maybe I just use it more than you.
True, thanks for your correction. I meant to say that it’s really a gadget compared to other features (but then what is an iPhone…).
As a UX/UI designer I’m actually amazed at how smart and smooth it is; but I just don’t find it useful because I’m usually using my phone either in apps, or on the locked screen. Although I use Spotify and Youtube a lot, outside of the app I mostly interact with them from the locked screen.
The one thing I really use the Island for is to end phone calls.
- Initially I wanted a 13 Mini because I prefer the Mini format. But I didn’t want to give up on the x2 zoom, and I was excited for the x3 that only Pro models offer since 13.
What happened to it?
If you were gifted the phone, what does it have to do with your network and contract? You simply swap your sim over to the new phone and keep paying your phone bill as normal
My husband gifted me the phone as in he brought a new contract including the phone because apple refused us credit for the first time ever.
My provider wouldn’t let me move my number with me and wanted to charge us multiple times for things. I tried everything, they didn’t want to help and said either go to another network or cancel basically.
Coming from an IPHONE 11 PM TO 15 PM. As I don’t notice a lot of change except the big obvious ones like straight edges. Smaller bezels, and the dynamic island. I replay appreciate the 120hz. It just feel smoother, and more “pro”. I think it’s awesome and I love it. But a bit overkill for my needs.
I had the same upgrade. 11 to 15 pro and everything was an amazing upgrade especially 120hz and just looks really good as a phone. Apart from the battery life im very satisfied with it.
