Is the iPhone 15 Worth It?

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October 13, 2023

6–9 minutes

By Arden X. ‘27

You may have seen memes about Apple’s recently released iPhone 15 and how Apple just “copied” another phone. YouTuber Steven He teased about how Apple just slapped a “15” on the iPhone 14 product case. But jokes aside, many blame Apple for the lack of innovation and change from the previous models to the new one. The truth is, Apple did make changes between the iPhone 14 and 15, but are they worth upgrading for?

Why you should buy the iPhone 15:

USB-C Charging Port

Perhaps the most important change

in the 15 model is the new USB C charging

port. This is a major change, as Apple iPhones dating back to the 5th iteration have had the traditional Lightning Charging cable. This new port will significantly improve charging and transfer speeds; the USB-C charging cable is 60% faster at charging than the traditional cable, and is up to 20x faster when transferring data. It’s so fast that data can be transferred in live time to a storage unit when recording a video. This will eliminate hour-long transfer times that annoy many people. Finally, countries and states around the world are starting to unify charging ports and have chosen the USB-C outlet. The European Union, India, and California all have laws encouraging manufacturers to include USB-C outlets in their electronics. For those traveling abroad, this may come in handy and eliminate those painful experiences of trying to find the right charging converter.

I believe that this is a major change to Apple iPhones, and for the better. USB-C is more efficient when making large data transfers, faster to charge, and easier to use. As a result, countries are starting to notice, making it the primary outlet in those countries. Overall, if you need quicker charges, plan to be overseas soon, or do a lot of transfers,you might want to buy the iPhone 15.

Titanium Case:

One new feature is that there is a noticeable difference in the weight of the phone case. The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus feel as light as my iPhone 13 Mini. The sides of the phone feel like rubber, making the phone difficult to slip out of your hands. The backside of the phone felt very smooth like aluminum. Also, tests performed by Consumer Reports showed that the titanium case was more durable than the aluminum case, reducing the probability of screen cracks when dropped.

I believe that the titanium material is an improvement from the iPhone 14, primarily because of the increased strength of the case and reduced the possibility of screens cracking. For people who have “issues” with dropping their phone, this may be an important factor to consider.

A17 Chip

The next major change is the A17 chip, the new processor for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. The A17 chip is a 3-nanometer processor, making it the world’s smallest processor in an iPhone ever. For some context, smaller processors have faster processing speeds. Users who have an iPhone 12 or less will experience between a 22 to 64 percent increase in processing speed depending on their original phone model.

The A17 chip also enables advances in the phone’s camera system. It is able to film in 4K with 60 fps HDR video quality, similar to the quality of the iPhone 12. As for taking photos, the new camera system makes it so that users don’t have to switch to portrait mode to take portrait pictures. When there is a person or subject in the photo, the camera will identify it and automatically turn on telephoto, making portrait photos much easier to take. The camera system is also now able to take high-resolution photos of up to 5x optical zoom and can zoom (but not optical) of up to 15x. Compared to the iPhone 12’s 2x optical zoom and max of 5x zoom, the iPhone 15 has much higher quality and specs. There were also several other minor improvements, including 3D stabilization when taking photos, sharper night mode details, and more accurate renderings of skin tone.

The A17 chip is perhaps the biggest improvement between iPhone 12 models and previous ones. The processing speed has notable differences, enabling faster run times when the phone is performing tasks. This makes the experience more convenient and quicker. The camera system has some major upgrades, allowing more flexibility and options when taking photos and videos. The A-17 chip may be the biggest difference when comparing the iPhone 15 and previous models.

Arguments against Buying the iPhone 15:

The Action Button

As Apple’s heavily marketed new feature of the 15 model, it doesn’t live up to the hype. It replaces the switch used to turn on and off silent mode, and is customizable to do several types of actions, including: silent (original silent function), focus (turning on focus mode), camera (opening the camera app), flashlight (turning on/off the flashlight), voice memos (starting/stopping an audio recording), magnifier (opening the magnifier app), shortcut (using a shortcut), accessibility (using an accessibility feature), and none (doesn’t do anything). However, the Action Button can only do one of the following tasks and never multiple at a time.

Because of how many people use the silent switch, people will likely just route the action button to the silent function. If the action button is not routed to the silent function, users will have to go to Settings > Sounds and Haptics, then turn on/off the silent mode. Because of this, the action button will likely be as useful as the original switch and customers won’t take advantage of the new features. Even for people with an iPhone 12 or less, the new changes practically provide no benefit.

A17 Chip:

While the A17 Chip may be beneficial for people with iPhones 12 or lower, it doesn’t benefit users with iPhones 13 and 14. Both phones use the A16 processor, and it only provides a 10% increase in processing speed, which isn’t worth it. The only big change between the 13 and 14 model camera systems is that portrait mode doesn’t need to be manually activated in order to be turned on.

In general, the differences in terms of the processor between the 13 and 14 models and the iPhone 15 aren’t significant enough to make it your money’s worth.

Conclusion

Now that we’ve looked through all the major changes to the new iPhone 15, I think it’s safe to say that Apple definitely did something different. As to whether it’s worth buying, I felt like it depends on what current phone you have.

For people with iPhones 12 or lower, the 15 model provides major upgrades. The new USB-C charging port makes charging much faster and enables much quicker data transfers between your phone and a storage device. In addition, USB-C is becoming the new standard for charging ports around the world, making travel more convenient. The titanium case’s increased strength from aluminum makes the iPhone 15 less prone to screen cracks from dropping the phone. Finally, the A17 chip provides improvements in processing speed and results in major upgrades when it comes to taking photos and videos. This includes a slew of changes that makes the overall camera experience more flexible and gives you more options.

However, for people with iPhones 13 or 14, it’s not worth buying due to the lack of improvement. The new action button is almost as useful as the old one, and most people probably won’t utilize the new capabilities of it due to its lack of flexibility. The A17 processor is very similar to the iPhone 13 and 14’s processors (A16 and A15), with only a 10% increase in speed. Due to the similarity of the products, the benefits just aren’t enough to justify buying the new iPhone 15.

So to recap: you should buy the iPhone 15 only if you have a model 12 or lower. Otherwise, it isn’t worth it. However, my needs aren’t exactly the same as you, so it’s still a personal choice. Maybe you’re an avid photographer and the action button shortcut to the camera app works out great. Maybe that 10% increase in processing speed enables you to play a more complex mobile game. So the facts are presented, but I encourage only people with the iPhone 12 or lower to buy the iPhone 15.