The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro are among Apple’s newest iPhone models and follow last year’s iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, but how different are the two latest 6.1-inch ‌iPhone‌ models, and what exactly does a “Pro” device give you?

Last year, the biggest new differences between the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro were always-on functionality, the Dynamic Island, three hours of battery life, and rear cameras with different apertures. With ‌iPhone 15‌ and ‌iPhone 15 Pro‌, both devices share new features like the USB-C port, second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, and next-generation portraits, but Apple’s “Pro” and non-Pro ‌iPhone‌ models are more different than ever.

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 what additional features and upgrades the ‌iPhone 15 Pro‌ brings to the table.

‌iPhone 15‌

‌iPhone 15 Pro‌

Aluminum and glass design

Titanium and glass design

Slightly smaller due to slimmer borders around the display

Weighs 171g or 201g

Weighs 187g or 221g

Ring/Silent switch

Action button

ProMotion with adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz

Always-on display

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

“Advanced” dual-camera system

“Pro” triple camera system

48-megapixel Main camera with ƒ/1.6 aperture

48-megapixel Main camera with ƒ/1.78 aperture and larger sensor

12-megapixel Ultra Wide camera with ƒ/2.4 aperture

12-megapixel Ultra Wide camera with ƒ/2.2 aperture

12-megapixel Telephoto camera with ƒ/2.8 aperture (unit with larger sensor, folded tetraprism design, and autofocus 3D sensor-shift module on Pro Max model only)

0.5x, 1x, and 2x optical zoom

0.5x, 1x, 2x, 3x, and 5x optical zoom (5x on Pro Max only)

Sensor-shift optical image stabilization

Second-generation sensor-shift optical image stabilization

True Tone flash

Adaptive True Tone flash

LiDAR scanner

Night mode portraits

Macro photography

Apple ProRAW

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 (60 fps with external recording)

Macro video recording, including slo‑mo and time‑lapse

Log video recording

Academy Color Encoding System

Record spatial video for Apple Vision Pro

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

Wi‑Fi 6 connectivity

Wi‑Fi 6E connectivity

Thread networking technology

20- or 26-hour battery life

23- or 29-hour battery life

128GB, 256GB, and 512GB storage options

128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage options (no 128GB on Pro Max)

Yellow, Blue, Pink, Green, and Black color options

Natural Titanium, Blue Titanium, White Titanium, and Black Titanium color options

Starts at $799

Starts at $999

The ‌iPhone 15 Pro‌ offers a large number of upgrades over the standard ‌iPhone 15‌. With just $200 difference to obtain a display with ProMotion and always-on functionality, the Action Button, and longer battery life, many customers will be able to justify getting the ‌iPhone 15 Pro‌ over the ‌iPhone 15‌. Other differences, such as the A17 Pro chip and 2GB additional memory are notable, but most significant are perhaps the devices’ fundamentally different rear camera setups. The ‌iPhone 15 Pro‌ unlocks 10 additional camera features and offers four additional or different pieces of camera hardware. Due to the scale and breadth of the ‌iPhone 15 Pro‌’s improvements and features, most customers will be happy to choose the high-end model.

The standard ‌iPhone 15‌ still offers many of the ‌iPhone 15 Pro‌’s most compelling capabilities, such as USB-C, ‌Dynamic Island‌, and a 48-megapixel main camera, at a lower price point. It will only be worth getting the ‌iPhone 15‌ over the ‌iPhone 15 Pro‌ if you want a lighter device, do not care for the “Pro” rear camera setup or features like ProMotion and the always-on display, or cannot justify the $200 to upgrade to the high-end model. In this instance, you will still benefit from the device’s generous roster of advanced features. The ‌iPhone 15‌ is still a very well designed and balanced device, especially for average customers and those coming from a much older model.

This article, “iPhone 15 vs. iPhone 15 Pro Buyer’s Guide: 35+ Differences Compared” first appeared on MacRumors.com

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