iPhone comparison chart 2023: Every iPhone compared

The iPhone 15 Pro is made from Titanium rather than stainless steel, a first for the iPhone line. Titanium is stronger and lighter than stainless steel, and unsurprisingly the iPhone 15 Pro is 9% lighter than its predecessor at 6.60oz compared to 7.27oz. There are four shades to choose from In four shades: Black Titanium, White Titanium, Blue Titanium, and Natural Titanium. You’ll still need a case though as that titanium is still covered in glass, see: Best iPhone cases.

Also bringing the weight down is the slight reduction in the size of the handset, made possible because Apple has reduced the size of the bezels around the display.

Another new feature is the Action Button, which replaces the mute switch on the side of the Pro iPhones. When ‘pressed’ you get a haptic response and the Dynamic Island animates. It’s customizable so it can be set to quickly perform complex actions, launch any apps, launch the camera, start a voice recording, and so on. 

Inside the iPhone 15 Pro is the A17 Pro processor. This is the first 3nm chip to appear in a consumer device. Apple claims that the two high-performance CPU cores are “10 percent faster”, the four high-efficiency cores are “faster”, the 6-core GPU (there were 5-cores in the 14 Pro) offers “20% faster peak performance and better energy efficiency”, and the Neural Engine is “up to twice as fast”.

Estimated battery life is the same as the iPhone 14 Pro at up to 23 hours video playback and fast-charge is still 50% in 30 minutes when plugged into a 20W adapter. Speaking of charging, you will be able to charge an Apple Watch or a set of 2nd-gen AirPods Pro by plugging them into your phone, aka reverse charging. 

Another big difference for 2023 is that the iPhone 15-series replaces the Lightning port with USB-C. This brings a number of benefits, particularly to the the Pro models, which gain a faster USB 3 connection offering up to 10 Gbps of bandwidth. The new ports also have DisplayPort support, so they all can output video at up to 4K/60Hz to an external display.

The iPhone 15 Pro also offers Wi-Fi 6E, while the standard iPhone 15 sticks with Wi-Fi 6, like the iPhone 14 range. The 15 Pro models are also the only ones to gain the low-power home networking mesh networking technology Thread. All 2023 iPhones also get the second-generation U2 Ultra Wideband chip that is more accurate at a greater distance. 

As for the camera, on paper, it doesn’t look like a huge generational difference, but in reality, the 48MP main camera on the newer iPhone is larger than the predecessor’s (and larger than the new 48MP camera on the iPhone 15). Like the iPhone 15, the Pro model shoots a new default 24MP HEIF image. This 24MP mode can use different areas of the image sensor to produce three different zoom levels: equivalent to 24mm, 28mm, and 35mm lenses. The telephoto camera on the iPhone 15 Pro is an improved 12MP camera, still with a 3x zoom (or 77mm equivalent).

Apple’s Pro Max iPhones are generally a larger version of the standard Pro model, but sometimes they offer a few extra features, and for 2023 the Pro Max model is much more than a big iPhone 15 Pro thanks to some new camera tech including a 5X zoom on the telephoto camera. 

Like the Pro model, the iPhone 15 Pro Max features a Titanium exterior (covered in glass) that comes it the same four shades: Black Titanium, White Titanium, Blue Titanium, and Natural Titanium. Like the standard Pro model. the 15 Pro Max itself is smaller, thanks to the reduced bezels, and lighter than its predecessor at 7.81oz rather than 8.47oz.

Both Pro models also offer the same A17 Pro processor, Apple’s first 3nm chip. Apple makes some strong claims about it, as you can see from the iPhone 15 Pro details above. The GPU in both of 2023’s pro iPhones is up from 5 to 6-cores, compared to 2022’s equivalents, and use a new shader architecture. There are new graphics features like mesh shading and it offers hardware ray tracing acceleration, which Apple claims is the fastest in any smartphone and up to four times faster than software ray tracing. Apple has incorporated a hardware AV1 decoder for the first time. 

The iPhone 15 Pro Max gets a new “tetra prism” periscope lens that bounces light four times internally for a longer focal length: 120mm, or a 5x zoom. This is a big increase over the 3x/77mm telephoto camera on the iPhone 15 Pro. The digital zoom also increases from 15X to 25X.

The new ultra-wide camera, in both of the pro iPhones, gets a new anti-glare lens coating and better night mode quality.

Both of 2023’s Pro models feature the Action Button, which replaces the mute switch. The button is customizable so it can be used to perform complex actions, launch any apps, launch the camera, or start a voice recording. 

While the standard iPhone 15 model doesn’t get all the bells and whistles of the Pro models, it does offer some great new features in comparison to 2022’s iPhone 14. 

First up is the Dynamic Island, the breakthrough feature of the iPhone 14 Pro and Max which transforms the notch into something a little more useful. The iPhone 15 doesn’t get the other features of the iPhone 14 Pro though: there’s no ProMotion and no Always-On display, for example. 

The camera for the iPhone 15 is also better than the predecessor’s. It gains a dual-lens rear camera with 48MP f/1.6 Main, 12MP f/2.4 Ultra Wide; and up to 2X optical zoom. That’s compared to the 12MP Main with ƒ/1.5 aperture in the iPhone 14. Like all the 2023 iPhones it also gains Smart HDR 5. 

This year’s colors: black, blue, green, yellow, and pink are a bit more muted than the bolder blue, purple, yellow, midnight, starlight and Product Red of last 2022.

Where the iPhone 15 Pro models are smaller, due to reduced bezels, the iPhone 15 is actually a tiny bit taller than the iPhone 14 at 5.81in (147.6cm) compared to 5,78in (146.7mm). It also weighs a fraction more than the predecessor did. 

All the 2023 iPhones offer a USB-C port where the Lightning port once was. It seems the USB-C port on the Pro models offers some more pro features though, for example, the USB-C on the iPhone 15 supports USB 2 while the same port on the iPhone 15 Pro supports USB 3 up to 10GB/s. 

The iPhone 15 gets the processor of the iPhone 14 Pro, the A16 Bionic. It has a 6-core CPU and a 5-core GPU and should offer a nice boost compared to that in the iPhone 14. 

All this and the iPhone 15 starts at $100/$100 less than the iPhone 14 did in 2023. The iPhone 14 was $829/£849 at launch, the iPhone 15 is $799/£799.

The iPhone 15 Plus is essentially a larger version of the iPhone 15 and it shares the same features,  including the new USB-C port and A16 Bionic chip with 6-core CPU and 5-core GPU). 

It has a 6.7-inch display like the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but is actually slightly larger than the pro variant. Despite this it’s lighter than the Pro Max at 7.09oz rather than 7.81oz, and is also lighter than the 2022 Plus model was. 

The Pro Max is the superior phone with its “tetra prism” periscope lens, 5x zoom and other features, but the iPhone 15 Plus does at least get an improved camera compared to the previous generation, with a new 48MP main camera with a ƒ/1.6 aperture compared to the 14 Plus’s 12MP, ƒ/1.5 aperture. It also offers Smart HDR 5. 

Like the iPhone 15, the Plus gets the Dynamic Island, which transforms the notch into something a little more useful. You won’t find the other features of the iPhone 14 Pro though: there’s no ProMotion and no Always-On display. 

The price is better for 2023. The iPhone 14 Plus started at $929 / £949 but the iPhone 15 Plus will start at $899/£899. 

The iPhone 13 costs $100/£100 less than the iPhone 14 and $200/£200 less than the iPhone 15. If you want to buy a new iPhone this two-year-old model is still a good option.

For many spending the extra money to get a newer iPhone with more features will make sense. However, there are reasons to choose the iPhone 13 over the iPhone 14.

The key reason, we feel, is that the extra money spent on the iPhone 14 could be spent on increasing the storage in the iPhone 13. The iPhone 14 costs $699/£699 with 128GB storage, but you could get an iPhone 13 with 256GB storage for $699/£699. There is certainly an argument for getting the maximum amount of storage you can afford – especially if the phone you are upgrading from has more storage.

There are many ways in which the iPhone 14 and iPhone 13 are similar, in fact visually there is little to tell the 13 and 14 apart (which will mean that at a glance nobody will know you have last year’s phone. You might even prefer the deeper colors of the 2021 iPhone in contrast to the muted shades for 2022. Where the iPhone 14 and 13 have a small notch at the top of the screen, the iPhone 15 has the Dynamic Island, so it’s more obviously a new phone.

If you are looking to upgrade from an older iPhone, but don’t have the cash for the iPhone 15, the main point is you won’t be sacrificing as much as you would have in previous years in choosing the iPhone 13 over the iPhone 14. So if you want to save your money you can confidently do so.

Since the iPhone 13 mini has been discontinued, the iPhone SE is now the only small iPhone sold by Apple. It’s a similar size to what the iPhone 8 was, so if that’s the iPhone size that’s right for you then this is the iPhones to consider – although we’d suggest an iPhone with a 6.1in screen (the iPhone 13, 14 or 15) would be preferable (the screen is larger, but the iPhone isn’t a lot bigger).

However, there’s one other important reason why for some people the iPhone SE is a good choice. Anyone who feels that they need the Home button will probably feel lost with any iPhone other than the iPhone SE. While most of us can adjust to Face ID and swiping rather than pressing a button, some benefit from the accessibility of a physical button, and there is no doubt that is the reason why Apple still sells an iPhone with a button (although we don’t know for how much longer that will be the case). There is a way to add a software Home button to any iPhone though. Read: How to add a software Home button.

The other reason to choose the iPhone SE is (2022) that it is Apple’s cheapest iPhone you can buy new. It now costs $429/£429. (Although that is more than the older generations cost – at one point the iPhone SE cost $399. Just make sure you aren’t buying one of the older iPhone SE models: this is the third-generation iPhone SE, the first arrived in 2016 and the second in 2020!

While we don’t really recommend buying the iPhone SE, if you need that Home button–and we know some older folk who are concerned about not having that button–it’s the only available option.

When it was introduced as a brand new model in 2022, the iPhone 14 Plus rocked the boat a bit because it meant that people who might have chosen the iPhone 14 Pro Max, because they wanted a big iPhone, now had a choice. They could save a decent amount of money and purchase a new iPhone with standard features. Or, to look at it another way, they could save money and get more storage by choosing a 512GB iPhone 14 Plus over a 256GB iPhone 14 Pro Max. For some, more storage will trump additional Pro features.

Now Apple has dropped the price of the iPhone 14 Plus to $799/£799 from $929/£949, and slotted it in below the iPhone 15 Plus at $899/£899. It’s a decent saving if you opt for the older model, or you could get double the storage on the iPhone 14 Plus for the same price as the 128GB 15 Plus.

There are a whole lot of reasons why the iPhone 15 Plus if a better choice, if you don’t need that extra storage (and you might not if you use pay for iCloud). The camera is better, there’s the Dynamic Island, and you’ll get a better processor. But if you want to save money and you want a big iPhone, the iPhone 14 Plus is a good choice.

It’s been a few years since Apple last introduced an S iPhone, but the iPhone 14 could just as easily have been called the iPhone 13s. Rather than upgrading the processor to the A16 Bionic, as seen in the iPhone 14 Pro (and Max), the iPhone 14 (and Plus) instead features the A15 Bionic, albeit the variant from the iPhone 13 Pro, which means it has an extra graphics core compared to the iPhone 13, which is still on sale.

The fact that the iPhone 13 is still on sale, and similar in so many ways, is the biggest challenge facing the iPhone 14. If you are looking for a cheaper iPhone upgrade there are two very similar iPhones: one of which will save you $100/£100.

But there are some features offered by the iPhone 14 that might justify the extra $100/£100 if they appeal to you. The cameras are by far the biggest difference between the iPhone 14 and iPhone 13–the newer model includes a faster aperture (ƒ/1.5 rather than ƒ/1.6) and a larger sensor on the main camera to bring better overall performance and improvements in low-light shooting. The iPhone 14 also benefits from a new Photonic Engine computational system that helps capture more detail in challenging light and aids features such as Foreground Blur. This isn’t just about getting better low-light photos – you don’t have to hold the iPhone still for as long, which is a real bonus.

The Action Mode is another bonus feature that makes the iPhone 14 a better phone than the iPhone 13. Action Mode means you can video while walking, or even running and get a steady result. It’s a fun feature that people will probably take advantage of. The selfie camera on the front is also improved on the iPhone 14, with a bigger aperture and autofocus.

There are other features that the iPhone 14 offers and the iPhone 13 lacks, such as the Crash Detection feature. If you are in such a situation then you’ll probably be glad to have the 14.

As for how the iPhone 14 compares to the iPhone 15, which also costs just $100/£100 more, the newer iPhone offers a lot for that extra money, including a superior 48MP camera, USB-C port, Dynamic Island, and the A16 Bionic chip. There’s not really a good reason to save money and get the iPhone 14 rather than the iPhone 15, especially when you could save even more and opt for the iPhone 13.