Apple iPhone 15 Plus – Forced to be worse

The iPhone 15 Plus is one of Apple's largest smartphones, offering a 6.7-inch OLED display with a high pixel density that proves itself to be very bright in our test. But this already represents the first annoyance, since the panel only offers a refresh rate of 60 Hz. You also have to make do without an always-on display. In our opinion, this is definitely not enough, considering the hefty MSRP. The iPhone is run by the Apple A16 Bionic processor with 6 GB of RAM, which delivers a lot of computing performance.

A large improvement is the 48-MP main camera, which also offers an almost lossless 2x zoom. It is also accompanied by an ultrawide angle sensor. Although this allows you to take really good pictures, you only have to make do without the optical zoom, ProRes, and ProRAW.

The USB port was long overdue, but unfortunately Apple doesn't improve the data transfer speed in the iPhone 15 models, and at USB 2.0 it offers the same speed as the Lightning port of the predecessor. From a business point of view, it might be beneficial to differentiate it from the Pro iPhones. So in our opinion, USB 3.2 Gen. 1, which is much faster but only half as fast as the USB port in the Pro, would have made more sense.

We can see a similar issue with the WLAN. While the Pro models finally got Wi-Fi 6E and with that also 6-GHz WLAN, the iPhone 15 Plus still does not get this, since Wi-Fi 6 only supports the 2.4 and 5.0-GHz frequency bands.

So is the predecessor still the better deal? Perhaps. But the brighter display and new camera sensor are noticeable improvements, and the new model will probably get updates for a year longer. So it really comes down to the price. Also taking a look at the iPhone 14 Pro Max might still be worthwhile. Its display offers a similar brightness but runs at 120 Hz. In addition, the camera has a lot more to offer.

Those who still decide for the iPhone 15 Plus can get this directly from Apple but also from Amazon, for example.