Apple iPhone 15 Pro vs. Apple iPhone 14 Pro

The 2023 generation iPhone Pro features some significant changes, such as the move to the USB-C port and the refreshed build, but these may not be that important to everyone. Let’s say you have a lot of Lightning accessories or you prefer the feel of stainless steel in your fingertips: perhaps an iPhone 14 Pro might be a better option for you than the latest 15 Pro.

Now, Apple may no longer be willing to sell you a 14 Pro (older high-end models have been discontinued on the official site) but third-party retailers appear to have plenty of stock. So, we’ll do a little comparison to try to help you if you find yourself in this dilemma.

For starters, you can compare the full spec sheets here or continue directly with our editor’s rating below.

Size comparison

Thanks to slightly thinner bezels, the new iPhone 15 Pro is slightly shorter and narrower than last year’s model. What is most important, in our opinion, is the lower weight, by 19 g, thanks to the transition from the stainless steel structure to the titanium/aluminium one. The new, more rounded edges of the frame also make the new model much lighter and more compact than the 14 Pro.

Other than that, there is only a small change in style. Both generations offer flat bezels and flat glass panels on each side, with a particularly huge camera housing on the back. The titanium models have slightly more muted colors, while the 14 Pro can be purchased in purple, silver, gold or black.

iPhones are marketed for Ceramic Shield-branded glass on top of the display, co-developed with Corning. Both devices have this along with identical Gorilla Glass panels on the back.

Both phones have an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance and are designed to withstand a depth of 6 meters.

Initial reports suggested that the new generation phones were more prone to breaking than the 2022 ones, but this appears to have since been proven wrong.

View the comparison

There’s not much that distinguishes the iPhone 15 Pro’s display from that of the iPhone 14 Pro: they look identical. That’s not a bad thing as the 14 Pro already had one of the best displays in the business; it’s just that there’s little reason to choose one over the other in this regard.

Both panels are capable of just below 1,800 nits with auto-brightness enabled, while the slider will take you to the mid-800s – superb results.

Both screens offer excellent color calibration.

Both iPhones offer seemingly impressive adaptive refresh rates, but since Apple isn’t transparent in its implementation, we can only rely on the advertised numbers.

Finally, iPhones support both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision streaming.

Battery life

The iPhone 15 Pro comes with a 3274 mAh battery. The 74mAh difference compared to the 14 Pro’s capacity is hardly an upgrade – it’s probably just what the engineers managed to squeeze into the available space this time around.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that the iPhone 15 Pro has essentially the same battery life as the previous generation, although you may notice a small improvement in video playback.

Charging speed

We recorded a full charge from zero in 1:33h on the iPhone 15 Pro, a small improvement over the previous generation, although hardly fast in the grand scheme of things. Again, there’s no reason to buy the new model for this particular aspect of its performance.

Both phones support wireless charging at up to 7.5W with Qi-compliant charging pads or up to 15W with the proprietary MagSafe accessory.

Test the speakers

The iPhone 15 Pro returned more or less the same result as the 14 Pro regarding volume, placing it in the “Good” category.

The quality is excellent as usual, although the audio profile has changed quite noticeably compared to the previous generation. The 15 Pro has gained a few more tones in the low end compared to the already rather boomy 14 Pro, but it also maintains the nice vocal delivery and crunchy highs. We wouldn’t really call that a reason to prefer the new over the old, though: both are great.

You can compare the sound of the two iPhones under controlled acoustic conditions with the samples below. Just make sure you have headphones on and the volume is turned up.

Performance

The iPhone 15 Pro has the best chip Apple has made so far: the A17 Pro. On the 14 Pro you’ll have to settle for the second best: the A16 Bionic. Both feature custom 6-core CPUs and GPUs, with the new one being 6-core, while the one inside the A16 is 5-core.

Apple says the CPU’s high-speed cores are 10 percent faster than those in the A16 Bionic. The new GPU is also expected to be 20% faster than its predecessor in terms of maximum performance. The GPU also enables hardware-accelerated Ray Tracing, which is supposedly 4x faster than the A16 Bionic’s software-based Ray Tracing.

iPhones come with top-notch hardware and can run just about anything you find on the App Store without any problems. The CPU and GPU performance improvements are indeed what Apple promised, but outside of benchmarks, we doubt the difference will be felt, not today and not in the near future. It works like this: If you want the latest and greatest chip, get the 15 Pro, but know that the 14 Pro will be just as good for most applications.

Apple
iPhone 15 Pro

AnTuTu 10
1,566,329

Geekbench 6
2,922 single-core

Geekbench 6
7,172 multicores

Apple
iPhone 14Pro

AnTuTu 10
1,429,408

Geekbench 6
2,487 single-core

Geekbench 6
6,352 multicores

Camera comparison

The iPhone 15 Pro has more or less the same camera hardware as the 14 Pro: three rear cameras and the selfie camera are further assisted by a LiDAR system on the back and a 3D ToF camera on the front.

The main cameras on each phone are 48MP, while all the others are 12MP. The 15 Pro doesn’t have the 5x telephoto lens of the 15 Pro Max, so both the 15 Pro and 14 Pro offer 3x zoom – so nothing to separate the two generations in terms of reach.

However, the 15 Pro’s main camera is better than the 14 Pro’s in several ways. First, it can shoot at 24MP, offering better detail and a less processed, more natural look. When set to 12MP, though, photos are completely identical on both generations.

2x zoom and ultrawide photos are of similar quality on both iPhones, as are those taken with telephoto lenses.

iPhone 15 Pro daylight camera examples: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 3x

iPhone 14 Pro (Max) Daylight Camera Examples: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 3x

The same can be said of low-light photos: the 24MP output from the 15 Pro’s main camera is more detailed, although you won’t get that when night mode kicks in. On the other hand, it’s not too interesting to get into. first, so you’ll reap the benefits of those extra megapixels relatively often. Small differences can be seen here and there in the other cameras’ output, but they’re more of a shot-to-shot variation than a significant enough advantage of one or the other.

iPhone 15 Pro low-light camera examples: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 3x

iPhone 14 Pro (Max) Low Light Camera Examples: 0.5x • 1x • 2x • 3x

Overall, both generations of iPhone Pro are great cameraphones. However, the new model’s added features make it a bit more versatile and potentially worth the premium.

Here’s a glimpse of how the iPhone 15 Pro’s main camera compares in image quality to that of the iPhone 14 Pro in our photo comparison tool.

And here’s how the video quality of the iPhone 15 Pro’s main camera compares to that of the iPhone 14 Pro in our video comparison tool.

Verdict

The iPhone 14 Pro could save you up to $150 over a 15 Pro, which doesn’t seem like a huge difference when compared to the $1200 price tag of the 15 Pro. There’s still a difference, though; The older model might have some selling points for the right buyer.

Key among these is, believe it or not, the Lightning port. If you live in a household with multiple iPhones, switching to USB-C on one of the units may be more of a hassle than an upgrade, so you may be inclined to postpone the switch until a later stage.

We can also understand why some people would prefer the stainless steel construction of the iPhone 14 Pro over the new titanium-coated iPhone 15 Pro.

However, we think the new model has more advantages if you choose between these two in particular. The USB-C port is the way to go, and the change has to happen sooner or later: you might as well be an “early adopter” (the irony is not lost on us).

The camera improvements aren’t huge, but they’re there, and the 24MP capture and intermediate focal lengths seem like noteworthy upgrades. It’s always nice to have the latest chip too.

Perhaps most importantly, however, is the weight reduction: we think this opens up the iPhone 15 Pro to a new crowd of potential buyers, who were looking for a decently pocketable high-end device, but found the iPhone 14 Pro too heavy to fit that bill.