Ever since the 28 Years Later trailer dropped last week, zombie fever has gripped the Internet like the fictional Rage virus took hold of Great Britain back in 2002. Unlike the original film starring a young Cillian Murphy, with its meager $8 million / £5 million / AU$15 million budget, the third entry in the horror film franchise cost a comparatively huge US$75 million / £59 million / AU$118 million.

Although it’s not the most expensive horror movie ever made, it’s certainly up there. So, with that big ol’ Hollywood budget in mind, you’d assume it was shot on an Arri Alexa, a Sony Venice or maybe a retro Panavision film camera… not a flippin’ iPhone 15!

That’s right, Wired has confirmed “the use of Apple smartphones as the principal camera system,” namely, the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Now, iPhones have been used to film movies before – but we’re talking independent films, not blockbuster horrors. And while this is an interesting revelation, I don’t think it’s quite what it seems…

ABOVE: Watch the details of the 28 Years / iPhone 15 situation

I was first made aware of all this via YouTube channel @TonisFilmClub, which discussed an image of actress, Jodie Comer, standing next to an iPhone rig while on the 28 Years Later set. And when I say rig, I mean a professional-looking video setup.

Wired has reported that the production team used Beast cages to mount serious cine lenses on their respective iPhones. This makes a lot of sense, since the biggest obstacle when using an iPhone 15 Pro Max for professional filmmaking isn’t its video spec; the 15 Pro Max can dish out Apple ProRes footage at 4K 60p in Log, after all.

Where things start to fall apart are the iPhone’s available lenses and, perhaps most importantly, its autofocus. There’s simply no way you could film a professional-looking production using an iPhone’s AF. Adding cinema lenses to the rig would have enabled the crew to pull focus smoothly and accurately, while also affording them various fields of view.

28 Years Later certainly isn’t the first major production to use consumer cameras, with Mad Max: Fury Road employing the use of the Nikon D800 and more recently, sci-fi epic The Creator being shot on the Sony FX3. Heck, even some Marvel movies were shot on Canon DSLRs. And yet, 28 Years Later isn’t even the only film to shun cinema cameras within its own franchise.

Director Danny Boyle (who won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire) and writer Alex Garland (who shot parts of Civil War on a DJI Ronin 4D) famously used digital camcorders on the first zombie apocalypse outing, 28 Days Later, to mitigate both budget and time constraints.

Boyle and Cillian Murphy told NME how, in a pre-9/11 world, they were able to shut down central London. The Canon XL1 would have been a cheap and maneuverable solution, ideal for quick takes when traffic was held at bay.

But this choice of digital camera inadvertently ended up delivering the first movie’s gritty aesthetic, thanks to its standard definition output. And let’s not forget, the late 1990s and early 2000s were a digital moviemaking frontier. Star Wars – Episode II: Attack of the Clones was the first major blockbuster shot entirely on digital cameras, and that was another 2002 release.

But the best camera phones don’t produce gritty, newsreel footage – and when added to a rig with cinema lenses and other accessories, they lose their unrivaled portability. So I’d be interested to know Danny Boyle’s reasoning for selecting the iPhone 15 Pro Max this time around.

Watch this space, should it ever come to light…

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Interested in filmmaking? Check out the best cameras for filmmaking. And if you've got the budget for it, take a look at the best cinema cameras.

If you're a fan of movie history, this year Panavision turns 70, reveals 16 innovations it brought to legendary movies from Ben-Hur to Wicked. Here are my favorites…

Last year SmallRig teamed up with filmmaker Brandon Li to create the SmallRig x Brandon Li Mobile Video Kit for iPhone 15 Pro Max. It's one of the best iPhone camera grips on the market enabling users to turn their iPhones into a serious filmmaking option. Now an upgraded version is scheduled for release with updated features and universality across Apple and Android devices.

The SmallRig x Brandon Li All-in-one Mobile Video Kit will offer "the ultimate solution for professional smartphone videography" – looking at the specs it's hard to disagree!

The kit includes a universal phone cage, adjustable to fit most phones on the market. The inclusion of a magnetic attachment and a clamp fixation means that the phone is safe and secure when in use, and adjustable to various sizes.

From the cage, the design enables attachments of rotatable side handles complete with M.2 SSD enclosure and wireless remote. The handles also feature SmallRig's Hawk Lock system, enabling quick and efficient adjustments and removal.

The cage also provides users with a 67mm filter adapter. Unlike phone-specific filters, this enables a standard filter size to be placed on the rig, meaning that you can utilize the best ND filters and polarizers, and the kit also comes with a magnetic VND filter of its own.

A 4-in-1 USB docking station enables further rig expansion. SSDs, power banks, and microphone receivers can all be operated via the docking station, meaning a clean setup with fewer hanging wires.

As with all SmallRig cages expansion is the name of the game and this phone rig is no different. Included on the cage interface are sixteen 1/4" -20 threaded holes, 5 cold shoe mounts, 6 QR mounts, and 2 strap slots.

This kit offers a lot for phone videographers, which is vital now that content creation and phone videography are more in demand. The advancement of phone video capture has also improved dramatically, to the point that they can be considered viable filmmaking options, take the short film ¡Suerte! as a prime example!

The SmallRig x Brandon Li All-in-one Mobile Video Kit is available for preorder now for release on September 21, 2024. The kit will cost $239.99 / £243.90 / AU $397.90.

You may also be interested in our guides to the best cameraphone for photography, the best iPhone camera grips, and the best cameraphone for video.

Lexar recently launched a Kickstarter for a brand-new portable SSD system targeted toward smartphone content creators, and within a couple of hours it had surpassed its $10,000 target goal (approximately £7,600 / AU$15,000) and hit $700,000 (£532,000 / AU$1.03 million).

While Lexar is probably best known for making some of the best memory cards for cameras, the new launch focuses on the new wave of content creation – and offers a memory solution for those shooting on camera phones.

Photography and particularly filmmaking on phones has become increasingly popular, and a fantastic option given the continued advancement of mobile technology. But content creation on a phone faces hurdles – perhaps the main one being a shortage of internal storage.

Creators using phones will be all too familiar with the lack of memory on mobile device, particularly as things like ProRes become more widely adopted, but the Lexar Professional Go Portable SSD provides up to a whopping 2TB of extra storage.

"We've had a great response from our backers already," says Lexar's director of marketing, Joey Lopez.

"We're gaining valuable insights on the demand of mobile filmmaking storage, and we love the opportunity to engage with our customers as we strive to deliver more cutting-edge products that enable them to create more freely."

Using SSDs with your phone is not a new idea, but there are many features of the new Lexar device that make it more phone-friendly than your standard SSD.

Although compatible with Android, the Lexar Professional Go Portable SSD is targeted towards iPhone users – in particular those using the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro Max. It is designed for recording 4K 60fps videos in Apple ProRes, and via its USB-C interface provides "lightning fast" read (1,050 mb/s) and write (1,000 mb/s) speeds.

It is super compact and can attach directly via USB-C or can be clipped to the back of the phone or iPhone rig with little footprint, offering versatility and convenience.

For its size the SSD is also surprisingly durable and robust, and is ready to tackle most shooting scenarios that can be thrown at it. It features an IP65 rating for dust- and water resistance, and can withstand drops from up to 3.28ft / 1m. It also has a silicone case to further enhance this protection.

For those who want a more advanced setup (or, as Lexar states, to go from "amateur to pro") the SSD comes with a Hub system, complete with additional USB-C interfaces and improved power.

This creates a central hub for your iPhone rig and enables further expansion, with options for adding microphone receivers and lights without trailing wires and cables feeding to the same hub.

At the time of writing the Lexar Professional Go Portable SSD Kickstarter campaign has a two days left, and although it has soared past its target it is still offering exclusive discounts for backers.

Editor's note: As with all crowdfunding projects, there is no guarantee that the final product will match the early depictions in the campaign – or that the final product will be completed or delivered at all. DCW does not endorse this or any other crowdfunding campaign. 

You may also be interested in our guides to the best memory cards, the best portable SSD, and the best phones for video.

Most Apple users will have woken up with an email in their inbox announcing an event on September 09. While Apple doesn’t tell us what these events are going to focus on before the date, it's widely accepted that this one will reveal all the highly anticipated details on the iPhone 16 series.

The range will include four new models: the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max. 

Rumors about what the new series phones will look like have been circulating for months, including the introduction of iOS 18, AI smart features in the form of Apple Intelligence, and an updated Siri. 

Some of the most significant upgrades however, are in the camera department. 

Earlier this month I reported the latest rumblings about the camera button that looks to be coming to the iPhone 16 family, and now new information obtained by Apple Insider appears to confirm a wide range of exciting camera updates. 

Some of the outlet's longstanding sources have "not only confirmed these details… but added to them."

iPhone 16 and 16 Plus

The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will keep two vertically stacked cameras on the back, as shown in many dummy units and mock ups over recent months. There will be a primary wide camera that provides a 1x and 2x zoom, and a secondary ultra-wide camera for the .5x zoom out.

The primary camera will be staying the same at 48MP, with an f/1.6 aperture and optical quality 2x telephoto capabilities. The ultra-wide camera, however, will get a faster f/2.2 aperture (over the f/2.4 it had before), enabling more light to hit the sensor and improving low-light shots.

Non-Pro models in the 16 range are expected to get a macro photography mode for the first time, usually only available on the Pro and Pro Max models.

Not many details have been released on this but, unlike the more basic iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, the current 15 Pro and Pro Max ultra-wide cameras have autofocus, enabling the lens to focus close up for sharp macro shots. This suggests that if the 16 and 16 Plus are getting macro capability, then they might also get autofocus.

iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max

The two Pro-level phones are seeing the biggest changes, while keeping their three cameras on the back – a wide camera, an ultra-wide and a telephoto.

Their primary specs will remain unchanged; a 48MP sensor complete with an f/1.78 aperture lens, capable of 12MP images (via pixel binning) up to 2x.

The addition of a new 5x telephoto lens to the Pro is the biggest change in this tier. This is the first time that the 5x unit will be available on the smaller non-Max model, and it replaces the 3x telephoto lens on the current 15 Pro.

Delivering up to four times the resolution of the current Pro models, the new model will get an all new 48MP ultra-wide camera, which will reportedly be able to switch between 24MP and 48MP modes.

Lastly, the two Pro models are also predicted to be able to support the JPEG–XL image format – which delivers smaller files than standard JPEGs at the same quality, as well as native support for HDR.

New Capture Button

The most unusual change to the new iPhone series is the addition of a special, touch sensitive camera button, which is expected to appear on all four models.

It is expected to mimic the two-stage shutter buttons on standard DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, pressing once to autofocus, and again to take the photo. The button is capacitive, meaning that your finger is needed to activate it, so you won’t get hundreds of pictures of the inside of your bag or pockets.

Sliding your finger along the button will activate the zoom function, as well as other features.

Other products expected to be announced at the September 09 event include new Watches and AirPods, but Apple Intelligence AI features aren’t expected for another month after that.

Take a look at our guides to the best iPhone for photography, the best camera phone, and the best lenses for iPhone and Android camera phones.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL are virtually identical across camera quality, battery life and core user experience, with the only difference being size. This breaks the trend of iPhone Pros, Samsung Ultras, and virtually every phone makers' strategy of saving their best cameras for their most oversized phones. 

With Asus ditching its compact ZenFone for 2024, instead launching the massive ZenFone Ultra, we had lost hope that fans of not huge phones would have a flagship camera option this year, but with the Pixel 9 Pro, Google may have saved the day.

The 9 and 9 Pro sport a triple camera setup that includes a periscope zoom, they’re loaded with Google’s smart AI-infused photo processing and editing tools, plus a new Video Boost feature to help bring Pixel video close to iPhone 15 Pro quality. But has Google done enough to make its latest Pixels the Androids to beat?

Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL design

There’s no getting around the iPhone comparisons when it comes to the Pixel 9s’ overall shape. From the rounded corners to the flat front and back; the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL both look and feel like home for anyone who uses an iPhone.

The phone’s glass back panel has a matte finish, while the polished metal frame combines soft edges with a slick feel. If you're coming from a Pixel 7 or 8, it isn’t just the curved sides that have been zapped; the curved, visor-like camera bump is no more, either. Now, a flat oblong around the back houses three cameras, a temperature sensor, and a flash.

Available in four colors, Obsidian (black), Rose Quartz (pink), Porcelain (white), and Hazel (grey), you can also pick up corresponding cases for each color.

With its boxier shape, all the Pixel 9 series seem chunkier than old Pixels and other curved front-and-back phones, but they also feel exceptionally solid.

Flat displays are better for gaming than curved screens and are also notoriously easier to repair, so many applauded Google's move to a flat front with the Pixel 8 Pro in 2023. For 2024, Google flattening out both sides should make it sturdier still, and the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL are IP68 dust and water-resistant, so can withstand a dunk of up to 1.5m for 30 minutes.

As for which you should go for, the Pixel 9 Pro XL is a handful, weighing 221g, the same weight as an iPhone 15 Pro Max, and it clocks in at a slightly thicker 8.5mm. The Pixel 9 Pro, meanwhile, weighs 199g – 12g more than an iPhone 15 Pro and 32g more than a Galaxy S24 – so while it's smaller than the XL and last year's Pixel 8 Pro, it definitely isn't a dainty little thing.

Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL screen

Screen size is where the main difference lies between the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL. The 9 Pro's screen measures 6.3 inches, while the 9 Pro XL's is 6.8 inches. While the XL and iPhone 15 Pro Max are a similar size, the iPhone 15 Pro is noticeably smaller than the Pixel 9 Pro with its 6.1-inch display.

The Pixel 9 Pros deliver excellent viewing angles, vibrant colors, deep and inky blacks, and smooth 120Hz refresh rates. With HDR10+ support across Netflix and YouTube, they are poised for top-quality streaming, and thanks to 2000 nits peak auto brightness and 3000 nits peak HDR brightness, they are easy to see and playback content brilliantly.

Both phones have an almost identical level of screen clarity of around 490 pixels per inch, making them sharper than pro-grade iPhones, and they also have very similar neutral color profiles by default. In the settings, you can choose between Adaptive and Natural color modes.

Where the Pixel 9 Pro XL shines is when gaming and editing. Apps like Lumafusion and Lightroom are a bit more comfortable to use on its bigger screen, while on-screen game controls also benefit from the extra space. Meanwhile, the 6.3-inch Pixel 9 is excellent for watching, with ample space for videos and day-to-day navigation in a more compact body.

Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL Camera Specs

The Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL have three cameras around the back: a 48MP ultra-wide camera, a 50MP primary camera, and a 48MP telephoto camera. On the front is a 42MP selfie camera.

Ultra-wide camera

The Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL get a 48MP ultra-wide camera with an f/1.7 aperture, autofocus for macro capture, and a modest 1/2.55-inch sensor size, with upgraded autofocus over the Pixel 8 Pro.

Primary camera

The primary camera has a 50MP, 1/3-inch sensor with an f/1.7 aperture lens with OIS. This is unchanged when compared to the Pixel 8 Pro, though the sensor's spec is still competitive with the best iPhone cameras and Galaxy cameras, despite falling behind 1-inch sensor phones like the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and Vivo X100 Pro.

Telephoto camera

The Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL's telephoto camera has a 48MP, 1/2.55-inch sensor with an f/2.8 aperture lens with OIS. With a periscope structure and a roughly 5x equivalent reach, the module's spec competes with the best out there, though the Pixel 9 Pro's lens doesn't support telephoto macro capture, which would have been a great feature that's available on other phones like the Oppo Find X7 Ultra.

Other camera specs

The main hardware upgrade the Pixel 9 Pros get is an upgraded selfie camera. This 42MP resolution sensor is matched with a wide f/2.2 lens, a 17mm equivalent focal length and autofocus.

The Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL can capture video at up to 8K resolution with Video Boost or 4K resolution as standard. 

Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL camera review

The rear camera's photo results are very comparable to the Pixel 8 Pro with the biggest improvement to the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL being panoramas, selfies and front camera video.

Overall, Google's photo processing loves to pull out shadow detail while being respectful of colors – not ramping up saturation too much – and applying sharpening without making shots look too crispy.

Google Pixels have long-been camera phones that take excellent pictures until you pinch into the details or crop heavily. Once you do, results won't always hold up as well as the best from Oppo, Vivo or Xiaomi, but for point-and-shoot excellence, the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro are amongst the best out there.

One area the Pixel cameras really edge ahead is night photography. While Samsung, in particular, can generate some muddy shadows at night, the Pixels do a better job of balancing computational long-exposure with a pleasing final shot, and this is the case across all three cameras for photos.

Google has also upgraded the panorama mode for the Pixel 9 series, capturing multiple stills and stitching them together instead of grabbing a smooth sweep to get your shot. On-screen prompts guide you through the process, and by incorporating computational photography, the Pixels capture the best night panoramas we've seen on a smartphone.

One of the key reasons to pick up the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL over a vanilla Pixel 9 is zoom, and Google combines hardware and software zoom to great effect on its 2024 Pros.

Both Pixel 9 Pros outperform all iPhones at far-reaching zooming, and go toe-to-toe with the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Most impressive is how the smaller Pixel 9 Pro bests every other standard-sized phone around, making it an obvious choice for photographers who want compact phones that don't compromise on zoom.

The Pixel 9 Pros also get Zoom Enhance, adding an additional layer of post-processing to clean up lines, up contrast, and firm up soft shapes. This is particularly useful when cropping a photo shot on the wide or ultra-wide camera, eradicating pixelation, even if the results don't always look super-realistic.

The primary camera is an excellent go-to for rich-looking depth of field when photographing any subject nearer than 1m away, while the telephoto can create some decent depth when a subject is further than its minimum focus distance, also around 1m.

The Pixel 9 Pro line's biggest winner for 2024 is the selfie camera. Its photos look flattering and clean, and its video is reliably as good as the best out there. The microphones do a great job of picking up vocals, and with up to 4K 60fps capture, or 4K 30fps HDR capture, the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL are excellent vlogging phones when lighting is on point. As with all selfie cameras, this quality drops for video when the lights go down, but it's always competitive.

The rear camera's video performance is also improved, with footage shot in bright environments looking excellent. Video Boost is limiting in its mechanic – you have to pre-select it in advance, it doesn't work with the ultra-wide camera and with 8K video boost, it locks your focal length – zapping some spontenaety. The results are typically impressive, though, with clarity annd stability gains. That said, the process of uploading and waiting for Video Boost to edit your clip can take over an hour.

Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL AI Imaging

In addition to Video Boost and Zoom Enhancer, the Pixels are loaded with image capture and editing tools that add fun and utility but can be hit and miss. Best face, for example, which was introduced last year, lets you swap out faces of individuals in group shots, and it was oftentimes unsuccessful, only really working for head-on faces in our experience. 

For 2024, the feature on every Pixel reviewer's lips is Add Me, which lets subjects in a group photo take a photo with everyone using the primary camera by compositing images. This works to great effect in simple setups, though more complex group shots overwhelm it. It's also significantly less spontaneous than a selfie, but is a fun party trick and can be excellent for more creative, playful group shots.

Magic Editor has also been upgraded, so 2024 Pixel owners can reframe an image using generative AI, breaking through the border and using photography principles to get subjects in the best position. This was very useful, and the feature is a dab hand at accurately creating organic shapes and features like arms. It struggled more with patterns like a chequered shirt, for example. 

Once we got past our what is a photograph? existential questioning, we used Magic Editor with Add Me and ended up with some great family photos.

The final editing highlight to focus on for the Pixel 9 Pro series is Reimagine. Select a portion of your picture in Magic Editor and use a text prompt to make edits. As you can see above, the results are fantastical, as with much AI, but it's also impressive that those transformations took mere moments.

Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL Additional Features

The Google Pixel 9 Pro's AI features don't stop with image editing. Open Pixel Studio for full-on text-to-image generation. This supports a range of styles: Freestyle, 3D Cartoon, Video Game, Cinematic, Sketch, Anime, and Sticker.

As you can see below, the results can look like a very convincing illustration. There's definitely a question to be asked: what does Pixel Studio mean for creatives? Feeding into the broader responsible AI debate. Google also doesn't appear to watermark its AI-generated Pixel Studio pieces, or specify what it uses to train its AI image generation models. 

So while the utility is undeniable – Pixel Studio is a fun tool that can be useful for ideation – you'll have to ask yourself how you feel about the philosophical questions AI art poses.

After over a week with the Pixel 9 Pro XL and six days with the 9 Pro, one aspect we are seriously impressed with is performance. Past Pixels have suffered at the hands of Tensor chips. Frequently overheating, inconsistent with battery performance, since the Pixel 6 introduced the Tensor G1, built in partnership with Samsung's chipmaker division, Exynos, Pixels were falling behind their Qualcomm rivals when it came to performance and stability.

While the gaming performance of the new pixels still doesn't best the finest flagships running Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 silicon, stability – which is much more important – is significantly improved. Even with hours of gaming and WiFi hotspotting, our Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL didn't overheat, which is excellent going.

Our main gripe with the Pixel 9 Pros are their starting storage capacity of 128GB. For flagships that cost as much as they do, we would expect a starting capacity of 256GB. This is especially relevant when Google makes a big deal out of its software update promise of seven years being class-leading. We're guessing most 128GB Pixel users will run out of storage long before that seven years is up. On the plus, it is great to see both phones get 16GB RAM.

It's also great to see Google include fast 45 wired charging for the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL, with the Pro reaching a full charge in under 80 minutes and the 9 Pro XL taking around 90 minutes. While the phones also support wireless charging, unfortunately, they don't introduce Qi 2 MagSafe-style charging to the line.

Google Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL Verdict

If you want a top-tier camera phone, both the Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro XL should fit the bill, though the 9 Pro is the more exciting device. There is plenty of competition at the XL's size from the iPhone 15 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, to less mainstream alternatives including the Xiaomi 14 Ultra and VIvo X100 Pro. At the Pixel 9 Pro's size, however, it's head and shoulders above the competition when it comes to overall camera performance, and specifically, zoom.

For many, the Pixel 9 Pro will be the best camera phone of 2024. Practically speaking, it's small enough to easily fit into your palm and pocket, powerful enough to capture excellent photos, and reliable enough to last a full day without getting too toasty. Add the long-term software support promise from Google, and both phones could be smart options for years to come.

The Ninja Phone might just revolutionize on-camera monitors. While we are still waiting to get our hands on one at DCW for testing, we are one step closer, as the Ninja Phone has officially started shipping ahead of IBC2024 in Amsterdam.

Early signs point to this being an incredibly exciting device for filmmakers – announced back in April of this year, the Ninja Phone allows iPhone users to use the latest iPhones (iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max) as on-camera monitor-recorders, although Atomos is promising more smartphones will be compatible soon. Personally, I would love to see the Ninja Phone paired with the larger unfolded screen of a Pixel 9 Pro Fold or Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6.

The Ninja phone utilizes Apple's latest Bionic chipset in the iPhone 15 Pros, plus a video co-processor built into the Ninja Phone itself to record in up to 10-bit Apple ProRes and 10-bit H.265 from professional cameras with an HDMI output. The Ninja Phone can then use the iPhone's 5G and WiFi 6E connections to beam footage straight to the cloud or FTP servers including Atomos' own Cloud Studio (ACS).

Recording is accomplished via the iPhone's USB-C connection and the Ninja Phone app (available in the app store), which can coordinate syncing recording with external devices like wireless microphones.

“We are excited to deliver Ninja Phone to market in advance of IBC 2024,” says Atomos CEO and Co-Founder Jeromy Young. “Ninja Phone is the perfect tool for video professionals who want to adopt a cloud workflow without a complex and expensive technology footprint. And it’s great for the thousands of content creators who capture, store, and share video from their iPhone 15 Pro but aspire to work with professional cameras, lenses, and microphones. This is a real TikTok, Instagram and YouTube enhancement tool for creators!”

Costing $399/£409/AU$699, the Ninja Phone looks set to pit your iPhone against established monitor-recorders like the Atomos Ninja and Blackmagic Video Assist 7 as one of the world’s portable and connected professional HDR monitor-recorders.

We may only be weeks away from the iPhone 16 launch, but rumors are already surfacing about the cameras in 2025's iPhone 17. Prolific Apple analyst Jeff Pu has leaked information about the iPhone 17's potential camera specs and what improvements they may offer.

In a research document leaked by Pu to MacRumors, it's alleged that the iPhone 17 line-up will be comprised of four distinct models: iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and an 'iPhone 17 Slim' - a name which could still be subject to change. All are said to feature a new 24 megapixel front-facing selfie camera with a six-element lens. This would be a marked improvement on the 12MP front-facing camera with its 5-element lens that's in the current iPhone 15.

Read more:
The best camera phones right now
The best iPhone for photography

Though such information has to be treated with a generous helping of salt at this early stage, we'd fully expect Apple to have the iPhone 17's hardware mapped out by now, and potentially signed off. Pu's tip-off also aligns with leaks from other sources. In January this year another reputable Apple analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo, predicted that at least one iPhone 17 model would ship with a 24MP selfie camera fronted by a 6-element lens, with that sixth element supposedly being there to correct optical distortion. This improved lens, combined with the significant bump in sensor resolution, would potentially make for substantially better selfie image quality, with the extra resolution also  allowing more scope for cropping.

We'll have to wait for September 2025 to know whether these rumors have any credence. But before then we've got the iPhone 16 to look forward to, and its launch is only around one month away now.

Story credit: MacRumors

I have always believed that the best way to market a product is by showing potential users examples of what it's capable of creating. Apple has always been great at this, and although the 'Shot on iPhone' campaign has been referenced in countless memes, its most recent example is nothing short of impressive.

¡Suerte! is a short film developed for Apple TV that follows a young musician's journey through Mexico in search of inspiration. The 13-minute Mexican film includes intimate moments, dynamic action sequences, and close-up portrait shots, all filmed in various environments using an iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Above: The making-of video for ¡Suerte!

This is not the first film to be shot on an iPhone, with renowned movie director Steve Soderbergh shooting High Flying Bird on an iPhone 8, however, the iPhone has gone through many evolutions in this time and the technology has improved dramatically.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max is considered, at present, to be one of the best camera phones for photography and video. It's hard to disagree with this claim, especially after watching the impressive visuals ¡Suerte! has to offer, and better yet for us crazy about the process, there is a making-of video explaining how the iPhone's features were utilized.

Cinematic mode was used to quickly rack focus between the foreground and the background with just the touch of the screen. Extremely talented directing duo Cliqua explains, "This was something that would have only been available to do on a cinema camera in the past, but now you can do it in the palm of your hand."

The new optical 5x zoom feature of the recent iPhone also played a part in creating dynamic camera movements and transitions. Director of Photography, (known as) Mr. Liu, states that the 5x zoom offers flexibility throughout production, he adds, "It gives you the opportunity to swap lenses really fast".

Mr. Liu also praises the ability to shoot in log color encoding (Apple ProRes) as it gives more flexibility in controlling the color, highlights, and contrast, all of which play a pivotal role in creating the film's aesthetics and setting the mood.

The making-of video goes on to showcase the iPhone's ability to capture impressive low light captures and action with Action Mode.

It must of course be highlighted that on top of using the iPhone, many professional sets, lighting, and gimbals were used to capture a clean cinematic video, however, there were also many examples of them making the film where the director or DOP was just shooting with nothing but the subject and the iPhone.

I highly recommend checking out both the behind-the-scenes video (above) and the short film itself on Apple's YouTube channel, as it really does showcase the power of the iPhone, a truly impressive video camera option that many of us carry with us in our pockets every day.

You may also be interested in our guides to the best iPhones, the best camera phones, and the best phone gimbals.

The iPhone 16 is set to be released in September, and the rumors about its appearance and features have been swirling around for months. 

Now, YouTuber and technology news enthusiast MattTalksTech has got his hands on some dummy models of the new iPhone 16 range, which seem to confirm some of these rumors. 

Describing it as a "Real hands-on review of what the new iPhone 16 to the iPhone 16 Pro Max models are actually going to give us this year," the video adds, "and I want to confirm with you the leaks and rumors around the design today."

A new leak video from Box Therapy has allegedly revealed what the dummy models look like, and MattTalksTech says they are a “big big important factor because at around this time of year, a lot of companies out there who make cases and accessories for the next generation of iPhones start to get their factories working, and they need to work on dummy iPhones to know exactly how they’re going to position their buttons, and actually put their molds around the actual size of the iPhones that are coming out.”

The video begins by saying that in comparison to the design of the iPhone 15 range, there are very few differences, however, there is a new button. 

“You can see and this is the new spatial vision button or spatial video button,” says MattTalksTech, “Whatever you want to call it.”

This feature became available on the iPhone 15 range, however, not with its own dedicated button. The addition of new features to the external design of new Apple phones is unusual, because they seem to like removing buttons, and just have everything centrally located on the screen.

“So this must mean something to them,” adds MattTalksTech, “A lot of us speculate that this is going to be for the Spatial recording, but personally I hope that this button can be customized a little bit more, that we might be able to change it to normal video recording.”

Based on the dummy designs it would appear that the width will stay the same as the 15 range, but they also seem to confirm that “We are actually going to be getting a 6.3 and a 6.9 in display,” says the video, “the bezels are going to be even thinner on this iPhone.”

Nothing is mentioned about the rumor from Ming-Chi Kuo earlier this month about that the new 16 range will have the same tetera-prism cameras as the 15 range, however, the dummy phones seem to suggest that the back of the phone might be losing its square camera formation.

“This time, with just the two lenses we’re not going to have the sort of square on the back anymore,” says MattTalksTech, referencing the iPhone S11.

The formation appears to now be “a kind of pill, very similar to the iPhone 10 and the iPhone XS…but obviously far bigger lenses this time.”

The video doesn't mention anything about potential colors, however they do show images of a range of pastel-colored models.

TechRadar has reported their prediction that the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus might come in a range of seven overall colors, with the black, pink, blue, yellow, and green being the same as the iPhone 15.

They also suggest that there may be two new colors – white and purple – with the purple model following the previous use of the color and staying quite bright.

Check out the best iPhones for photography, as well as the best camera phones, and the best lenses for iPhone and Android camera phones.

The iOS 18 Public Beta reveals a feature which gives control over the focus, as well as the brightness, of the flash in existing iPhone models.

Previous versions of iOS have allowed a few different brightness settings, but now the full feature set of the Adaptive True Town Flash is placed under the control of a new interface, which effectively means you can control the width of the beam.

You, too, can be a brave early adopter of the new iOS by downloading the public beta (yes, it's no longer just a developer beta since July 14), but YouTuber TechDroider has posted a video (above) which clarifies the operation of the torch and the animations in the latest beta.

The animation stems from the dynamic island, so we can assume that the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro, which both boast the Adaptive Truetone Flash and Dynamic Island, at least, will definitely support this feature.

Dragging your finger Left and right adjusts focus/angle, while up and down is brightness. A long-press brings up a full control.

The truetone flash is made up of 9 LEDs and multiple lenses, hence its ability to direct light as well as tweak the tone. Previously these abilities have been available only to developers and the Camera app.

The uses for people lighting subjects with their phone should be obvious, and if nothing else it is fun to play with.

The feature has been tweaked a little over the developer versions, and is now larger than the original.

Even if you don't download iOS18 now, it'll be a cool feature to have in the post for your new iPhone 15 Pro.

Check our guide to the best iPhone for photography.

I own a 6th generation iPad which does an adequate job of letting me browse the web, check my email, and even edit the occasional Digital Camera World video review in iMovie. However, my iPad is now showing its age, as it doesn’t support the iOS Final Cut Pro app which was released in June 2024. I was therefore very happy when Apple loaned me an 11-inch iPad Pro (M4) so that I could test out iOS Final Cut Pro and its integration with the new iOS Final Cut Camera app (especially in relation to broadcasting live video from multiple iPhones to iOS Final Cut Pro on the iPad Pro - more on that workflow in the Performance section). Another exciting thing about testing the iPad Pro is that it is the first device to have an M4 chip powering it. I do my day-to-day video editing in macOS Final Cut Pro on a 15-inch MacBook Air which has an M2 chip. That’s still powerful enough to edit 4K movies in macOS Final Cut Pro, so I was therefore very keen to put the M4 chip through its paces in relation to video and photo editing. 

I tested the Silver incarnation of the iPad Pro, but it’s also available in Space Black. If I could afford one I’d go for Space Black as that fits the look of my iPhone 15 Pro Max, though the Silver iPad Pro does look great on the silver Magic Keyboard that I was also loaned for this review. I reviewed the cellular model which is the first time I’ve used an iPad that can connect to the web from anywhere. This was handy when I tested the iPad in a studio environment that didn’t have Wifi, as I needed to connect to the web to subscribe to iOS Final Cut Pro.  Oh - Apple also kindly popped an Apple Pencil Pro into my review kit, which I’ll cover in a separate review. 

iPad Pro 11-inch (M4): Specifications

iPad Pro 11-inch (M4): Design & Handling

The iPad Pro comes in two sizes - the 11-inch model that I’m reviewing here and a 13-inch version which is the thinnest product that Apple has ever created. Although not quite as thin as the 5.1mm deep 13-inch iPad Pro, the 11-inch model is impressively slim. Indeed at 5.3 mm it’s slimmer than my 8.25mm iPhone 15 Pro Max which was a surprise to me.  Like my iPhone 15 Pro Max, the iPad Pro has rounded corners. However, the iPad Pro’s edges are sharper than the iPhone’s and are almost bevel-free, which is a big contrast in design compared to the highly curved bevel on the edge and rear of my 6th generation iPad (which is also much ‘fatter’ at 7.5 mm - sorry to fat-shame my old iPad!). 

The iPad Pro’s M4 chip blows my ‘ancient’ 6th generation iPad out of the water when it comes to speed courtesy of its M4 chip, but what also sets the latest model apart from my old iPad is the iPad Pro’s Ultra Retina XDR OLED display. This kicks out 1,000 nits of brightness (or a peak of 1,6000 when viewing HDR assets), which is much brighter than my 15-inch MacBook Air’s 500 nits).  This makes 10-bit HDR Pro Res footage shot on my iPhone 15 Pro Max look amazing on the iPad Pro - with a striking contrast range of 2,000,000:1 that produces deeper blacks and whiter whites thanks to the combined light of two OLED panels. Thanks to ProMotion’s adaptive 10-120Hz refresh rate video footage looks smoother than ever. (At this stage in my review my fatter, slower, and duller 6th generation iPad is slinking quietly and forlornly out of the room). 

iPad Pro 11-inch (M4): Performance

Normally when I shoot a video review of a product for Digital Camera World I set up an iPhone on a wide shot and position another iPhone to get a close-up view of the product. After recording I then have to AirDrop the clips from both phones onto my MacBook Air and combine them into a Multicam clip in macOS Final Cut Pro. This can take a while, especially when I need to sync up the multiple takes to find my best performance. I can then tap keys to switch between the two iPhone-sourced camera angles in the timeline to jump cut from a wide to a close-up. This is a time-consuming workflow so I was keen to try out the iPad Pro’s ability to create a Multicam clip from the live stream of two iPhones running the new (and free) iOS Final Cut Camera app.

I popped both iPhones onto tripods and fired up the Final Cut Pro Camera app on each of them. I was able to send their feeds to iOS Final Cut Pro on the iPad Pro via Bluetooth. I placed the iPad Pro in my line of sight so that I could see the feed coming from the two iPhones. Normally I shoot ‘blind’ so using the iPad Pro as a monitor to show me the two iPhone camera feeds was very useful indeed. Occasionally I might move a gadget that I’m reviewing out of shot in the close-up view, but that didn’t happen now that I could see both camera angles courtesy of the iPad Pro’s OLED display.

As well as making my video review shoot much easier (I was recording a review of the Godox ML60II-Bi LED the iPad Pro sped up the editing process. I no longer had to spend time AirDropping footage from multiple iPhones to the iPad and then trying and combine them as a Multicam clip in Final Cut Pro (which can take ages if you’re dealing with multiple takes from different devices.)  The clips from both iPhones were already combined as a Multicam clip in iOS Final Cut Pro. All I needed to do was drop the Multicam clip into the timeline and then click on thumbnails to cut between the close-up and wide-angle footage. 

Editing in iOS Final Cut Pro was a pleasure on the iPad Pro. My iPad Pro review unit had 2TB of storage so I was happy to digitise the footage directly onto it. However, I was also pleased to use a USB-C cable to plug in the external SSD drive that I use when editing with macOS Final Cut Pro on my MacBook Air directly into the iPad Pro. I was then able to import footage from macOS Final Cut Projects into iOS Final Cut Pro projects on the iPad. After editing on the iPad Pro I could export the project (and all its Multicam media) directly to my MacBook Air and carry on editing using the extra tools in the macOS version of Final Cut Pro. 

Talking of Final Cut Pro the macOS version is available with a one-off purchase, but you need to subscribe to iOS Final Cut Pro for £4.99 a month. This may sway some editors to stick with editing on their Mac’s version of Final Cut Pro (which I’ll be doing once Apple takes back my iPad Pro review unit.)

Because I’m writing for Digital Camera World this review focuses on the iPad from a video maker and photographer’s point of view (I didn’t test games on it for example). As with all iPads the iPad Pro has a version of the Camera app. This boasts an optical 3x zoom for video shoots and a 5x zoom for stills (like the iPhone 14 Pro Max). 

The front camera feed looks fairly low-res and grainy compared to the FaceTime camera on my MacBook Air (M2). There’s also no option to shoot video in Cinematic mode on the iPad Pro Camera App. To be honest, I’ve never used any of the iPads I’ve owned as a camera (apart from FaceTime calls), so I don’t think this will change with the iPad Pro, which is much more effective at editing video rather than shooting it.

When docked with the Magic Keyboard the iPad Pro behaves like a mini laptop, and I enjoyed swiping on the Magic Keyboard’s trackpad to move a dot-shaped cursor around iOS Final Cut Pro’s interface to drag clips into the timeline and trim them, etc. I was also able to drag clips using the Magic Pencil and click it to undo an edit or summon a pop-up menu (more on that in my separate Magic Pencil review).  I could also of course tap and drag a clip using my finger on the iPad’s touch-sensitive screen, so I was spoiled for choice when it came to interacting with the iPad Pro.

iPad Pro 11-inch (M4): Verdict

If you’re a video maker who shoots on iPhone then the iPad Pro should prove an attractive purchase, especially if you need to sync multiple camera angles into a Multicam clip as you record them. HDR video footage will look amazing as you edit thanks to the Ultra Retina XDR OLED display. Photo fixers will also enjoy working with a display that makes their images look great - with a wide range of colors and tones on display. The M4’s 16-core Neural Engine should help you work faster when using AI-assisted apps. 

However for me, the iPad Pro is a luxury item as I can still get my photos and videos edited effectively on an M2 MacBook Air (which I’m still paying for on a monthly basis), but if you’ve got the cash then you know that you’ll be purchasing an 11-inch iPad Pro M4!

Alternatives

Only the other day I was fuming that there was little to hope for with the iPhone 16 after news was circulating about the 'excitement' of a new lens coating. Analysts are already looking to the next generation for some more significant improvements to the iPhone, and what they're seeing is the arrival of another 48-megapixel camera.

The iPhone 15 Pro already boasts a 48 MP main camera, and rumours suggest that – alongside a new shutter button – the iPhone 16 will get a 48 MP sensor for its ultrawide sensor, but the telephoto lens on the 15 remains (and, presumably, the 16 is expected to remain) 12 megapixels.

Now industry opinion is coalescing around the idea, first suggested by analyst Jeff Pu back in late 2023, that the iPhone 17 Pro – the one expected in September 2025 – will be another 3-camera phone but will finally have 48 MP sensors for each of the triple camera system.

The main function of high-resolution sensors on phones is for 'sensor cropping' – to simulate a zoom lens using digital zoom. In that sense, it seems weird that the telephoto lens is the last of the cameras to get the tech, but the higher megapixels can also be processed to improve low-light performance, which is where it will come in handy for the wide camera.

Nevertheless, I find it incredible Apple made a big thing of extending the zoom (the optical 5x telephoto added to the iPhone 15 Pro Max using the periscope lens tech) and seemingly delay improving that by two years.

Perhaps that's my mistake, though. People on a two-year upgrade cycle will get to see another leap forward in zoom – albeit through sensor cropping this time. According to Sellcell, the typical upgrade cycle is 2-3 years (40.4%), while only 20% of people upgrade annually or more frequently.

In Martin Filipov's assessment for Phone Arena, he points out that because of Apple's more sophisticated cropping algorithms, especially in video, they are considered by many to lead this game already. Others just crop to 12 megapixels  (i.e. 2x) while Apple already offer the flexibility of 1.3x and 1.5x in a way they call 'lossless').

All this may be lost on the users, and might depend on what the Samsung Galaxy S25 and other Google devices bring to the table (and even whether cameras are what matters – my friend who updates most frequently was more excited by the Circle to Search feature on Pixel 8 and S24 than camera specs). 

Perhaps then Apple will finally be forced to go for a fourth camera (or perhaps marketing will be all about AI by then).

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra is as much a premium connected camera as it is a smartphone. It not only competes with the best smartphones around but also encroaches on premium compact territory, potentially replacing or supplementing the Sony RX100 and Sony ZV-1 for a certain kind of user. 

That statement might irk photography purists, but hear us out; Xiaomi's latest flagship combines a 1-inch Sony sensor with a variable f/1.63-4.0 aperture and a Leica Summilux lens in its main camera. 

All three of the 14 Ultra's secondary cameras – a 12mm ultra-wide, a 75mm telephoto, and a 120mm periscope telephoto – combine fast apertures with near-focus distances and Sony IMX 858 sensors. The phone can also shoot 4K video at up to 60fps, and 8K video at up to 30fps across all cameras. The wide camera can even capture 120fps video with its 1-inch sensor.

Xiaomi's class-leading hardware lays the foundation for the best first-party camera accessory we've used in the 14 Ultra Photography Kit. This case and grip add physical controls and external power, imbuing the phone with camera ergonomics.

Flagship smartphones aren't cheap, and that's certainly true of the Xiaomi 14 Ultra. Costing £1,299 (roughly $1,620 / AUS $2,500), it pits itself against the best from Apple and Samsung and costs significantly more than the Google Pixel 8 Pro. That's also before you buy the £179 (roughly $220 / AUS $345) camera grip. 

So can a lesser-known brand in the West like Xiaomi command such a high asking price and still expect sales volume, and more importantly – does the camera performance in the 14 Ultra match up to its spec and justify the price?

Xiaomi 14 Ultra review: design and screen

It's important to remember that the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is a phone, and has to do phone things well. Thankfully, it does. For starters, it's a comfortable size, with a smaller footprint than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, making it big but not too much of a stretch when navigating its screen.

Definitely not skinny, Xiaomi's camera champ measures 9.2mm (not including the large camera bump), and it's also on the heavier side at 219.8g. On the plus, it feels premium with a blasted metal frame, vegan leather around the back and a curved glass panel on the front.

The phone's camera bump is huge – much larger than that of the iPhone 15 Pro Max – and Xiaomi integrates it into the back panel's design tastefully. A finely patterned textured track around it echoes the grip of an aperture ring on a lens, and a gold accent elegantly frames it.

Available in black and white, there are no whacky color choices for the phone, and it also doesn't do anything unusual with ports or buttons, sporting a USB-C port at the base, volume and power buttons on the right, a dual-SIM slot and stereo speakers.

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra's display is a brilliant, bright AMOLED panel measuring 6.73 inches. Crisp and smooth, its WQHD+ resolution has 522 pixels in every inch of screen, and the adaptive refresh rate automaticaly switches between 1-120Hz depending on what's on-screen.

Excellent indoors and out, Xiaomi sets the peak brightness to 3000 nits when viewing HDR content, and when outdoors in direct sunlight, expect roughly 1000 nits of luminance. When watching shadow-heavy movies, we did struggle in bright environments, but when navigating maps or messaging everything was easy to see, even on a sunny afternoon in the Morrocan desert.

Xiaomi's default colour mode for the 14 Ultra is Original Color Pro, which can be switched to Vivid, Saturated, or Custom. When you select Custom, you can choose between sRGB, P3, or original, and change parameters on a granular level. This is excellent for photo editing and also setting the display to your taste.

Xiaomi's also created a display that's both curved and flat for the 14 Ultra. While the AMOLED panel itself is flat, avoiding any edge distortion on either side, which is common in curved-screen phones, the glass over the top curves into the metal frame to create the feel of a curved display, and this works to great effect.

Rather than use Gorilla Glass like competitors including Samsung, Xiaomi's Shield Glass protects the front of the 14 Ultra, and while it's 10 times more drop-resistant than Gorilla Glass Victus, it isn't scratch-proof. In the two weeks since we removed the screen protector from ours, it's picked up a few small dings on the display without having been dropped or noticeably bumped.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra review: camera overview

The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has four 50MP cameras around the back, a 12mm ultra-wide, a 23mm wide, a 75mm telephoto and a 120mm periscope telephoto. While the primary camera has a Sony LYT-900 1-inch sensor, the three other camera sensors are Sony IMX 858s with a 1/2.51-inch size.

If you haven't come across a 1-inch sensor on a smartphone before, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra isn't the first to feature it. In 2022, the Xiaomi 12s Ultra launched in China with a 1-inch IMX 899, and in 2023, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra also launched in China and a few other regions with that same sensor. Beyond Xiaomi's Ultra series, the Vivo X90 Pro and X100 Pro, and the OPPO Find X6 Pro and Find X7 Ultra also feature 1-inch sensors, however, none of the aforementioned phones are widely available in the West. In fact, the only global release to feature a 1-inch sensor was the Xiaomi 13 Pro, and it was near impossible to find anywhere outside China when it went on sale.

All this background feeds into the mystique surrounding 1-inch sensor smartphones for folks in the US and UK, and sets a backdrop that explains how exciting the Xiaomi 14 Ultra, which is available to buy now from a number of retailers, is.

23mm wide camera

The 14 Ultra is the first phone with a 1-inch sensor to feature a stepless variable aperture, which can go from f/1.63 to f/4.0 manually or automatically. It's also the first in the West with Sony's LYT-900 sensor, which is actually the first 1-inch sensor designed for mobile.

75mm telephoto camera

With a Leica floating telephoto lens and a roughly 3.5 x zoom, the 14 Ultra's 75mm telephoto camera has a wide f/1.8 aperture lens with OIS. Able to capture 10cm macro photography, the 75mm camera can get close to a subject and takes nearby subjects with a crisp focus field and soft background and foreground.

120mm periscope camera

The furthest-reaching telephoto camera on the Xiaomi 14 Ultra combines 120mm reach with an f/2.5 aperture and OIS. it focuses as near as 30cm for macro photography, and when you go beyond 10x zoom, Xiaomi engages its AI zoom.

12mm ultra-wide camera

Finally, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's ultra-wide camera has an f/1.8 lens with a 122º field of view. Packing autofocus, it also captures close-up subjects as near as 5cm, and at 12mm, it's one of the widest ultra-wides on the market, so it should capture with a near-action-camera-perspective.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra review: camera review

In automatic mode, Xiaomi offers Leica Authentic and Leica Vibrant, two looks that deliver a subdued or zingy style. On phones like the Xiaomi 13T and 13T Pro, these presets were a bit clumsy creating extremes that missed out on the middleground in between them. Thankfully, for the 14 Ultra, both profiles are improved.

Leica's classic take on photography shines through, with the 14 Ultra's photos missing out on a new-age smartphone-style HDR look. Despite this contrast-heavy aesthetic, Xiaomi's flagship still captures ample texture and tonal detail, even in the shadows.

With all four rear cameras sporting 50MP resolution Sony sensors, and three of those sensors being identical IMX 858s, it isn't a huge surprise that the Xiaomi 14 Ultra feels like a consistent camera system, capturing with a similar look whether you're shooting at 12mm or 120mm, more so than competitors like the Honor Magic 6 Pro. This is helped by the Photography Kit's zoom slider gliding between lenses like a compact camera.

To really feel like a cohesive system rather than four standalone cameras, the Xiaomi 14 Ultra's secondary cameras needed to be great, and they are. The wide apertures help the telephoto cameras capture natural depth while balancing Xiaomi's classical photo processing, and the versatile ultra-wide shines close-up or when shooting landscapes, though it does distort a fair bit given its extreme angle.

The majority of. photos taken below were captured in Leica Vibrant, and while saturation is ramped up, if it's all too punchy for you, Leica Authentic is on-hand to tone things down. The key aspect of auto mode we appreciated is how reliable it is; point and shoot with the 14 Ultra and you likely know what kind of photo you'll get.

Clarity is excellent without looking too over-sharpened, an issue we found with the Galaxy S24, noise is handled well in shadows, detaile fall off looks natural across all four cameras when shooting nearby objects, and JPGs leave you with a lot of scope for editing.

The phone's variable aperture is especially handy for video, slowing down to f/4 to drop exposure in bright environments, however, it's useful for photography too. Below are two edited RAW photos, one at f/1.63 and the other at f/4 capturing relatively close-up objects. Adding flexibility when it comes to how a shot's exposed as well as control over natural depth from the main camera, it's a great tool to take control of when venturing beyond auto mode.

Another boon for the 14 Ultra, when connected to the Photography Kit grip, the control wheel can be set to control the aperture, exposure, shutter speed, ISO, and other parameters.

Nighttime photography is another area the Xiaomi 14 Ultra impresses, and is where the primary 23mm camera edges ahead. It captures low-on-noise results that look natural, without boosting shadows too much. Anyone coming from a Samsung phone might consider the shots underexposed, with Xiaomi and Leica opting for a more camera and less smartphone look.

The telephoto cameras aren't as versatile in very dark environments, struggling with moving subjects, but if you're shooting a relatively still object or scene and keep a steady hand, even zoomed-in shots can look fantastic at night.

The 14 Ultra is also a superb video camera. In the past, Xiaomi's resolutions across both the selfie and rear camera mix have been pared back compared to some competition, but this time around, Xiaomi's unlocked 8K 30fps and 4K 120fps from the back, and 4K 60fps from the front.

Video quality is also exceptional, especially from the main 1-inch sensor. Even 8K video, which is normally filler on a phone camera produces a crisp picture in bright scenes and when the camera is steadied. Stabilization compensates well for hand shake, and the phone also shoots in log and HDR to great effect. The one caveat is that when shooting LOG, we struggled to recalibrate the colours of strong light sources – a phone screen in a dark scene, for example – however expert colour graders may have fared better, and we had no issues tuning LOG footage in other environments.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra review: additional features

Almost everything about the Xiaomi 14 Ultra is flagship-grade, with the one exception being the lack of eSIM support. This is confusing as the vanilla Xiaomi 14 supports eSIM, and might put some off, especially anyone who travels a lot.

The 14 Ultra's processor is a top-tier Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, which is superb for video edits and gaming, and with an ample 512GB storage and 16GB RAM, as well as a nippy USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 for 10Gbps transfer rates, the only missing feature is that aforementioned eSIM support.

An in-display fingerprint scanner is responsive, and with a large 5,000 mAh battery, it lasts a day relatively comfortably with standard use. If you're using the camera a lot, however, you will need to top up by the afternoon, making the Photography Kit's camera grip with its 1,500mAh battery especially useful.

The phone also charges quickly with a fast 90W charger in the box powering it up in just over 30 minutes and support for 80W wireless charging with a compatible Xiaomi wireless charger, sold separately.

The least enjoyable aspect of the phone in our time with it was aspects of the interface. On paper, it reads well, running Android 14 and promising four years of software updates and five years of security updates. In reality, though, Xiaomi's interface, HyperOS, could be more refined.

While it performed smoothly and was stable – no app force-closes or any major fumbles – it's more overbearing than other top-tier flagships, directing you to Xiaomi's more limited app store instead of the Google Play Store, making ads opt-out in its wallpaper carousel, and asking for cookies when you simply try and change your wallpaper. This may fly on more affordable phones, but not on a £1,299 flagship.

Xiaomi 14 Ultra review: verdict

The combination of best-in-class hardware, pioneering camera tech, Leica's more classical take on photography tuning and the best first-party accessory we've ever tested make the Xiaomi 14 Ultra the ultimate phone for photographers right now.

If you're coming from one of the best iPhones or Pixels, you will appreciate the 14 Ultra's extensive out-of-the-box manual controls and having a more liberated zoom range than ever before, while Samsung users will enjoy Xiaomi's classical processing, making photos look more refined and less sharpened in auto mode.

While a photographic look isn't really enough to make the 14 Ultra the best camera phone for photographers, a powerful Pro mode with variable aperture, second-gen 1-inch sensor, superlative RAW shots and the Photography Kit all combine to transform the experience into one that feels more phone camera than camera phone.

Atomos just announced a device that could completely change the playing field: the Ninja Phone turns any iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max into an Atomos Ninja. 

By attaching the Ninja Phone to your iPhone, it instantly becomes one of the best on-camera monitors with a 1,600-nit, 10-bit, 2,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 460ppi, HDR OLED, ProRes display.

Below is a video introduction to the Ninja Phone by Atomos co-founder and CEO, Jeremy Young, along with a transcription.

"The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max can now run Ninja software and display 1,600-nit, HDR, OLED, amazing P3 tone and color that you just won't believe how good it is. 

"The Ninja Phone is a coprocessor for the iPhone. It takes HDMI in, converts it into ProRes 10-bit, and sends it out over USB-C. It has a microphone input, so that you can put all your USB-C mics to the shot and make sure that they're locked, the video and audio, before they hit the phone's screen. And you've also got power in from battery, and you've got an AC power supply as well. 

"The video comes into the iPhone via the USB-C connector, and at the same time we've made a really professional locking system that allows you not only to lock the Ninja Phone to the iPhone, but also the cables are all professionally locked cables – so you don't have any cables disconnecting at any time. 

"The first thing you need is a case. This case is available for the 15 Pro and Pro Max, two different sizes. You'll notice it has a cover, over your camera lenses on the phone, because we're not using the phone camera; we're using professional, high-quality sensors and big-lens cameras. And then you take the Ninja [Phone] and you click it in. So now, your phone is a Ninja! 

"It's an amazing revolution that we think will give social media guys, the ability to step up from their phone, get a really nice camera, and then they take the HDMI out and their phone is now a Ninja. We display the ProRes on the screen, at the same time as recording the ProRes to the phone internally, and at the same time we can then send it out to social media in 10-bit HDR – 1,600-nit amazingness to all other devices. 

"The last thing I want to talk about is the combination of the Ninja Phone into the 5G and WiFi on the phone. Just sending that out at really high quality is something that you really haven't been able to do from these professional cameras – now you can. You can bring it in for social media, you can bring it in for pro video, and you can bring it in for cinema."

The Atomos Ninja Phone is priced at $399 (UK and Australian pricing to be confirmed) and will be available in June. The Ninja Case for iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max will cost $59. 

Pre-order the Atomos Ninja Phone at B&H
Pre-order the Atomos Ninja Case at B&H

Take a look at the best cameras for filmmaking, as well as the best cameras for vlogging and the best cinema cameras. 

The iPhone 15 Pro Max's Camera app has an Action mode that stabilizes the shakiest camera moves. Plus the iPhone’s optical image stabilization hardware irons out the wobbles by physically vibrating the sensor in the X, Y, and Z axes. I was therefore keen to see how Apple’s top-of-the-range iPhone performed in comparison to the latest GoPro model, the Hero 12 Black, as the GoPro brand is synonymous with action cameras. 

To test the two devices I met up with stuntman Matt Igwe to film him performing parkour moves such as running, jumping, and flipping through 360º in an urban environment. I chose a stuntman to film as he’d know his limits and not risk being injured on the shoot. Check out the video below:

I chose not to use gimbals with the GoPro and iPhone as I wanted to see how both devices’ built-in stabilization software (and hardware) performed as I filmed the action handheld. 

To make the iPhone safer to handle (I’d previously managed to crack the screen on my iPhone 14 Pro Max) and easier to maneuver I placed it in a Neewer cage. I mounted the GoPro on a Volta, which made it easier to hold while following the action – plus the Volta’s Bluetooth connectivity enabled me to start and stop recording via a handy physical button on the handle.

After Matt had warmed up we started with a simple parkour routine where he ran, jumped onto a concrete bench, and then jumped through the air onto another bench. As I ran to follow Matt I gripped the handle of the iPhone’s Neewer cage in one hand while simultaneously holding the Volta-mounted GoPro in the other. The GoPro was set to shoot in 4K at 30fps. Because I chose Action mode for the iPhone I was limited to capturing a smaller resolution of 2K at 30fps. 

Both the handheld iPhone and the GoPro produced gimbal smooth footage, thanks to their software stabilization, though the GoPro had the edge in relation to its 4K resolution.

When you view the live feed of the action through the iPhone Camera app’s display during a take, the footage shakes wildly. However, this extreme shake is immediately ironed out when you view the recorded clip in the Photos app.  

Without a gimbal, you run the risk of tilting the camera and capturing a wonky horizon. The GoPro has a very useful Horizon Leveling menu option that keeps everything straight when shooting handheld, and the iPhone also produces a level horizon when shooting in Action mode.

Our next parkour sequence involved filming Matt do a 360º flip from the concrete bench onto the ground. I wanted to rotate the camera as he somersaulted to add a dynamic camera move to the sequence. As the iPhone was mounted in the Neewer cage I was able to use its handles to make the iPhone rotate 180º as Matt flipped through the air. 

This would’ve been a tricky camera move to perform with the GoPro using its stick-like Volta handle. Some gimbals have an Inception mode that causes them to rotate through 360º, but it would be a challenge to make them rotate at the same speed as our stuntman. By rotating the cage-mounted iPhone manually I was able to match the timing and speed of Matt’s jump perfectly.

The GoPro, however, did have the advantage as a wearable action camera. I purchased a harness and got Matt to wear it with the Hero 12 attached to his chest. The GoPro comes with handy presets including one called ‘Chesty’. This sets the camera to shoot a wide-angle clip with maximum stabilization – the perfect setting for capturing kinetic sequences when mounted on a chest harness. I was then able to capture striking POV shots as Matt flew through the air.

I wouldn’t have wanted to risk strapping my iPhone to a stuntman’s chest harness in case it got damaged, plus the lighter and smaller GoPro would be more comfortable for Matt to wear as he performed parkour.

Some parkour moves are over in seconds, so I set both the iPhone and the GoPro to shoot in their slow-motion modes. Both devices used a high frame rate of 120fps so I could slow them down in the edit while preserving a smooth motion. 

Here the GoPro had the edge by being able to shoot at a higher resolution of 4K (3840 x 2160) whereas the iPhone’s SloMo mode could only manage a smaller HD resolution (1080 x 1930). This means that the iPhone slow-motion sequence looked a little fuzzy in the 4K project’s timeline compared to the GoPro’s footage.

Testing both cameras in low light, the iPhone footage was bright and vibrant while the GoPro slow-motion clip was very dark. This could be because I’d limited the GoPro to a maximum ISO of 1600 while the iPhone sets ISO (sensitivity to light) automatically. 

Shooting with the GoPro at a normal frame rate led to better exposure in low light but, despite having Auto Boost stabilization turned, the handheld GoPro footage was less stable than that captured by the iPhone filming in Action mode (even though the iPhone complained about there not being enough light in our location).

Verdict

And the winner is… both and neither! Each camera has its own strengths and weaknesses. I thoroughly enjoyed using the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the GoPro Hero Black 12 to film our parkour sequences, and both devices performed well in bright light when it came to producing gimbal-smooth camera moves using in-camera stabilization. The two handles on the cage-mounted iPhone enabled me to shoot complex moves such as a 180º roll with precision, but the GoPro was more effective as a harness wearable action camera. 

Both could keep the horizon level and the action was gimbal-smooth, but the GoPro has the edge when shooting slow-motion thanks to its greater resolution. The iPhone appeared to have the edge in low light. So on future action shoots, I’ll take both cameras in my kit bag because they both have their own strengths to employ in different shooting scenarios.

Being a regular Digital Camera World kit reviewer since 2022 I’ve tested the products of well known brands such as Hollyland, SmallRig and Godox on multiple occasions. However the Neewer iPhone Cage is the first Neewer product that I’ve put to the test, though I have recently started to notice the Neewer logo appearing on devices in friend’s studios (and in adverts on my social media feeds). 

Neewer produce a wide range of photography and video products, from lighting equipment such as LED panels, flashes and ring lights to video monitors and microphones.  

The Neewer Cage for iPhone 15 Pro Max falls in the lower price range of their output but as someone who predominantly shoots professional video on my iPhone 15 Pro Max  I was very interested in putting the cage through its paces, especially as I’d lined up the services of a stuntman (thanks Matt Igwe!) to film a parkour sequence. 

There is also a version of the cage designed to fit the iPhone 15 Pro.

Neewer PA024K Cage: Specifications

NEEWER PA024K Cage: Price

You can pick up the Neewer Cage from Amazon in the UK or the States for $89 / £69 at the time of writing and can be found on Amazon. This is a good price that undercuts some of the more established competition, although there are cheaper options, but with far more questionable quality.

NEEWER PA024K Cage: Design & Handling

The Cage kit consists of a black aluminum frame that fits securely around your iPhone 15 Pro Max, plus two attachable metal handles. Unlike larger cages such as the SmallRig All-In-One Kit, the NEEWER cage is only a little larger than your iPhone so it doesn’t take up us much space in your kit bag.  Once you’ve slid your iPhone into place (and clamped the cage shut with a locking lever) you need to attach two handles to the cage for a better grip on your iPhone. 

The handles screw easily into place courtesy of textured screws and you can mount them on either side of the cage for shooting in landscape orientation, or place them in the threads on the top and bottom of the cage to shoot portrait-orientated clips for social media sites. The two handles are made of smooth metal but provide a very secure grip. By holding your iPhone mounted between the wider spread of the cage’s two handles you can iron out the smaller jerkier movements you’d get if you simply held the ‘naked’  iPhone in two hands. This enables you to perform smoother and more controlled camera moves such as pans, tilts and crane shots.

The Neewer cage also has a 67mm thread filter mount so you can attach filters such as the Neewer ND2-32 Filter (sold separately) to your iPhone when shooting in high-contrast locations. The kit also ships with a 17mm lens mount for attaching iPhone lenses (sold separately).

The Neewer iPhone cage is most similar in design to the SmallRig Brandon Li iPhone 15 Pro Max cage, though its handles lack the cold shoe mounts found on the SmallRig kit’s handles. The NEEWER kit does have cold shoe mounts on the cage itself, so we were able to attach a JOBY Beamo LED to our iPhone for shooting parkour in our location’s darker corridors. This cold shoe mounted LED was especially handy when shooting in the gloomier corridors of our test location as the iPhone Camera’s Action Mode needed plenty of light to stabilize the handheld footage of our fast-moving parkour practitioner.

One note of caution is the cage’s compatibility with certain wireless mic receivers. If you have a cable-free USB-C plug-in receiver such as that on the Hollyland Lark M2 then the handle of the cage obscures the receiver’s access to your iPhone’s USB-C socket. This is only an issue if you are shooting in a horizontal (landscape) orientation. If your wireless mic’s receiver is connected to your iPhone via a USB-C cable then you’ll be able to attach it to the iPhone without any obstruction from the cage. 

NEEWER PA024K Cage: Performance

To test the NEEWER Cage I shot a parkour sequence with my iPhone 15 Pro Max mounted in the cage. I was able to follow my fast-moving subject’s every move without fear of dropping the iPhone (and I was also able to run after him while gripping the cage with both hands - see supporting video). 

The combination of the cage’s wide-spread handles and the iPhone’s optical image stabilization (OIS) hardware meant that my handheld while running tracking shots was gimbal smooth (as you’ll see from this section’s supporting video footage).  Thanks to the cage’s ‘easy to grip’ side handles I was able to smoothly rotate the iPhone through 360º to follow the subject as he performed a summersault.

In theory, I could have used a gimbal to perform a 360º rotation but getting the speed of the roll axis to match the subject’s rotation would be a challenge. By shooting our subject’s summersault using a handheld cage I was able to start rotating the iPhone at the correct time and match the speed of the subject’s rotation with precision. I do enjoy using gimbals for action sequences but by using a cage-mounted iPhone you can work more quickly as you don’t need to spend time changing the gimbal’s mode between PTF (Pan Tilt Follow), PF (Pan Follow), L (Lock) or Inception mode (where it rolls through 360º).

The Neewer cage enabled me to follow every move of my parkouring stuntman as it happened while producing gimbal-smooth results and a cage won’t run out of battery power! (Though I was a bit tired after two hours of running about!)

Another welcome feature on the Neewer Cage for iPhone 15 Pro Max was a 67mm thread filter mount on the front of the cage. This enabled me to attach a NEEWER ND2-32 Filter (sold separately) to the cage. By rotating the filter via two metal handles  I was able to reduce the amount of light entering the iPhone’s lenses so I could capture detail in the bright sky as my subject somersaulted through the air. The cage also ships with a panel that you can use to place lenses (sold separately) over your iPhone’s wide-angle camera. 

Neewer PA024K Cage: Verdict

As you’ll see from our test video the Neewer Cage for iPhone 15 Pro Max enables you to shoot complex yet gimbal-smooth camera moves without having to change gimbal shooting modes or worrying about gimbal battery life (and the cage kit is much cheaper than a gimbal too!). The cage’s cold shoe mounts enable you to add extra devices such as an LED or mini shotgun mic to your iPhone set-up. Combined with your iPhone the Neewer cage is an effective alternative to shooting with dedicated action cameras such as the GoPro Hero 12 or the DJI Action 4.

Alternatives

September is nearly eight months away and already we are hearing exciting things about the iPhone 16 including rumors the sensor is getting a significant upgrade. 

iPhone releases are as regular clockwork. As soon as summer is over, it’s only a matter of weeks before Apple makes what is arguably their most anticipated announcement of the year.  The launch of the iPhone 15 series was one of the most significant in a while, largely due to the fact we said goodbye to the lightning port, and hello to a 48MP sensor in all the models. But looking ahead to September 2024, and it looks like the sensor itself might be getting bigger.

According to Wccftech who have in the past proven to be a reliable source, the sensor in the iPhone 16 Pro Max will have the same number of megapixels as the sensor in the iPhone 15 but it’ll be slightly bigger at 1/1.14 inches. Although it is not a huge difference from the current 1/1.28-inch sensor, users should see a noticeable difference in image quality and low-light capabilities. 

It’s no surprise we’ve heard very little else about the iPhone 16 just yet, after all, it is only January.  There have been rumors it could feature a shutter button like Sony phones used to allow users to adjust the camera zoom, focus and record a video with gestures.  The Pro Max could also have a 300mm zoom periscope lens making super-telephoto photography even easier and the design might get a bit of an aesthetic makeover but we can only take these leaks with a pinch of salt until Apple announces more concrete evidence. 

One area where the iPhone seems to be lacking in comparison with the Google Pixel 8 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is the AI tools available in-camera. While the iPhone 15 can detect if there is a person or pet in a picture and automatically switch to portrait mode, the other phones I mentioned have tools to remove objects, swap faces, eradicate blur, and move parts of the photo. If Apple wants to stay in the running of the best camera phones, we would expect there to be a few more fun AI tools to play with. 

It may only be January, but rumors and leaks are already emerging about Google's next flagship phone, the Pixel 9 Pro. Thanks to MySmartPrice and OnLeaks, there are now high-resolution renders showing what the Pixel 9 Pro could look like. We can't confirm if these definitely portray the final design of the phone, but OnLeaks has previous form with releasing renders of past Google phones many months before the handset's launch, and those renders did indeed turn out to be accurate.

The most notable change compared to the current Pixel 8 Pro is the new phone has a restyled camera bump, which contains three camera modules. The central, larger lens presumably fronts the primary, wide-angle camera module, while the secondary circular lens is likely the ultrawide camera. The third module is a rectangular shape, indicating that it's probably a periscope telephoto camera. We wouldn't be surprised if Google was keen to equip the Pixel 9 Pro with a periscope module, if only to match key rivals like the Galaxy S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Unlike the camera bump on the Pixel 8 Pro which wraps into the edges of the phone, the Pixel 9 has a more pronounced, oval-shaped camera island. This appears to protrude significantly from the rear panel of the phone.

Read more: what is a periscope lens?

The dimensions of the Pixel 9 Pro are claimed to be 162.7 x 76.6 x 8.5mm, though if you also include the thickness of the hefty camera island, the total thickness increases to 12.0mm. These dimensions are very similar to those of the Pixel 8 Pro, however it's speculated that despite this, the Pixel 9 Pro will have a slightly smaller screen size of approximately 6.5 inches (the Pixel 8 Pro has a 6.7-inch display). The screen on the new phone sports the same punch-hole design cut-out for the selfie camera.

Also evident from these renders is the flat-edged frame of the phone, contrasting from the current bevelled edge of the Pixel 8 Pro. The overall look of the edge design is very 'Apple'.

Though the source of these renders has proven to be reliable, we still wouldn't assume the images definitely depict the final design of the phone. If Google follows its previous release schedule, then the Pixel 9 Pro would be set to launch in October. There's therefore still a lot of time for designs and specifications to potentially be tweaked.

Story credit: MySmartPrice

Can't wait for the Pixel 9 Pro? Read our guide to the best Google Pixel phones available now, and if you're happy to look further afield, check out some of the best camera phones of 2023.

Early rumors are surfacing regarding the specs of the iPhone 16 series, likely set to launch in September, if Apple's previous release schedule is maintained. 9to5Mac has discovered an investor note where market analyst Jeff Pu outlined what we should expect in the iPhone 16 range, such as new System on Chip specs and camera upgrades.

According to Pu, the iPhone 16 Plus and even the base iPhone 16 could be powered by Apple's next-gen A18 SoC, utilising a 3-nanometer fabrication process. This would offer a sizeable power and efficiency boost over the current base iPhone 15, which is still based on older 4nm Apple A16 hardware. The new A18 chip is also said to boost RAM to 8GB in the iPhone 16 - up from the current 6GB in the iPhone 15.

Moving to the iPhone 16 Pro, Pu goes on to say that it could see a resolution bump for its ultra-wide camera. The iPhone 15 Pro uses a 12MP, 1/2.55 sensor for its ultrawide module, but this latest information suggests the '16 Pro could receive a 48MP sensor that's also capable of improved spatial video recording with Apple Vision Pro. This latest report doesn't outline any details about what Apple might have in store for the iPhone 16's primary camera module.

Another significant upgrade that's been speculated for the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max is their use of a next-generation modem, providing faster mobile data transfer. Pu stipulates that these phones will incorporate Qualcomm's Qualcomm X75 modem, a modem that supports '5G Advanced':

Qualcomm's description of the X75:

Obviously as we're so far away from the launch of the iPhone 16 series, any rumors and speculation concerning specs or features should be taken with an XL serving of salt!

Story credit: 9to5Mac

Is the iPhone the best camera phone, and if so, which is the best iphone for photography? We've given it some thought!

With powerful video shooting features (such as the ability to shoot in LOG color), the latest iPhone models are very useful tools for moviemakers. Built-in features such as optical image stabilization (combined with software stabilization solutions such as Action Mode) mean that you can shoot gimbal smooth footage with a handheld iPhone. 

However, the Brandon Li Mobile Video Kit still has much to offer filmmakers. Created in collaboration with filmmaker Brandon Li the kit consists of an aluminium cage that you slot your iPhone 15 Pro Max into. By using the kit’s side or top-mounted handles you can hold the iPhone in a more comfortable way and capture tripod-steady static shots or perform smoother pans, tilts, cranes, and tracking shots. 

The kit has other tricks up its sleeve as we’ll explore in this full review.

SmallRig x Brandon Li: Specifications

SmallRig x Brandon Li: Key Features

There are many similar cages and cases available for smartphones but the Brandon Li Mobile Video Kit brings some stylish variations to the traditional cage set-up for iPhone 15 Pro Max users. 

When shooting landscape (horizontal) clips you hold the handles at either side of the cage (like you do with other cage setups). However, if you need to shoot in portrait (vertical) orientation the cleverly designed quick-release clips enable you to remove the handles from the sides and clip them to the top and bottom of the cage in seconds. 

With other smartphone cages such as the SmallRig All-In-One Kit for Smartphones, you need to spend much more time unscrewing and remounting the handles (which could result in you missing a shot!). 

Another key feature is the remote shutter button that is mounted on the right-handle cold shoe mount. This enables you to start and stop shooting with the press of your thumb while you hold the handle securely (rather than having to tap the iPhone Camera app’s onscreen button which can cause your shot to wobble). 

The kit also ships with a VNDR (variable neutral density) filter so you can capture more detail in a landscape’s bright sky (or force your iPhone’s Camera app to use a slower shutter speed.)

SmallRig x Brandon Li: Design & Handling

The cage is a thing of beauty, with its sleek aluminum frame graduating from a subtle dark green to black. The side handles also bear the same graduated colours plus the cage is branded with film-maker Brandon Li’s signature and the SmallRig logo to illustrate the collaboration between creator and manufacturer. 

Our iPhone 15 Pro Max slipped smoothly into the cage (while being secured and protected by silicone pads). It was clipped safely in place by a one-click locking system. All the iPhone’s buttons were accessible behind the cage’s silicone protective buttons.

After unboxing the kit we needed to spend a few minutes setting up the handles’ quick clip release system. Supplied Allen keys could be accessed by flipping open the bottom of each handle. Once the quick-release connectors had been attached to each handle there was no need to use the Allen keys again. By simply pressing a spring-loaded button we could unclip a handle and re-clip it to mounts on the top or side of the cage. 

This innovative quick-release system enables you to shoot in a vertical or horizontal orientation using two side or top handles, or you can mount one handle on the top for low-angle action sequences. There are also cold shoe slots on the edges of the cage, so you can attach third-party accessories such as LED lights or mini shotgun mics (such as the Joby Wavo PRO).

SmallRig x Brandon Li: Performance

To test the SmallRig Brandon Li Mobile Video Kit I filmed a walk in the countryside with friends and family. While walking, the tactile silicone surface on the handles made it easy for me to carry the iPhone 15 Pro Max, even when the rig was covered in rainwater. I was also able to deploy the iPhone in landscape mode to film interesting events without worrying about it slipping from my grip. 

A gimbal might have struggled on a wet and windy shoot like this (especially if rain got into its motors) - but the SmallRig cage and iPhone 15 Pro Max weren’t as vulnerable to water and I was able to capture gimbal-smooth camera moves with ease thanks to the firm and comfortable hold offered by the kit’s handles (see our supporting video). 

The 5-stop VND (variable neutral density) filter that clips onto the front of the cage was useful in two ways. It enabled me to adjust the amount of light entering the iPhone’s lenses by simply rotating the filter, so I could capture more detail in the sky. The filter could also be detached and re-attached magnetically so it was useful for keeping raindrops off my iPhone’s lenses. This saved me the hassle of having to constantly wipe the lenses. 

On the downside, the edge of the VND filter was visible in the top left corner of the frame when I shot using the .5x (13 mm) Ultra Wide lens. This wasn’t a huge problem as I was shooting in 4K and could easily crop the edge of the frame to lose the filter - see our supporting video. I could also quickly remove the VND filter when shooting at Ultra Wide thanks to its magnetic properties. The VND filter didn’t obscure the shot when I was using any of the other lenses and it was very effective at capturing bright sky detail in my high-contrast landscape location.

SmallRig x Brandon Li: Verdict

The SmallRig Brandon Li Mobile Video Kit should be an attractive accessory for filmmakers who have invested in an iPhone 15 Pro Max. It enables you to maneuver your iPhone with ease and comfort, capturing gimbal-smooth moves even in adverse weather conditions. 

I especially appreciated the removable Bluetooth shutter button so we could trigger video recordings (or capture stills) from 10 meters away - perfect for vloggers who want to film themselves on location. You can also mount the cage on a tripod (in social-media-friendly portrait or widescreen TV landscape orientations) thanks to ten 1/4-inch threaded holes around its edges. The quick-release handles are a very welcome feature and you can store them and the cage in a supplied soft carry bag after a shoot. 

The branded cage itself looks so sleek and striking that you may be tempted to leave your iPhone in it when your shoot is over.

Alternatives

The branded Brandon Li video cage is only available for the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but if you have an iPhone 15 Pro there is a non-branded SmallRig version that includes similar accessories such as the removable Bluetooth shutter and the handy quick-release handles. SmallRig also sells a SmallRig Creator Kit which consists of a larger and chunkier cage that boasts a universal mount to suit any smartphone model. This Creator Kit also ships with a handy LED that you can slip into one of its cold shoe mounts (plus a mini shotgun mic to improve your production’s sound.)

Apple had a strong 2023, with a raft of updates to their popular products, including the iPhone 15 Pro Max, MacBook Air 15-inch, and brand new M3-equipped MacBook Pros.

Apple's iPhone lineup continues to include some of the best camera phones out there, adding new sensors and an improved telephoto camera. Apple's iPad range still continues to dominate the tablet market as well as our list of best tablets for photo editing.

Last but certainly not least, Apple's latest M3 processors in its MacBook Pro range also bring even more power to photo and video editing, making the MacBooks some of the best photo-editing laptops on the planet. 

I can't wait to see what Apple has in store in 2024 and hope that it has a few shocking reveals for photographers and creatives alike. I have rounded up some of the most prominent rumors for what might be in store over the next 12 months, lets dig in.

iPhones

We are a very long way off the announcement of the iPhone 16 series of phones, with the iPhone 15s only just making its way into the hands of buyers just a few short months ago.

Apple's iPhone 15 devices, were another lineup of upgrades that have all made their way into our list of the best camera phones. Unless you are really into USB-C (which was finally added this year), it wasn't a headline year for Apple, with the regular iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro receiving just marginal improvements to the camera systems. The iPhone Pro Max was the only one to grab significant attention with the upgrade of its 3x camera to a 5x one, making it more competitive with the Samsung Galaxy S23 and Google Pixel 8 Pro.

What can we be sure of for 2024? Well, the release date of the iPhone 16 range is pretty much a certainty, coming at the end of October each year, so start saving now. Although this year Apple could potentially have a little more up its sleeve.

iPhone 16 Pro & Pro Max

The most significant change slated for the iPhone 16 Pro series might be increased screen sizes. Both the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max look set to receive a bump in size, with the iPhone 16 Pro apparently going to 6.3 inches from the 6.1 inches of the current iPhone 15 Pro model, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max will receive an increase to 6.9 inches (up from the 15 Pro Max's 6.7 inches).

Camera-wise, the ultrawide camera might get some love with a new 48MP sensor. Ultrawide cameras have always seemed to get the worst of the sensors, so it would be great if Apple brought it up to the potential of the main sensor. 

Periscope camera rumors that dominated last year continue to pop up everywhere, with a potential 300mm 'super periscope' camera allegedly in the works, although Apple is very conservative with big camera updates, and with the 5x camera just out of the gates, I would take that with a pinch of salt.

As you would expect if you follow Apple's phones, is there of course going to be a new Apple A-series processor, that will undoubtedly offer performance gains over the previous generation, and with current trends, offer lots of new and exciting AI features as Apple plays catchup with ChatGPT and Google.

There are also some potential changes to the body design with the volume, power, and Action Button looking like they might be changed to capacitive (non-click) buttons. There are also mentions of a new "Capture" button, although how this would be used or more useful than current methods remains to be seen.

iPhone 16

Don't expect a huge change from last year's standard iPhone models. Apple seems quite happy to just pass down upgrades slowly from the Pro models from the previous couple of generations, keeping the iPhone Pro and Pro Max as the latest and greatest.

Apple will likely still continue on with both the standard model and the larger Plus model, with both models keeping the same screen dimensions. The only other thing to look out for is a bump in processor from this year's 15 Pro, and possibly some new camera sensors inherited from this year's models as well.

iPhone SE

There is no concrete evidence of when we are going to see the next iPhone SE, or even if Apple is going to make another entry-level iPhone, as it seems quite content selling its older iPhone models for lower prices. Most speculation suggests that we won't see a new SE until 2025, but plans can change quite quickly, especially when a phone contains mostly old parts.

These unknowns haven't stopped people from speculating on what a potential new iPhone SE might include. The most prominent rumors suggest that the iPhone SE might re-use the iPhone 14 body, which would not only increase the screen size to a 6.1-in panel but would also be the first time an SE device has used Apple's Face ID instead of the fingerprint reader and home button.

Any iPhone SE would also have to ship with a USB-C port to comply with new EU rules, so this would mark the end of the final current Apple phone with a Lightning connector, and might expedite the SE 4's announcement.

iPads

Apple's iPads continue to dominate the tablet market, although there is very little giving them serious cause for concern with Microsoft's Surface Pro lineup becoming a little stale, and Google's Pixel Tablet going for the smart home entertainment angle rather than a serious computing device.

Going into 2024, it doesn't look like Apple with add or remove any devices from its current stable of iPads, with Apple's lineup continuing with the top-end iPad Pro range as a serious laptop replacement device, the mid-tier iPad Air for getting stuff done on the go, the iPad, the cheapest tablet aimed squarely at entertainment, and the little iPad Mini for note taking and pocket productivity. 

iPad Pro

The new iPad Pro looks set for a 2024 release to potentially coincide with the release of iPadOS 17.4 in March. 

The most notable change anticipated for the iPad Pro is the adoption of an OLED display compared to the existing mini-LED technology in the 12.9-inch model. OLED has the potential for crisper, brighter visuals, and more accurate color reproduction. There's talk of the 12.9-inch model making a slight shift to a 13-inch screen, however, reports suggest that the 11-inch tablet won't see a size increase.

Another potential upgrade on the horizon is a new glass back for the iPad Pro. Transitioning to a glass back could enable wireless charging for the upcoming iPad Pro and even introduce a form of reverse wireless charging. Could Apple be preparing a similar Google Pixel Tablet experience with a smart speaker dock?

The bad news, speculation also suggests a potential price increase for the rumored OLED iPad Pro, possibly reaching a steep $1,800 for a revamped 13-inch model, with all the models having some level of price increase. This put it over the price of the MacBook Air before even adding a keyboard or mouse, that better be one nice screen!

iPad Air

As I repeat every year, I am of course expecting Apple to bump its iPad Air processor one generation higher. The previous iPad Air is still holding onto the M1 Silicon, so it's likely that the 6th Gen iPad Air would include the M2 chip, which would separate it from the iPad Pro which is expected to get the shiny new M3 processor.

Rumors suggest Apple might be toying with the idea of a larger iPad Air version for 2024. The speculation gained traction due to two codenames associated with the new iPad Air: J507 and J508, a trend seen with the iPad Pro, which comes in two sizes. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo added fuel to the fire by claiming the iPad Air will come in the familiar 10.9-inch and an all-new 12.9-inch model.

Rumors also suggest that Apple will buck the price inflation that has been a hallmark of 2023 and will keep the 2024 iPad Air price the same as the current generation, and with a rumored price hike for the iPad Pro this might make the Air seem even better value.

Macs

In 2023 Apple continued its run of updating its usual stable of devices with its latest and most powerful chips – starting the year with the incredibly powerful M2 Max and M2 Ultra in the Mac Studio.

Apple also introduced the first brand-new MacBook in a few years with a 15-inch version of the MacBook Air, which alongside the 13-inch version was updated with an M2 chip. Finishing the year strong, Apple also updated its MacBook Pro range, giving us the first glimpse at the M3 chips that are sure to dominate Apple's update cycle in 2024.

MacBooks

We have probably seen all we are going to from the MacBook Pro range until next fall when Apple will likely be ready to show off the MacBook Pro with M4 Silicon.

Rumors are fairly quiet this far out from release, but we wouldn't expect much to change about next year MacBook's with Apple seemingly settled on a design it is happy with, banishing the final MacBook with the Touchbar from this year's lineup. 

Except for the expected newer processor, other upgrades would most likely be iterative, with bumps to screen technology, USB-C speeds, or some weight savings.

The MacBook Air got the M2 chip last year. Based on current rumors, don't expect much beyond an upgrade to the latest M3 chip, and maybe some fun new color options. 

If the 13-in and 15-in will get upgraded at the same time though remains to be seen, as the 15-inch with M2 is only a few months old. This would simplify Apple's updates going forward, and give customers better side-by-side comparisons, so I would argue its a good idea, but Apple and its supply chain might not agree.

Apple makes a lot more beyond what I have discussed here, and we are likely to see a lot of other updates coming to Apple's ecosystem, with potential upgrades to its Watches, AirPods range, Beats headphones, AirTags, and more.

What else might we see making its way from the depths of Apple's R&D department next year? Stay tuned for all the latest Apple rumors. 

In the meantime, you can also find all the latest Apple gear in our guides to the best camera phones, the best tablets for photo editing, and the best photo-editing laptops.

Apple's latest update for the iPhone, iOS 17.2, boasted some headline changes but perhaps the most interesting for photographers is the improved telephoto camera focussing speed. The other big photography feature is support for taking spatial video.

Neither of these will garner the most attention, though. The biggest new software change is the arrival of the Journal app, "a new app to reflect on everyday moments and life’s special events" which might also be of some interest to those looking to better integrate their photos with words they write and GPS data from hikes in the hills, for example.

Back to the camera. One of the best features that goes unnoticed by most users of the iPhone is its LiDAR, a distance sensor which also helps the focusing system stay very fast. This doesn't work at longer distances, however. Similarly, the tele camera doesn't boast 100% focus pixels, which the wide and main cameras have, so it is the weakest of the three when it comes to focusing (though still one of the best camera phones even before this update).

Apple specifically describe the iOS 17.2 focus speed improvement as kicking in "when capturing small faraway objects on iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max" and I've got to say it does feel quicker, in lower light and otherwise, though I have to admit to no idea what is meant by a 'small' object. I've tried this on my iPhone 15 Pro Max with its 5x camera, but the improvement will also affect the 3x camera in the iPhone 15 Pro.

Spatial Videos are video designed to look three-dimensional when viewed on the Apple Vision Pro headset, which will be on sale in the US in 2024. They eat up 130MB per minute at 1080P / 30fps – the only available recording mode. You need to shoot with the phone horizontal and keep the main subject 3 to 8 feet from the camera and, Apple say, "use light that is even and bright." On-screen tips will tell you if you're not staying within these guidelines.

Of course if this update isn't for you perhaps a smartphone gimbal will keeps your phone steady and, by extension, makes life easier for its focusing systems.

The most striking thing about the new ‘base’ model of the Apple iPhone 15 is its new colorways. A new process embeds the color directly into the glass back and sides, and as a result, the multi-colored models have a far more ‘pastel’ appearance compared to previous incarnations, more of a ‘white with a hint of’ color. 

It’s a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing – and I have to say that the color versions are just a bit too pastel for my tastes. So while my previous-generation iPhone was blue, this time around I opted for the standard black coloring. Then again, as the first thing that most of us do is stick our smartphone into a protective case, the color of the thing will be largely academic. 

Perhaps the reason that Apple has gone for such a radical cosmetic change is that, at first glance, there’s not a huge amount else that is different from previous models. It otherwise has roughly the same dimensions as the iPhone 13 and 14 before it (there’s a millimeter or so difference here and there, but not so much that you can’t squeeze it into a case designed for these older models while shopping around for a brand-new iPhone 15 case). The control layout is identical (it doesn’t have the new multifunction Action button of the Pro models, but sticks with the ringer/silent switch), and on the back, there’s the familiar ‘bump’ housing the dual camera modules arranged in a diagonal layout. 

Powered on, the differences become more apparent. The display notch that houses the front ‘selfie’ camera and face detection sensor assembly has been moved down the display to form a cutout rather than a notch, which Apple has cleverly disguised within a ‘dynamic island’ – a display-within-a-display area that expands and contracts to keep you alert of various background tasks, such as incoming messages or timers. It’s a brighter display too, and easier to read in daylight. 

Apple iPhone 15: Key features

While there are only two rear cameras, Apple boasts of three native optical zoom settings: a wide-angle 0.5x (equivalent to 13mm in full-frame DSLR terms), standard 1x (if still quite wide at 26mm), and telephoto 2x (52mm setting). How so? Well, a little skullduggery is at play here. The resolution of the main camera has increased from the 12MP of previous generations to 48MP, and so the phone produces the 2x image by simply only using the pixels as the very center of the sensor and binning the rest. 

The upshot is that you get just as much resolution in the final image as you do when using the wide setting (a 12Mp 4032 x 3024 image) or as in previous iPhones. Even at the 1x zoom setting, the full image image is downsized to a 24Mp 5712 x 4284 resolution. However, there is also the option of ‘super high resolution’ 48Mp 8064 x 6048 image in the HEIF format, though these don’t have the same editing flexibility as those taken at standard resolution. 

Trickery aside, having perfectly usable 2x images is a big improvement on previous generations of iPhones. You can actually go further still; if you hold rather than tap the zoom area, a swipeable display pops up, allowing you to enlarge the image up to 10x with digital zoom, though here you are severely cropping into the picture, and the low-res result isn't good for much.

Apple iPhone 15: Build & handling

The phone is constructed from a toughened and (as previously mentioned) color-infused glass frame, giving it a very different look and feel from the Pro models’ titanium bodies. 

With very similar dimensions and control layout to the previous five generations of iPhone, upgraders will feel immediately at home, although perhaps also feel that they’re getting more of the same. There are no radical design departures here. 

The dynamic island may have been engineered primarily to disguise the move of the various sensors to further down the display, but it feels completely natural and soon becomes an integral part of the functionality of the phone.

And of course, being an iPhone, it fits seamlessly into the Apple ecosystem and runs iOS, the best phone operating system out there. It comes with the very latest iOS 17 out of the box, although of course owners of previous models can also upgrade to this over the air.

Apple iPhone 15: Perfomance

This year’s base model inherits last year’s Pro model processor, Apple’s own custom A16 ‘Bionic’ processor (by comparison, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max get the all-new A17 silicon), and with this chip at its core, the phone is zippy in all aspects of performance.

This extra processing grunt no doubt enables much of the behind-the-scenes functionality that enables some of the phone's most stunning photography features. As with previous models, there’s a portrait mode that uses the main camera to take the image but the secondary wide camera to create a depth map, from which the device can work out how far different elements in the image are from each other and blur out the background convincingly to make the subject really stand out. 

But this time around, you can apply this after you’ve taken the shot, switching the focus between two people in a scene, for example. You don’t even have to have shot the original picture in portrait mode to do this, though it does have to be taken at the standard 1x zoom.

Video is similarly slick, allowing smooth focus transitions by simply tapping on the area of the frame that you’d like the focus to pull to. It’s capable of recording 4K at 30fps, and 1080p HD video in slow-mo at 120fps or 240fps.

Apple iPhone 15: Verdict

The iPhone 15 has some major improvements in its camera capabilities over the iPhone 14 and previous generations. Eeking three native ‘optical’ zoom levels from two lenses is downright clever, and the ability to decide where the focus should be in a shot after it has taken allows for something of a ‘shoot first, ask composition questions later’ approach. 

However, with the Pro model only costing an extra $200/£200, most phone photographers will find the additional camera and increased functionality that the iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max brings well worth the modest additional outlay – and that’s before factoring in the superior build, more advanced processor, always-on ProMotion display, Action button, and longer battery life. 

But all that said, it’s a very good smartphone in its own right that's brimming with features and is hardly underpowered, and if photography functionality is a nice-to-have rather than your prime reason for buying a phone, and you really can't stretch to a Pro, then is the lowest-cost route to getting a latest-gen iPhone.  

Apple iPhone 15: Competitors

This is the base model iPhone 15, but also consider: the iPhone 15 Max, which has a bigger 6.7in screen for an extra $100/£100; the iPhone 15 Pro, which has has an additional ‘true’ 3x telephoto camera module, faster processor and snazzy titanium construction for $200/£200 more; and the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which as the name suggests combines the improved specs of Pro and bigger display of the Max, while also increasing the telephoto lens to a 5x zoom and doubling the base memory from 128GB to 256GB, and costs $400/£400 more than the base model. 

Read more: for our top picks of the best camera system you can buy right now on a phone, check out our guide to the best camera phone, or if you have a little less to spend, check out our picks for the best budget camera phone.

The iPhone 15 Pro is the epitome of a safe bet. The phone is expensive, but not the most expensive; its cameras are specced out, but they don’t rock the boat too much, and its screen is expansive without being oversized. Packing all of Apple’s latest iOS highlights and a wonderfully refined design with its titanium build, as well as that coveted USB-C port, we really (really) like this iPhone. 

If you dare to dream beyond Apple’s iPhone line, though, much of what we love about the iPhone 15 Pro can be had for less in an Android alternative. Compact options like the Asus Zenfone 10 and Sony Xperia 5 V also offer flagship power and advanced camera tech. Apple’s refined design feels great, but Android takes design further, with phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Oppo Find N3 Flip literally folding in half, and lower-cost camera phones like the Pixel 7 Pro serve up more range as well as Google’s imaging smarts.

We know if you have an iPhone, you’ll probably want to upgrade to an iPhone, so despite plenty of Android competition, let’s get into what makes the new iPhone 15 Pro our choice unless you fall into three categories: gamer, zoomer, or forgetful charger.

iPhone 15 Pro: design

Apple's Pro line has always kept things palm-friendly, and the 15 Pro is no exception; with its 6.1-inch screen and lightweight 187g body, it's comfortable to use with one hand, and even with a case, it isn't unwieldy.

Unlike past iPhones, the 15 Pro has a stronger and lighter titanium frame that's better at fending off fingerprints than polished iPhone rims of old. The edges of the Pro's frame also curve in to meet the glass back and front, making for a much more comfortable hold when compared to the stark angles we're used to from Apple.



Around the back of the iPhone 15 Pro is a glass panel that curves up to form the camera surround with three large rings framing each lens. With smaller bezels than last year's 14 Pro, the 15 Pro has less border than any iPhone before it, making for a more immersive canvas for your content.

The 15 Pro and Pro Max are available in four color options: Natural Titanium, Blue Titanium, Black Titanium – the option we tested, and White Titanium. Apple's Ceramic Shield glass protects the front of the phone, and all of Apple's 15-series is IP68 dust and water-resistant.

We've mentioned the new USB-C port – one of two significant differences between the 15 Pro and past iPhones – and the other switch-up is the customizable Action Button. This replaces the alert slider on the left side, and you can choose what happens when you press it, with options including changing focus mode, launching the camera, torch, Voice Memo app, Magnifier, an accessibility feature, or firing up silent mode.

To summarise, the iPhone 15 Pro looks fantastic. It also feels a bit more precious than most phones, so if you're like us, you'll definitely want to get it in one of the best iPhone 15 Pro cases on offer.

We settled on the Mous Iridescent Clarity 2.0 case during our review period, pictured below. What we particularly liked about it was its smooth finish, with other more rubberized textured cases gripping to our pocket lining as we tried to slide the phone in. It's also poised to power up with MagSafe and adds color-shifting oil spill meets Malibu Barbie chic styling to our otherwise traditional, black iPhone.

iPhone 15 Pro: screen

The 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display on the Pro won't be as immersive as the 6.7-inch panel on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but it still enjoys the best quality display tech of any iPhone. At the heart of the viewing experience is OLED screen technology, and as you might expect, blacks are inky, and colors pop with panache.

The iPhone 15 Pro has a 120Hz refresh rate for smooth scrolling and features HDR support with a DCI-P3 wide color gamut and Apple's True Tone display tech, so it dials warmth up or down based on ambient lighting. 

Like the 14 Pro series, the 15 Pro has a Dynamic Island, which plays host to the front camera system and Face ID technology, and the screen supports Apple's Always-on Display feature too.

Smartphone screens really have hit an excellent standard at the premium end, and the iPhone 15 Pro is no exception. It gets super bright with up to 2,000 nits peak brightness outdoors, 1,600 nits in other environments, and a 1,000 nits typical max manual brightness.

If you want a bigger view of your content, you can also project your iPhone 15 Pro to a TV or monitor using the USB-C port or AirPlay, and we tested our review unit with a standard USB-C to HDMI dongle to great effect. 

The iPhone 15 Pro does a brilliant job of creating a big-ish screen experience in a small package. By shaving down the bezels, almost all of the phone's front is screen, so watching movies or TV shows that beam in glorious quality or editing photos is a pleasure on it. 

The main limitation for anyone with larger hands is gaming – the display can feel a little cramped when you add on-screen controls to the mix, but that caveat aside, the 15 Pro's screen is pretty much perfect to our eyes.

We also tested out a couple of iPhone screen protectors, settling on the Belkin UltraGlass 2. 

Before picking up the Belkin protector, a local shop sold us a lower-cost 15 Pro protector with a visible lip around the edges when fitted. The shop assistant assured us this was normal owing to the slightly curved glass of the new iPhone screens. But we contacted Belkin shortly after, and that isn't the case.

As a result, we went to an Apple Store, where a staff member fitted the UltraGlass 2 protector on our 15 Pro Max using a dedicated machine that applied it perfectly. While it's pricier than options from lesser-known brands, the perfect fit and promise of a better-shielded display made us realize a quality option like the UltraGlass 2 should have been our first port of call.

iPhone 15 Pro: camera specs

Last year's iPhone 14 Pro camera is back for round two, with a wide, ultra-wide, and 3x telephoto set-up on the  15 Pro.

The iPhone 15 Pro's primary camera has a 48MP resolution matched with a 1/1.28-inch sensor and a 24mm f/1.78 aperture lens. Using Apple's second-generation sensor-shift OIS and capturing 48MP and 24MP photos, it's clear that Apple's switched up its computational photography even if the hardware specs look familiar.

The 12MP ultra-wide camera has a 13mm focal length and an f/2.2 aperture lens, while the 12MP 3x telephoto camera has a handy 77mm focal length and a fast f/2.8 aperture. 

The telephoto camera has the smallest sensor of the three around the back, and it isn't a periscope module like the 15 Pro Max, or other phones, including the Honor Magic 5 Pro or Huawei P60 Pro. 

As a result, we're not expecting class-leading reach or noise handling, but in a specific focal range in abundant light, having a 77mm camera is a very handy addition. This is illustrated in the grid below, demonstrating the iPhone 15 Pro Max's weakest focal length – 4.9x zoom – just before the periscope camera is engaged. The 15 Pro, however, clearly outperforms the Pro Max before its telephoto camera kicks in.

In the specs on the iPhone's product page, Apple cheekily suggests there's a 12MP telephoto lens with a 48mm f/1.78 lens, but this is just a reference to the primary camera and a digital crop. Yes, it can capture a native 12MP image at 48mm owing to the high-resolution sensor, but it wouldn't deliver the optical performance of a dedicated, high-quality 48mm camera, so don't let Apple's optimistic marketing suggest otherwise.

Selfies are captured on a 12MP front camera with an f/1.9 aperture lens loaded up with autofocus and a wide field of view.

One area the iPhone 15 Pro camera looks set to best its predecessor is video capture. Specifically, thanks to the new USB-C port, it's now possible to capture ProRes video at up to 4K resolution, 60fps recording directly to an external drive. This is potentially game-changing for mobile filmmakers.

iPhone 15 Pro: camera review

The iPhone 15 Pro's picture quality is quintessentially Apple, with characteristics including a balanced take on noise reduction, a fair bit of sharpening and contrast, and a warmth to photos that produces generally flattering shots.

In bright environments, the 15 Pro pulls out stacks of detail across all three cameras, though with the main camera able to capture at a higher resolution, you'll want to lean on it if you plan on cropping or blowing up your shot.

We wish Apple included higher-resolution ultra-wide and telephoto sensors like Google has for the Pixel 8 Pro. This would have added a smidgen of extra flexibility beyond the wide camera.

That also means when it comes to zoom, the iPhone 15 Pro isn't best-in-class, with the Pixel 7 Pro and 8 Pro both out-performing it for the same price or less, as the iPhone relies purely on optical reach and can't combine it with a lossless digital crop. Nevertheless, with OIS, the telephoto sensor does a good job in well-lit scenes, as you can see below, with the photo of the chimney reflecting a maxed-out 15x zoom.

The iPhone generally does a good job in mixed-lighting environments, embracing warmer tones, while still balancing colors. Saturation and vibrancy are more boosted than Google Pixel shots, but less so than Samsung Galaxy photos, and while Apple doesn't offer manual white balance, RAW and RAW+ capture help things along, as do the four additional looks: cool, warm, rich contrast, and vibrant.

The iPhone 15 Pro's wide camera's large sensor means shots are packed with natural depth and detail when a subject is under a meter away. The telephoto camera can also pull up a pleasing amount of depth, with a nearest focus distance of about 70cm, and the ultra-wide can get super-close to an object for macro photography. 

Drop the lights, and the iPhone 15 Pro holds its own with Apple's night mode kicking in automatically. Below are examples across the telephoto, wide, and ultra-wide cameras of a scene with a modest amount of light flooding in on one side and almost no light on the other side.

Apple doesn't boost exposure for the whole scene as much as Google and its Pixel 8, preserving shadows while still enhancing detail in the brighter areas. The telephoto and ultra-wide cameras lose a bit of detail, so they aren't best-in-class at night, but the wide camera is strong.

The iPhone's Portrait Mode is powerful. As you can see in the photo below, the telephoto camera matched with Apple's computational smarts creates an impressive detail fall-off. While it doesn't quite look natural, the fact such a faraway subject produces such a clean portrait is still impressive.

Video from the 15 Pro looks mighty, with stabilization and detail all impressing, though audio wasn't always as clean as we wanted it to be, with the mic struggling with wind more than some other phones.

iPhone 15 Pro: Additional features

Running with an Apple A17 Pro chip, the 15 Pro should have more grunt than any other smartphone around, and it's the first phone to benefit from a 3nm manufacturing process.

Practically speaking, that means you can expect gaming phone power from the 15 Pro, though without gaming phone cooling, battery capacities, or screen size, gamers should still curb their expectations.

As for storage, the 15 Pro has a 128GB starting capacity, or you can pick it up with 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB. This could sway some in favor of the 15 Pro versus the Pro Max given the Max misses out on a lower-cost 128GB version. 

If you plan on using the phone for over a year, we would suggest picking up the 256GB version. A few game and app installs, 4K video recordings, and a WhatsApp backup could wipe out 100GB in a matter of weeks.

The iPhone 15 Pro runs the latest version of iOS out of the box, and being an iPhone, it's guaranteed for an excellent six years of software updates. Compared to phone makers like Sony, with two years of software updates and three years of security updates, this bodes well for anyone considering picking up an Apple phone as a long-term investment.



If you've used an iPhone, you'll know what to expect from iOS 17. The core navigation is familiar, but some flourishes help make personalization and day-to-day use more seamless. This includes making a sticker for messaging from any photo in your gallery – a really fun feature – AirDrop with a tap, and more.

The phone unlocks with Face ID and brings back tools like Apple Pay, the LIDAR scanner for advanced depth mapping, Siri, and all of Apple's pre-loaded apps like FaceTime, Pages, Keynote, and iMovie, to name a few, leaving you with a relatively complete app suite before you even fire up the app store, though many services like Apple Music, News, and TV's full functionality live behind a subscription paywall.

The 15 Pro is also one of the best-sounding small phones around, with stereo speakers that emulate depth while holding onto detail better than some larger flagship alternatives.

As for the new Action button, we never found ourselves using it, and in turn, we missed the alert slider of old. This isn’t surprising as we’ve spent years getting used to one way of doing things, and we’re not sure Apple’s new way is better, though it is more customizable.

Power users might struggle to get through a whole day if they're hammering the 15 Pro Max with photography, video capture, and gaming, though casual use left us with about 20% power by the end of the day once we turned off the Always-on Display.

The phone brings back MagSafe wireless charging and powers up with any Qi wireless charger like the Mous modular charging system pictured above. Unfortunately, the new USB-C port doesn't deliver faster charging, so expect roughly 30W speeds and a charging time of 100 minutes.

iPhone 15 Pro: verdict

The iPhone 15 Pro is an excellent shout for iPhone users looking to upgrade.

There are some caveats to who we’d suggest the 15 Pro for. Gamers will find the screen a bit small and the battery to be lacking. In fact, unless you’re happy with a daily charge and occasional top-ups throughout the day, you might struggle with the 15 Pro’s battery life in general. Finally, anyone who wants maximum zoom should go for the 15 Pro Max.

If none of those caveats phase you, the iPhone 15 Pro is a powerful phone with a reliable camera, a slick user experience, and excellent display and sound performance in a pocketable, great-looking, and feeling package.

Check out our guide to the best iPhone 15 Pro cases

Over the last four years, the latest incarnation of the iPhone Pro Max has become my favorite camera companion, while my Canon DSLR has sat patiently on the shelf waiting for me to rekindle our long-term relationship. A newly acquired iPhone 15 Pro Max has just hammered another nail into the coffin of my Canon DSLR. Here’s why. 

When shooting with my DSLR I needed to cart around a kit bag full of lenses, so I could whip out a telephoto to capture candid street photography pictures. I’d then have to swap to a wide-angle lens to fit architectural landmarks into the frame. The iPhone 15 Pro Max packs 7 cameras into its palm-sized frame, with focal lengths ranging from an ultra-wide 13mm to a periscopic zoom-enabled 120mm lens. It’s this new 5x optical zoom that makes me the most excited about the iPhone 15 Pro Max. 

• What is a periscope lens on a phone – and do you need one?

The 15 Pro Max is only 8.25mm deep, but it bounces light off multiple mirrors to get the lens far enough away from the sensor to achieve a focal length of 120mm (hence the term periscopic). I find that this extra reach over iPhone 14 Pro Max’s 77mm zoom enables me to remain a ‘fly on the wall’ while I capture candid close-ups of people from a distance. 

This freedom to remain less conspicuous than I was with a DSLR and a long lens motivates me to snap far more street photography-style images than I’d normally do. I feel like I’ve developed a superpower!

What is even more exciting is the fact that I can use the 5x (120mm) zoom camera while shooting in the Camera app’s Portrait mode. This enables me to add a DSLR-style background bokeh that makes distant people stand out sharply against blurred backgrounds. This combination of software-added bokeh to a powerful zoom enables me to mimic a classic DSLR telephoto look more effectively than I could using previous iPhone models.

When shooting telephoto images with my DSLR I’d set the camera to shutter priority, and choose a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the subject and avoid the shake-induced motion blur that zoom lenses are prone to. This could lead to a sharp but under-exposed shot that I’d need to brighten up in post. 

The iPhone 15 Pro Max captures pin-sharp and well-exposed telephoto shots instantly, due to advances in its sensor-shift image stabilization. As well as moving the sensor horizontally (x) and vertically (y) to counteract camera shake, the 15 Pro Max also vibrates the sensor along the depth (z) axis. This physical three-dimensional movement ensures a telephoto shot that’s free from shake-induced blur. 

As a result, every telephoto shot is sharp, well exposed, and ready to share there and then – which is great if you want to satisfy your social media feed’s need for ‘as it happens’ photo content.

Having enjoyed a day shooting street photography I was keen to see how the 15 Pro Max got on with a professional model. I met Eli at London’s Barbican Centre, which has a great range of Brutalist architecture backdrops. 

Normally I shoot in Apple’s ProRAW format so I can have full control over colors and tones in the editing stage. Thanks to the main 24mm camera’s wide f/1.78 aperture, I can get a strong and natural bokeh while shooting RAW portraits. 

However, thanks to iOS 17, if you shoot a JPEG of a person then a depth map is generated as well (even if you haven’t shot in Portrait mode). This gives you the freedom to add an adjustable bokeh to a wider range of JPEG-format shots in Apple’s Photos app.  

This depth map isn’t available if you shoot in RAW, so I found myself shooting far more JPEGs than I’d usually do. As an iOS 17 bonus, you can now change the focal point of a JPEG as well as the blur amount in Apple Photos, which gives photographers even more control in the post-production stage.

Model Eli hadn’t done a shoot with an iPhone before, but as a professional she gave it her all. Over the two-hour shoot, I enjoyed switching from capturing close-ups to wide-angle portraits with a few taps on the iPhone’s display. 

I was also able to enthuse Eli by showing her the results of a shot immediately on the iPhone’s vibrant HDR display. By shooting with a low-profile iPhone at the Barbican we weren’t interrupted by security personnel (which can happen if you’re in possession of a ‘big camera’, as policemen like to call it!).

All in all, I’ve loved my first week using the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s cameras and, in 3 separate shoots, I’ve notched up 56,000 steps, capturing a wider range of subjects than I’d normally do. The iPhone 15 Pro Max and I may be in our ‘honeymoon period’ but I am sure we’ll be exploring new photo opportunities together for a long time to come. (Just don’t tell my DSLR.) 

The best camera phones come in all shapes and sizes, from the best iPhones for photography to the best Android phones – featuring the best Samsung phones to the best Oppo phones.

It's been two weeks since we switched to the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Despite reports of heating affecting specific devices – including a friend's phone, which we verified ran hot when doing basic tasks – ours stayed cool to warm even after an hour of gaming. 

We think you'll love this phone unless you're unlucky enough to pick up one of the dodgy units. After all, apple's cohesive ecosystem, matched with 2023-grade performance, ensured the 15 Pro Max was a powerhouse in our time with it, but the camera has a few limitations.

When we first saw its specs, we weren't sure the 15 Pro Max would be the best iPhone for photography.

Apple's 15 Pro Max's optical reach bumped up to a 5x zoom equivalent versus the 3x zoom 15 Pro. The Pro Max introduces Apple's tetra-prism periscope zoom camera, which is the most powerful zoom ever to grace an iPhone. But is it the most useful?

A 5x zoom is equivalent to around 120mm in full-frame focal length terms, and while that's a mighty reach, with just three cameras, Apple's priciest iPhone also leaves a massive void of optical coverage between 1-5x. 

Thanks to the Pro Max's powerful primary sensor, a 1-2.5x reach, up to around 60mm should still look great, but at 60-120, we'd expect quality to start crumbling based on the specs and our experience.

That's a lot of conjecture – but what's the iPhone 15 Pro Max like to live with, both as a phone and a camera?

iPhone 15 Pro Max: Design

While at first glance, the new iPhone 15 Pro Max might look like a carbon copy of last year's iPhone 14 Pro Max, a closer look reveals a handful of meaningful updates that make for a more pleasant feeling design. The most obvious of these updates is the phone's frame.

Unlike past iPhones, the 15 Pro Max enjoys a matte titanium frame that doesn't attract fingerprints with quite so much intent as the shiny polished steel rims of old. The edges of the frame also curve in to meet the glass, making for a much more comfortable hold when compared to the stark angles we're used to in the Pro line.

The new styling adds an almost unibody feel to the phone, though the back is glass and has a subtly contrasting frosted texture.

New iPhone, new colors, and the 15 Pro and Pro Max are available in Natural Titanium, Blue Titanium, Black Titanium, and White Titanium, which is the version we tested. Apple's Ceramic Shield glass protects the front of the phone, which is IP68 dust and water-resistant.

Weighing 221g, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is slightly lighter than the 240g iPhone 14 Pro Max. This is a big deal, considering the Pro Max has historically been the heaviest phone on the market – but not anymore.

The 15 Pro and Pro Max both see a couple of critical updates dotted around their frames. The first is a USB-C port at the base, which is a very welcome, some would say long overdue move away from Apple's proprietary Lightning Port.

The next significant difference between the 15 Pro Max and the 14 Pro Max is the alert slider, or lack of it, for Apple's 2023 Pro line. This year, it's been swapped out for a customizable Action Button that can change focus mode, launch the camera, torch, Voice Memo app, Magnifier, an accessibility feature, or fire up silent mode.

Ultimately, the iPhone 15 Pro Max's design updates are subtle, but they all combine to create a more enjoyable experience.

There have been a few reports that the back panel of the iPhone 15 Pro is more susceptible to damage than past iPhones owing to how it's fitted on the phone's frame. We can't speak to this, with our phone looking great after a week of case-free use and a week in a case. 

You will probably be using your Pro Max for a year or more if you pick one up, so to protect your iPhone and its resale value (higher for iPhones than any other smartphone), you'll want to pick up both a case and a screen protector.

In our second week with the 15 Pro Max, we chose the Limitless 5.0 - Carbon Fibre case because of its clean, matte, uncomplicated styling.

We also tested out a couple of iPhone screen protectors, settling on the Belkin UltraGlass 2. 

Before picking up the Belkin protector, a local shop sold us a lower-cost 15 Pro Max protector with a visible lip around the edges when fitted. The shop assistant assured us this was normal owing to the slightly curved glass of the new iPhone screens. We contacted Belkin shortly after, and that isn't the case.

As a result, we went to an Apple Store, where a staff member fitted the UltraGlass 2 protector on our 15 Pro Max using a dedicated machine that applied it perfectly. While it's pricier than cheaper options, the perfect fit and promise of a better-shielded display made us realize a quality option like the UltraGlass 2 should have been our first port of call.

iPhone 15 Pro Max: Screen

With its 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR display, the Pro Max enjoys the largest screen on an Apple smartphone and the highest-quality panel with its OLED screen technology and display credentials list as long as the best Android phones on the scene.

It's a 120Hz panel and features HDR support with a DCI-P3 wide color gamut as well as Apple's True Tone display tech, so it dials up warmth to compensate for whatever the ambient light is doing where you are.

Like the 14 Pro series, the 15 Pro Max has a Dynamic Island for the front camera system and supports Apple's Always-on Display feature.

Super bright, the 15 Pro Max's screen shines up to 2,000 nits peak brightness outdoors, 1,600 nits in other bright environments, and has a 1,000 nits typical max brightness.

This is also the first iPhone to support USB-C to HDMI projection, so you can hook the 15 Pro up to a TV or monitor for big-screen YouTube watching or photo sharing.

Unsurprisingly, the Pro Max has a fantastic-looking display, whether head-on or at an angle; colors hold onto their integrity, and viewability is excellent indoors or out. We used it on a boat in direct sunlight and at night, reading before bed, and at both ends of the spectrum, it holds up brilliantly. 

iPhone 15 Pro Max: Camera specs

While the iPhone 15 Pro brings back the same camera hardware as the 14 Pro, the 15 Pro Max upgrades the telephoto lens and introduces Apple's new 5x zoom tetraprism periscope system.

The main camera has a 48MP resolution, 1/1.29-inch sensor, and a 24mm f/1.78 aperture lens. Using Apple's second-generation sensor-shift OIS and capturing 48MP and 24MP photos, it combines familiar hardware with a handful of optimizations for 2023.

The 12MP ultra-wide camera features a 13mm focal length and an f/2.2 aperture lens, and the 12MP telephoto camera features a 5x equivalent, 120mm reach with an f/2.8 aperture.

In the specs on the iPhone's product page, Apple cheekily suggests there's a 12MP telephoto lens with a 48mm f/1.78 lens, but this is just a reference to the primary camera and a digital crop. Yes, it can capture a native 12MP image at 48mm owing to the high-resolution sensor, but it wouldn't deliver the optical performance of a dedicated, high-quality 48mm camera, so don't let Apple's optimistic marketing suggest otherwise.

Finally, the telephoto camera is a 12MP sensor with a 120mm focal length and an f/2.2 aperture. This can capture with a 5x optical zoom equivalent and a 25x digital zoom.

The cameras also include new software optimizations that work brilliantly. You can retrospectively activate Portrait Mode, for example, as well as adjust your default focal length when you launch the camera, with options including 24mm (1x), 28mm (1.2x), and 35mm (1.5x), bypassing potential lens distortion and edge softness.

iPhone 15 Pro Max: Camera zoom

With Apple's headline feature for the iPhone 15 Pro Max camera being its zoom, it's great to see the phone deliver such strong results in well-lit environments at a 120mm/5x zoom equivalent range.

Below are two images taken in similar environments demonstrating the shallow depth of field you can achieve with the 15 Pro Max's native 120mm. 

The 15 Pro Max's telephoto camera isn't the most versatile around by a long stretch. It has a nearest focus distance of no less than a meter, so it doesn't step in as a telemacro camera like that of the incredible Huawei P60 Pro's periscope camera or Honor Magic 5 Pro's commendable 3.5x telephoto. It's best suited to very well-lit scenes and far away objects.

Apple isn't as afraid of noise as Samsung and other smartphone makers, and with its smaller telephoto sensor versus the iPhone 15 Pro Max's primary camera, when you zoom in past 5x, there's more noise. Detail is strong though, and as you can see in the photo below, this extends to middling and even low light. 

If you don't see yourself leaning on 120mm and beyond, there's an argument for picking up a 15 Pro over the 15 Pro Max. With its 120mm periscope lens, the range between 24mm and 120mm exclusively uses the primary camera's 48MP sensor.

As you can see from the illustration below, the 15 Pro Max has the weakest 4.9x zoom quality of all the competition we tested it against, including the 15 Pro. This isn't surprising, as Honor and Huawei's phones cap out at around 3.5x optical zoom – around 70mm – a typical focal length for portraits, while the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, Xperia 5 V, and Xiaomi 13 Ultra all include optical coverage between their main cameras and furthest reach zooms.

Now that Apple's added reach to the mix, if it wants to compete and win in the smartphone camera wars, specifically when it comes to optical versatility, the iPhone 16 Pro Max, expected in 2024, should have a 50-60mm fourth camera so it covers all the bases.

iPhone 15 Pro Max: Camera performance

Going beyond zoom, how does the new iPhone 15 Pro Max camera stack up? Very well. This isn't the revelation that the 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max were with their larger sensors versus the 13 Pro, though. Instead, the 15 Pro Max is a modestly upgraded photography experience.

As you can see below, detail is abundant across all three cameras in bright environments. Colors are well-matched, dynamic range is strong, and Apple adds a pleasing amount of punch to photos. 

Traditionalists will find Apple's processing too heavy-handed, but with 48MP RAW capture, there's a considerable amount of scope to edit shots to great effect.

Unsurprisingly, the cleanest low-light results come from the main camera, with the ultra-wide occasionally creating a slightly muddy-looking image. We were impressed with the telephoto in a couple of situations, see below, suppressing noise while holding onto detail.

Portrait mode is excellent in the day, and perfectly usable at night, however, starts to struggle when lighting becomes more challenging. Specifically, backlit subjects throw-off the wide view, and when cropping in to a 2x portrait view, detail falls off a bit too much.

If you love pinching right into subjects from far away or, like us, use your camera phone to cover launch events when you can't get your dedicated camera in time, the iPhone 15 Pro Max is a solid option. That said, it can't beat the Galaxy S23 Ultra, so we wouldn't call it best in class, but it's a step up in the iPhone camp. 

Unlike some Android competition, Apple doesn't pull out all the detail it can from shadows, and that's the case across the zoom range. As a result, you can confidently snap shots without fear of them looking unrealistic 90 percent of the time.

Thanks to its large sensor, nearby photos from the 15 Pro Max have an attractive, shallow depth. The camera defaults to the ultra-wide camera when you are close to a subject, but this feature can be turned off in the settings.

Video from the new iPhone also looks exceptional, whether capturing nearby or faraway subjects. Similar to the 14 Pro Max when using the primary camera, the addition of a periscope takes things up a level for zoomers, stabilizing footage well.

The added scope to shoot ProRes, 4K capture across all three cameras also unlocks a huge amount of potential for filmmakers.

iPhone 15 Pro Max: Additional features

Running iOS 17, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max deliver the latest updates, including near-field Airdrop, auto-transcribed voice notes in messages, photo stickers (more fun than it sounds), and much, much more.

The iOS interface is, without a doubt, the most polished out there, and while it once stood for limiting simplicity, now, it's more complex than most will need it to be. Powering the experience is the Apple A17 Pro chipset, the first to benefit from a 3nm production process, which should result in efficiencies across the board.

The phone unlocks with Face ID and brings back tools like Apple Pay, the LIDAR scanner for advanced depth mapping, Siri, and all of Apple's pre-loaded apps like FaceTime, Pages, Keynote, iMovie, and more.

The most notable feature the USB-C port introduces for photo and video enthusiasts is the higher transfer speeds for the 15 Pro and Pro Max. With USB-3 support (though shipping with a slower cable), the new iPhones can wirelessly send data at up to 10GB/s – a boon for anyone who plans on shooting in ProRes.

The USB-C port has another superpower for video enthusiasts. It can capture ProRes at up to 4K 60fps, if you're happy plugging in external storage and shooting to an SSD. What's incredible about this feature is it enables an iPhone 15 Pro Max with minimum storage (256GB) to capture hours of ProRes footage, bypassing its limited internal memory. In the past, folks who wanted to use ProRes needed the highest-capacity option possible. Now, there's scope to be a little kinder to your bank account.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max is available with 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB storage, with pricing matching last year's like-for-like storage option. For the Max, Apple has scrapped the 128GB storage capacity, so the barrier to entry is higher at its 256GB price, though the smaller iPhone 15 Pro can still be had at that 128GB, more affordable price point.

Apple has slightly increased the battery capacity of the Max versus last year, and the 15 Pro Max carries forward the 14 Pro Max's strong performance. There have been mixed results online, though, with some experiencing overheating and poor battery life.

This seems to affect specific units, and Apple has stated a software update should remedy the issue, though that's yet to drop at the time of writing this review. Our device, however, performed brilliantly.

In addition to playing back Genshin Impact, one of the most demanding games around, for an hour without becoming too hot, we easily got through a day of moderate to heavy of use with 10-20 percent battery remaining.

Many hoped that Apple would increase the iPhone charging speeds with a new USB-C port, but the phone caps out at around 30W, powering up in roughly two hours – slower than the best Android phones for photography on the scene. MagSafe is also back, so you can pair the new iPhones with existing magnetic chargers and accessories like the Mous modular charging system pictured above.

iPhone 15 Pro Max: Verdict

After two weeks with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, it's unsurprising that it's a good phone – at its price, it has to be – but the level of polish it delivered across the interface and hardware is noteworthy.

Some early buyers experienced overheating on their iPhones, but we didn't, and everything from gaming performance to battery life has been exceptional.

The camera is also very good, brilliant most of the time. Where the 15 Pro Max struggles is when zooming between the 1-5x range, and, in some lowlight situations, boosting shadows without suppressing quite enough noise. Now that four or five optical ranges are more common in Android competition than ever, it's fast becoming the case that if Apple wants to compete and win, it needs to follow suit and add a mid-point portrait camera to the mix.

If you don't think you need the zoom and more than day-long battery life of the 15 Pro Max, then the iPhone 15 Pro or 14 Pro Max are excellent alternatives. And if you can't quite justify spending so much on a smartphone, check out our rundown of the best phones for photography for some lower-cost Android options.

Check out the best iPhone 15 Pro Max cases, the best iPhone stands, and the best iPhone power banks

Looking for the best iPhone 15 Pro cases? We've got you covered (pun intended). If you have ordered the new Apple iPhone 15 Pro there's no better time to be prepared and start hunting for the best iPhone 15 Pro series cases to ensure that your shiny new smartphone is protected from day one.

Not to brag, but we're pretty much experts now when it comes to finding the best phone cases on the market to suit every budget and lifestyle. Having tested over 100 cases from respectable brands and manufacturers, we know exactly what you need to keep your phone safe, and what's best avoided. 

If you're a photographer and smartphone shooter (which we assume you are - this is Digital Camera World after all) then you might want to invest in an iPhone 15 case with raised edges to protect your camera unit from any cracked lenses. Also, consider investing in one of the best camera lens protectors for additional coverage and peace of mind.

Maybe you'd be better off with one of the best magnetic phone cases to use with your magnetic smartphone accessories? Whatever case you need to suit your lifestyle, we're sure you'll find it in this guide. Getting the Pro Max instead?  See the best iPhone 15 Pro Max cases and the best iPhone 15 Plus cases too. 

The Best iPhone 15 Pro cases

How do I choose a case?

It's simple, really. Do you like your smartphone to feel weighted, or light as a feather? Are you someone who values intricate designs, or prefers to keep things simple with a clear case? How do you feel about having your credit cards stored in your phone case? Kickstand: love them or hate them? 

We understand that the hunt for a reliable yet reasonably priced phone case can be a little daunting, but fear not. Once you know the answer to these questions, then finding the best iPhone 15 Pro case to suit your lifestyle (and budget!) is a breeze. 

How we test

In all honesty, there's no real way to test a phone case thoroughly enough without actually putting our own phones in danger. So for this reason, we base our recommendations on things like comfort and grip, weight and bulkiness, case texture, plus any additional features such as integrated kickstands and card slots. 

There are other things to consider such as a case's compatibility with MagSafe, if it enables Qi charging and other wireless functions, as well as the manufacturer's reputation, and most of all - the product price range and value for money.

We weren't born yesterday, and we know that most manufacturers will exaggerate and upsell key features of phone cases knowing that you'll never test them. For example, some cases might be listed with 10ft drop protection, but we aren't about to find out for ourselves whether that's true. 

With this in mind, we tend to take things with a pinch of salt when it comes to testing phone cases, but vow to only recommend products to our readers that we would purchase ourselves, from brands that can be trusted. 

• Take a look at our case guides for the latest flagship smartphones that boast the most powerful cameras: including the best iPhone 15 Pro Max cases, plus the best Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra cases, and not forgetting the best Google Pixel 7 Pro cases and best Google Pixel 7 cases to protect your device from the get-go.

Before the iPhone 15 Pro was revealed in all its glory I wrote about the extensively trialed Action Button, which has replaced the mute switch with a customizable button. 

I was skeptical and, after a few days with my new phone, remain so. According to MacRumors, though, it seems that Apple might already be working on a solution for the iPhone 16.

• Read our iPhone 15 Pro Max review

The rumor is that the iPhone 16 will keep the Action Button (sadly, for me at least, there is no way they can roll back on all the hype of the user-definable button) but Apple will also add a 'Capture Button'. Hot on the heels of filling the camera app with equivalent focal lengths, it feels like Apple is really talking the language of photographers – which feels pretty good. I for one like Apple’s huge customer base to be nudged toward thinking photographically, rather than just 1x and 5x zoom!

Like many photographers I’m experimenting with my iPhone 15’s Action Button as the camera trigger, to save me a few valuable moments launching the app, so I’ve gone from the ultimate in tactile mute switches to having to swipe down and bring up an on-screen menu. In exchange, I can open the camera app faster and the button then becomes a shutter… but, well, pressing a physical button can jog the phone.

That, though, might also be solved by Apple’s "Project Nova", reported by MacRumors. The report tells us that the additional Capture Button will be capacitive – meaning it doesn’t physically move, but senses pressure – and likely feeds back using vibration (or the Taptic Engine as, Apple prefers to say) like the iPhone SE’s Home button. So if (and it’s a big if) Apple gets it right, then a more gentle press could make for a perfect shutter without causing camera shake – and feels very Pro. 

According to the rumor, the button will appear across the entire iPhone 16 line, which seems a bit unlikely to my mind – Apple has traditionally introduced things with the Pro series, like the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro, then filtered them down with the next generation. 

What could be more "Pro" than a potentially confusing extra button? One, though, that would let me have a physical mute switch back (albeit one not quite as good as on my iPhone 14) plus a better, quicker, camera activation option.

This is an early rumor, before the design is set or distributed to case makers, so nothing is guaranteed, but it is an exciting possibility. There is also discussion of a meaningful change in design, including a 0.2-inch bump in screen size across the line. We’ll have to wait and see.

Of course, if successful this button – expected to sit below the power button on the opposite side to the action and volume buttons – could also spell doom for all physical buttons. Many have spoken of the advantages of eliminating them; it would prevent dust and water ingress to the device interior, and some people even expect Apple to ditch any kind of physical port for the same reason. It's easy to paint the increments out in your mind that would see no 'real' buttons or ports by, say, the iPhone 19.

Just after getting USB 3.0 transfer speeds on the iPhone 15 Pro this doesn’t feel like a great prospect for photographers, but at least the iPhone 16 sounds like it might be an improvement!

See our guide to the best iPhones for photography and, crucially if you've jsut upgraded, the best cases for the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

On paper, choosing the color of my new iPhone 15 Pro Max should have been one of the easiest decisions I have made in my life. But in the end it was actually pretty tough trying to pick between the four color options of the latest Apple flagship smartphone.

Natural Titanium, Blue Titanium, White Titanium, or Black Titanium – that was the question. And it was the one piece in the buying process that proved tough.

I had decided even before the full details of the iPhone 15 range were announced that I was going to upgrade. I bought my current iPhone 11 Pro as a treat for myself during the first Covid lockdown. Given that means I have held onto my current phone since spring 2020, my phone has lasted three-and-a-half years – making it my longest-lasting handset ever. 

I also knew that I was going to go large this time. The Pro's screen had done me fine. But I increasingly use the phone to look at, and even edit, spreadsheets - or to make corrections on the CMS we use to create this website - so a Max-sized 6.7in Retina screen would be a boon. At the same time, my eyesight is gradually demanding stronger and stronger reading glasses - so a bigger display would also make sense even for normal mobile tasks.

And I also knew that I would be perfectly happy with the base-level storage option. I chose 256GB for my iPhone 11 Pro - and I haven't ever come close to using all of this. So I felt no need to pay extra for 512GB or 1TB of memory. So 256GB would be fine once again.

The color choice was not a given though. Blue is my favorite color – and I have owned grey, black and white phones in the past. So I couldn't eliminate any color due to personal taste.

Very wisely, as it turned out, I waited until I had a chance this weekend to see the new titanium iPhones in the flesh. And I am glad they did - as to be frank, the colors look noticeably different than they do on the website and in the press photos.

The photos I took in my local Apple Store (above)  I think give a better idea of the actually color of each of the phones. The Natural Titanium is a space grey color that I know well from other Apple products, the Black Titanium is a jet black, the White Titanium is the iconic Apple white, and the Blue Titanium is a dark, dark blue.

Up close, and viewed side by side, I was disappointed by the blue - and the grey of the Natural Titanium looked rather boring option. So that left the white and the black options - both of which I liked.

Inevitably, of course, the decision might well be slightly academic - as I would definitely ensure that I used a bespoke iPhone 15 Pro Max case, to keep my new investment protected (and would buy this from Mous, as this is the brand I use for my current iPhone).

With a case in place, the only bit of the colored back panel that would actually be seen was in the small island surrounding the three camera lenses.

So how did I make my choice in the end? Apple made the choice easier, as if I chose White Titanium I would have a seven-week wait until my new phone arrive - which seems like ages. Opting for Black Titanium means that my Max will be with me in four weeks' time - which felt a long-enough delay after all my procrastination over choosing the color!

Picking up the new iPhone 15 at my local Apple Store had a lot more in common with going to the doctor than the frenzied excitement of a major tech launch, which I still crave.

It probably doesn't help that the Apple Store has a distinctly sterile feel about it and, like many hospitals on a busy day, to cope with extra demand some impromptu queuing had been added with pull-out barriers. 

• Check our guide to the best iPhone 15 Pro Max cases

The real shame, though, was the order pickup slot system that has been implemented for some years now. I'm old enough to remember queuing up for the first iPhone. That felt exciting and somehow important. If memory serves, we all knew we'd get one. We'd ordered ahead. But Apple nevertheless contrived to have us all wait outside the store at the same time.

This was also in the wake of Steve Jobs' iPhone presentation, which made global news, rather than the announcement of a well-received but distinctly incremental device using a pre-recorded video.

Oddly, despite the fifteen-minute arrival slots (just like the doctor), there were still a few slightly confused-looking Apple team members and security staff guiding three or four people in a check-in style queue. 

Admittedly, perhaps I missed the fun as Apple's computer gave me a lunchtime appointment – shamefully I just walked into the store to a desk with 'Pickup' and was served in a couple of minutes.

After my QR code in an email was scanned, I waited a couple of minutes for a bag to be brought out with my handset. The customer before me was so unexcited by the whole thing she that was picking up an iPad, though to be fair the store was a little busier than the average Friday.

The device was handed over without any effort or ceremony on the part of the server. In the past they have attempted to inject a little feeling that you're making a momentous purchase, but perhaps we all know that's a bit silly now?

I was a little surprised that no one even directed me to the cases section, and I had to wander there on my own in search of protection. There, however, I saw that – while costly – Apple's post-leather option, "FineWoven" might not have the ideal longevity (on their first half-day in the store, they were already scratched all over). I left without one.

When it comes to the subject itself, the iPhone 15 Pro Max I was collecting, the medical comparisons don't end. For one thing, the titanium does look quite surgical. Also, my doctor always encourages a bit of weight loss – and you can really feel that has happened to the iPhone 15 Pro Max when you pick it up.

As it happens, despite the slight reduction of excitement that has happened over the years, I've matured a little, too. When I picked up that first phone, despite my excitement, I was also young enough to leave it in the box and head out for a night on the town. This time, within two hours it was charging from a USB-C cable (and not the one in the box)!

I want to go test that camera right away – and I know that the team here is doing that, too.

We're already reviewing the iPhone 15's cameras but now is also a good time to check out the best iPhone 15 Pro Max cases and, if you're getting the Pro iPhone, the best portable SSD for copying files to or recording video live.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max could be hit by major delays thanks to one of its major selling points: the shiny new tetraprism camera lens. 

There have been rumblings since long before the iPhone 15 family was announced that Apple was beset by production problems, with plenty of chatter that the limited rollout of the new camera (only on the Pro Max, rather than both Pro models) was the result. 

• What is a tetraprism lens? A periscope lens. So what is a periscope lens?

Those earlier rumors seem to have been confirmed by a new report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. 

"The most significant supply bottleneck for the iPhone 15 Pro Max is currently the tetraprism compact camera module (CCM), which is exclusively supplied by LGIT," he wrote, referring to LG Innotek (part of the LG electronics group). 

"To improve the CCM production yield, Apple has urgently increased the specifications of the tetraprism lens exclusively supplied by Largan, to address the CCM yield issues caused by assembly tolerances."

Largan is the world’s largest supplier of smartphone camera lenses, and is notorious for being so good at what it does that it's the one supplier that Apple can't bully. Indeed, a knock-on effect of this latest development plays into Largan's hands; since it has Apple over a barrel, it has increased the price of the lens by 20%. 

Further, because Apple has raised lens tolerances to increase production yield, this further cements Largan's position as the primary supplier. As Ming-Chu notes, "If Apple maintains the higher specification for the lens, it will raise the entry barrier for Genius, Apple’s second-largest lens supplier, next year." 

Next year, of course, it is expected that both the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max will feature tetraprism cameras (as was almost certainly the plan this year, before production issues derailed plans). 

The extent to which the supply problems might delay shipping of the iPhone 15 Pro Max this year isn't clear, but make no mistake; if Apple is willing to pay 20% more for every camera lens produced, this is a very significant problem indeed. 

Take a look at the best iPhones for photography up to this point. You might also be interested in the best camera phones from all brands, including the best Samsung phones and the best Android phones from other manufacturers. 

After what feels like months of anticipation and speculation the iPhone 15 is finally here. Just as the leaks anticipated, the camera on the standard model has been massively upgraded, the lightning cable has been replaced with USB-C, and it's fitted with the new A16 Bionic chip. So with all these upgrades, it got me thinking, is it finally time to upgrade from my iPhone 11?

I’ve been using the iPhone 11 pretty much since it first came out. It was the first and only time I’ve ever invested in the latest iPhone and prior to that, I was using the iPhone 7 (you can see a pattern emerging here). I still think it’s one of the best iPhones for photography when taking into account features and affordability, especially considering it’s 4 years old. The video might not be as high quality or as stabilized but when the lighting is right, it’s good enough for me. 

• Check out the best camera phones and browse a range of models from Apple, Google, Samsung and more

The main reason I haven’t upgraded comes down to cost. No matter which way you look at it, iPhones are expensive. The standard iPhone 15 with 128GB of memory costs $799 / £799 / AU$1,499 but those prices shoot up to $1,599 / £1,599 / AU$2,899 for the all-singing, all-dancing iPhone 15 Pro Max with a whopping 1TB storage. 

One of the most noticeable changes between the iPhone 11 and iPhone 15 is a change of shape and the switch to USB-C charging. I really liked the smooth design of the iPhone 11, it made it comfortable to hold and, arguably, the iPhone 11 color range was Apple’s best ever. I’m glad Apple has finally been forced into USB-C charging, the Lightning cable was annoying at best (especially when all your friends are Android users) and having one universal for all your tech makes life that little bit easier. 

Aesthetics aside, the inner workings of the Apple iPhone 15 are significantly better than the iPhone 11. Although the A13 chip from the 11 still does a pretty good job, the A16 Bionic chip in the iPhone 15 is around 30-40% more powerful. This means increased CPU and GPU performance and more power efficiency. The iPhone 15 also offers 2GB more RAM which means running apps like Lightroom for Mobile will be faster and shouldn't crash. 

Looking at it from a photographer's point of view, the cameras aren’t even comparable. The iPhone 15 features a 48MP main camera and ultra-wide camera plus 2X telephoto mode, improved stabilization, plus much better depth control when shooting in portrait mode. 

When looking to upgrade, the camera is my main area of focus and as someone who makes a lot of reels, having a camera that can record high-quality video even in low-light conditions is very appealing and that's one area where my iPhone 11 struggles.

I feel like a bit of a devil’s advocate because having said all this, and despite recognizing how much of an upgrade the iPhone 15 is from the 11, I probably still won’t pre-order one. The main reason is that arguably, the iPhone 15 isn’t all that different to the 14. It benefits from the new 48MP sensor and the new floating island looks cool, but the battery life and screen resolution have stayed the same. I can probably pick up a refurbished iPhone 14 for around £500 (if I trade in my iPhone 11) which is a much more appealing price and I would still be getting a huge upgrade from what I'm currently using. 

Also check out the best lenses for iPhone and Android phones and start taking even better-quality photos. Or, if you're committed to the phone, we've got a guide to the best iPhone 15 Pro Max cases.

It's September, so that can only mean one thing in the world of tech: it's new iPhone time. This year, same as every other year, Apple has upped its camera game, both in terms of hardware with the new iPhone 15 Pro Max finally getting a 5x zoom, and also with new software offering even greater computational advantages.

Even if you take Apple's overly enthusiastic marketing with a pinch of salt, year after year, the iPhone camera in your pocket is one of the best cameras you can buy. After the rise of smartphones pretty much destroyed the entire compact camera market, in the last year or so it seems to be trying to stage a comeback – this time under the guise of 'compact vlogging cameras'.

• These are the best iPhones for photography right now

The vanguard has been very much led by Sony with its lineup of ZV cameras, but recently Canon has jumped in the game with the slightly oddball Canon Powershot V10, and every other manufacturer seems to be tossing in a 'vlog mode' into their proper cameras, like seen on the Fujifilm X-S20.

Video from an iPhone is so good, though, and so far compact vlogging cameras haven't offered quality or an experience that surpasses what you can achieve with the device that is already in your pocket. 

Phones vs compact vlogging cameras

Dedicated compact vlogging cameras are mostly built around a 1-inch sensor, which is much larger than the sensor built into the iPhone 15 Pro Max, but this is not large enough that you are going to see huge advantages in professional-looking video. 

Background blur is the hallmark of a good-looking video, and no current vlogging camera is paired with a wide-aperture lens capable of actually creating this. As Apple has improved artificial blurring for its Cinematic video, it has surpassed what small sensors are capable of on their own.

You might argue that an advantage of a vlogging camera is that it's better in low light, but you clearly haven't used the latest nighttime modes on phone cameras. Who needs a big sensor, when you can comfortably clean up noise and get perfect lighting using computational algorithms?

Phone footage can also be shot, edited, and posted right away, all on your phone, no additional effort necessary. To effectively use a vlogging camera you have to connect it up to a phone or computer, transfer the footage, open it in an appropriate app, edit it, export it, and then you'll almost certainly need a phone anyway to actually post the footage to social media.

The one obvious advantage of a vlogging camera is they usually have a rotatable screen, so you can film yourself with ease. And I will give it to these cameras: phones haven't quite managed to figure that one out yet, although a lot of screen mirroring tech exists to just view your iPhone screen on a second monitor. And now as more flip and folding phones emerge, these offer a great way around this issue.

Vlogging cameras appear to be selling well judging by Sony's last financial report, but with phones just getting better and better, is there really a place for these cameras for long?

Find out more about vlogging with our picks for the best YouTube cameras and the best cameras for vlogging.

It looks like the new iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 are very popular, or Apple simply didn't show up to take orders at the promised time, which was a few minutes ago when this story was first posted! 

UPDATE: Three hours later it seems iPhone 15 Pros have sold out and ship dates are now back as far as November, suggesting constrained supply, while others tell of waiting over 30 minutes to make their purchase.

• Check my iPhone 15 Trojan Horse for Photography theory

For a couple of days after the iPhone 15 announcement as the Wonderlust presentation, Apple's store site offered the opportunity to skip the pre-order mess. I didn't do it because I couldn't decide between the blue and the natural titanium. 

I thought I could save that choice until the morning since here, in the UK, the actual electronic 'doors opening' time was 1.00 p.m. Boy was I wrong. Just after breakfast, when I'd finally settled on the natural titanium, the facility to game the pre-order system had already gone, replaced with an animated colored rim of an Apple logo and a note explaining that Apple's company's excitement was on a par with mine, the potential customer.

At the appointed hour though – thirty minutes ago as I type– when the phone was meant to be available for pre-order, the animation stood still and the words "Almost there" appeared. "Are Apple late for work?" I started to ask myself.

"Or, alternatively, are all those organised folk getting their orders processed first while the Apple Store simply doesn't play ball?" I worried.

Well, I'm sure it was a bit of the other, and by the time I got through and chose the natural titanium iPhone 15 Pro Max it wasn't available until 28th September rather than the 22nd (it feels like a long time to me, OK?). But the blue one was... Really? I thought that'd be more popular.

Still, I persevered and chose store pick up and by the end of the process – which took me about ten minutes as I was still wavering over storage size and how much insurance, sorry, AppleCare, I wanted – an interesting thing happened.

That 28th–Oct 3rd date I was shown earlier went back to 22nd when I chose store pick up and you can even pick a 15-minute slot so there is no need for old-school geeky queuing (though, you know, I did enjoy doing that for iPhone 1).

Now I just get to wait and see whether the date will be true and (of course) find out as I pick my pre-chosen from photos phone up whether I got the color right!

Now I guess it's time to pick a case with our best iPhone 15 Pro Max case guide.

This probably wasn't the headline that Apple wanted this week, as France has issued a ban on the iPhone 12 after it was found to exceed radiation limits.

With the eyes of the world on Apple, in the midst of the blockbuster launch of the iPhone 15, news came that the company has been ordered to stop selling the iPhone 12 in France (launched in 2020) with immediate effect. 

• The iPhone 12 still ranks in our best iPhones for photography guide!

As reported by Mobile World Live, according to France's National Frequency Agency (ANFR), the iPhone 12 exceeds the European Union's limits on electromagnetic radiation. 

"ANFR told Apple to either fix the problem on phones currently in use through a software update, or recall every iPhone 12 sold in France," wrote the outlet. 

The Agency lab tested 141 phones to check their compliance with SAR (Specific Absorption Rate) limits, which indicate the amount of electromagnetic emissions that the human body absorbs from mobile devices.

"ANFR found the iPhone 12 emitted 5.74 watts per kilogram while simulating holding the device or storing it in a pocket. The EU limit for SAR in such conditions is 4.0 watts per kilogram."

The story notes that Apple contests the claims, insisting that (unnamed) standards bodies had tested and verified that the iPhone 12 complies with all global limits on radiation. 

Either way, this raises an interesting quandary. If the phone does indeed break the European Union's radiation standards (and it's pretty hard to argue with a government agency that specializes in this area), this would mean that it won't just be pulled from sale in France – but potentially all across Europe as a whole. 

Not the end of the world for a phone from 2020, perhaps. However, if it turns out that other Apple phones – such as the iPhone 15 – also violate radiation limits, this could be a much bigger problem than anticipated. 

If you're sick of iPhones, check out the best camera phones from all brands – and don't forget the best budget camera phones and the best burner phones!

The Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max is the best iPhone to date: our reviewer dubbed it "almost perfect". But there's a catch: it's pretty expensive. So if you've made the leap and invested in this superb smarphone, you'll want to keep it safe. And that's where the best iPhone 15 Pro Max cases come in.  

Not to brag, but we're pretty much experts now when it comes to finding the best phone cases on the market to suit every budget and lifestyle. I've tested over 100 cases from respectable phone case brands and manufacturers, So I know exactly what you need to keep your phone safe, and what's best avoided.

In the list below, I list the very best iPhone 15 Pro Max cases on the market today, in a range of styles and budgets. And I'll share the facts and figures you need to compare them, and make the right purchase for your needs.

Best iPhone 15 Pro Max cases

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FAQs

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How to choose the best iPhone 15 Pro Max case

It's simple, really. Do you like your smartphone to feel weighted, or light as a feather? Are you someone who values intricate designs, or prefers to keep things simple with a clear case? How do you feel about having your credit cards stored in your phone case? Kickstand: love them or hate them? 

We understand that the hunt for a reliable yet reasonably priced phone case can be a little daunting, but fear not. Once you know the answer to these questions, then finding the best iPhone 15 Pro Max case to suit your budget is a breeze. 

There are also plenty of magnetic smartphone accessories available to enhance your device, so be sure to grab a wallet or pop socket and personalize your new iPhone. Need a case with extra strong magnets? Check out our best magnetic phone cases guide instead.  

Oh, and don't forget that the MagSafe charging system is also used to hold the phone's own weight facing out in Nightstand mode (with a suitable charging stand), so a simple clear plastic case won't cut it – you'll need something which can 'repeat' the MagSafe (as Adam found out when trying the cheapest Amazon case he could!)

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How we test iPhone 15 Pro Max cases

In all honesty, there's no way to test a phone case thoroughly enough without actually putting our own phones in danger. So we base our recommendations on things like comfort and grip, weight and bulkiness, case texture, plus any additional features such as integrated kickstands and card slots. 

There are other things to consider such as a case's compatibility with MagSafe, if it enables Qi charging and other wireless functions, as well as the manufacturer's reputation, and most of all value for money.

We weren't born yesterday, and we know that most manufacturers will exaggerate and upsell key features of phone cases knowing that you'll never test them. For example, some cases might be listed with 10ft drop protection, but we aren't about to find out for ourselves whether that's true. 

With this in mind, we tend to take things with a pinch of salt when it comes to testing phone cases, but vow to only recommend products to our readers that we would purchase ourselves, from brands that can be trusted. 

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See also best iPhone 15 Pro max lens protectors, the best iPhone microphones, and the best iPhone printers

With the launch of the new iPhone 15 and especially the iPhone 15 Pro Max we heard a lot about camera focal lengths. That makes sense – the phone has three different focal lengths and one of them (on the Pro Max model) is, finally, different. 

• It took over 15 mins to order the new iPhone 15 Pro Max – seems they're a hit!

I did notice, though, that in all the example videos when we saw the user tapping on one of the preset focal lengths (represented on screen with x0.5, x1, x3, for example) iOS now flashes up an ELF (Equivalent Focal Length or Effective Focal Length, depending who you ask – I'll stick with EFL!).

Since the EFL in millimetres is a figure which is only an equivalency, and not a direct measurement of the phone's compact components, this is only about one thing – deliberately using a professional term. An accepted standard within the industry Apple is trying to align itself with. And that isn't other phones – which tend to market themselves in terms of magnification factors. That is creatives who understand lenses.

Now I winced at the moment in Apple's presentation when they suggested the phone was like having 7 lenses in your pocket, but the more I thought about it, the better this feels for photography as a whole. That Apple wants to present its cameras in these terms shows a respect for photography that sticking '8K' or '100x zoom' simply does not. And don't forget certain phone manufacturers aren't above automatically faking pictures of the moon!

There is a lot that you can be not unreasonably angered about – vague generalisations about computational photography and various other means of simulating bokeh which won't make the glass or the sensor physically bigger. Of that I have not undergone some kind of Damascene conversion or been entirely swept up in the Apple cult.

Instead what excites me is that so many more people are going to see EFL figures and if just 1% of them think a bit about what they mean, that'll be a lot more people starting to ask questions about photography with interchangeable lenses.

Actually, iOS already does this with the zoom wheel in the camera app. Tap and hold on a preset zoom and the wheel comes up – the EFL lengths are shown on the dial and light up yellow when it locks to a camera's preferred length. It looks like this is going to get more pervasive by appearing in the on-screen buttons reminding users about EFL (or at least making them wonder about "that number in mm") all the time. 

Specifically, the iPhone 15 Pro Max will offer Macro, 13mm, 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, 48mm and 120mm as presets.

The other new feature, introduced as Next Generation Portraits, is that Portraits will happen automatically. Afterward focus and depth control will come to life, and the depth is indicated in terms of ƒ-stop. This is on iPhone 15 as well as the Pro models.

Good stuff, Apple. Camera terminology is for everyone. Hopefully, this will break down a barrier to buying that first mirrorless for a few new photographers.

Thinking of getting an iPhone 15? Check our guide to the best camera phones to see if you're sure, and read my thoughts on the exciting (to me) news about iCloud. 

Today's iPhone 15 launch came with a little throw-away surprise right at the end. Not  enough for a "One More Thing..." card on the deck; just another page on the pricing. A simple announcement by Greg "Joz" Joswiack as he ran through all the phone pricing that iCloud is adding 6TB and 12TB tiers, a huge boost from the previous 2TB limit.

• Read our guide to the best cloud storage for photos

Now for most people, this might not mean a lot, but the 2TB limit on cloud storage is on the verge of being the limiting factor in my day-to-day photography. Right now my own Photos – which is almost entirely filled with iPhone-captured images and video – occupies 1317.7GB of my 2TB. All told, my iCloud Plus account has a worrying 1.9TB of 2TB Used message.

I suspected I wasn't alone – now I'm sure of it.

I've been shooting photos on my iPhone since, well, since there was iPhone and I'm certainly not the only loyal iPhone customer out there who takes photos. I'm also not the only one who doesn't want to manage images.

I'm also a big fan of the shared album system as a way of quickly posting pics of my son as a form of family communication. The idea that I was about to run out of space filled me with horror at the thought that I might actually have to sort through the photos I'd taken.

At the same time, it hasn't been terribly easy to get excited about the new phone. Of course, Apple has undoubtedly enough to get me to hand over my cash (despite, rather than because of the Action Button, I should add).

That's not to say that the iPhone 15 Pro Max (yes, if I'm in, I'm all in) isn't enough to tempt me. I'm excited by the tetra-prism periscope lens with 3-axis stabilization. 5x optical zoom is very appealing.

On balance, I think I'm encouraged by the advantages of USB-C (let's hope it doesn't confuse CarPlay on older cars!) The titanium does look pretty cool, too, and the price increase might not be so bad since I already plumped for 512GB last time.

But most of the features have been leaked. The only real surprise has been the spatial video recording to view with Apple Vision Pro. For obvious reasons that isn't really of interest right now!

All that's mildly exciting, but the idea of paying a bit more a month to push the idea of sorting through all my phones and files further into the never-never is, well, easily worth the extra $20 a month to me. I'm not saying I'll love paying more, but I don't like deleting memories or thinking I might have to stop making them, so honestly if I had to choose between more iCloud and buying the new phone, it'd be the extra terabytes.

The new pricing tiers are $29.99 for 6TB and $59.99 for 12TB, the latter being cheaper than the 10TB option on Google Drive. They will become available from Monday 18 September and can be shared across a Family Plan.

You can read thoughts as we went through the whole launch on our iPhone 15 Wonderlust launch event coverage, and view the event video. 

The Apple Wonderlust event – the launch of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro – is very much in view, as the world's biggest company readies its latest flagship product.

The Wonderlust launch event, Tuesday, September 12 at 10 am (Pacific Time) / 1 pm (EDT) / 6 pm (UK) / 3 am Wed (AUS), preceded by the last-minute rumors was they were still flooding in. 

• Check out my opinion on the massive boost to iCloud
• Apple talks a lot about focal lengths – is that good for us all?

You can read them all here, and the official Apple YouTube feed will be in the box below to confirm them when the time comes – so that we can all follow along with the big announcements from Apple HQ in Cupertino, California.

We've been tracking all the rumors on our iPhone 15 – everything we know so far page, but the highlights are:

• iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are expected, as last time – rumours of an 'Ultra' have all but vanished.

• All new iPhones to get USB-C charging sockets – the death of Lightning

• iPhone 15 is expected to get 48-megapixel camera (as seen on iPhone 14 Pro), but possibly a newer sensor.

• iPhone 15 to get the "dynamic island" (as on iPhone 14 Pro) instead of the notch.

• iPhone 15 Pro to get a titanium frame

• iPhone 15 Pro Max (but not smaller pro) to get a variable periscope-style zoom lens

• iPhone 15 colors tipped to be Black, White, Light Yellow, Light Blue, Orange, Coral Pink

• iPhone 15 Pro colors tipped as White, Space Black, Grey, Blue

• iPhone 15 & 15 Pro series will have slightly more rounded edges (not all the. way iPhone 11).

• Rumored delays of up to 4 weeks on the iPhone 15 Pro Max may now be solved

• iPhone 15 price expected to remain the same as the iPhone 14, iPhone 15 Pro expected to cost more than its predecessor.

Perhaps these phones will come out FAST?

According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple Stores the world over will be making their updates on the night after the Apple event. That suggests they'll be on sale almost immediately, rather than the 10-14 day wait experienced in the past.

That said, in another tweet on Friday 8th he challenged a MacRumors report that Apple Retail Staff had been drilled to recommend USB-C charging accessories (which, of course, they inevitably will be). Gurman said that the training materials for this hadn't gone out.

MacRumors also says that all four phones will be launched at once, with possible delays for the Pro models all cleared up, and their suggested retail (or at least pre-order) day is September 15th – the Friday after the event.

Oh, and while we shouldn't expect it on Tuesday, it now seems – according to a post be Weibo – that there will be a new iPad Air, perhaps as soon as October (before the holiday season).

Tweet appears to confirm look of iPhone 15 Pro models

Is this the iPhone 15 Pro? X (formerly Twitter) user posted images which were seen on Weibo, and reposted by @Zovac_X. They were apparently taken by a worker at FoxConn, who manufactures products for Apple.

The tweeter poses a good question. Real or fake...? It has to be said the pic seems to confirm the rumors – the softer edges, the titanium look. The 'blue' seems a bit more like the old purple though?

Our friends at T3 have been pondering which of the rumored iPhone 15s will represent the better value and, this morning, with price rises of $100 and $200 respectively now being touted by Mark Gurman for the smaller and larger Pro models.

Those price rises make some sense – inflation has meant the iPhone has slid in price in real terms by more than $200, so some might say fair enough but not everyone!

Another interesting tidbit to emerge over the weekend is something of a twitterstorm (X-storm?) about the retention of 60Hz refresh on the 'standard' iPhone 15, which might be getting a better camera. The question must be will any of these angry tweeters be opting for anything less than the top model? Whatever the case, it seems they strongly feel Apple should let everyone experience the ProMotion feature in some tech altruism. 

Yet another interesting leak doing the rounds today – that there will be four sub-events for media members attending the Apple launch in person. This would normally mean:

1) iPhone 15 series
2) iPhone 15 Pro series
3) Apple Watch 9 – new processor expected here
4) AirPods

It's not unreasonable, given a whole separate briefing, that there might be something more than just new boxes with USB-C sockets for the AirPods. In a related (and not especially photographic, we admit) note, there have long been rumored of colorful AirPod Max big headphones. And we've seen others making similar speculations.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max is going to be lighter – but not as much lighter as some expected – according to Forbes and MacRumors. Oh, it's going to be fatter too!

Specifically the standard iPhone 15 will weight 172g, one 1 gram up on last year, and be 7.8mm thick, but the iPhone 15 Pro will be 188g, shaving 18g from its predecessor and the Pro Max 221g rather than the 240g. That's noticeable, but not as much as Mark Gurman had suggested.

The thickness of the pro models, though, could add almost half a millimeter to the 7.85mm of the iPhone 14 Pro – that's a noticable amount. We're wondering, though, whether it'll be offset by less protrusion of the lenses.

Now you might think that creating special animations just to encourage people to click on them – and to talk about the magic of clicking on them – is on the verge of spamming. We couldn't possibly comment but we can confirm that, once again, Twitter X has done a deal with Apple for just such an event-specific emoji when you 'Like' news of the event.

If you weren't convinced something was about to happen, how's this? The official Apple Store site is now offline with the traditional "Be Right Back" message in advance of today's iPhone 15 launch.

Not to criticise the "journalists" at the British tabloid The Daily Mail, but they seem to have spectacularly misunderstood Apple's launch cycle, reporting that "Apple Store website CRASHES ahead of the iPhone 15 launch event."

Of course the idiocy this headline suggests isn't actually the case – it's more likely shameless clickbait. If the Mail is running deliberately misleading stories about Apple the company can consider itself elevated to the status of royalty!

What is Grade 5 titanium?

The iPhone 15 Pro will (probably) be made of grade 5 titanium. This grade is also known on production floors as Ti-6Al-4V, or just '4-6,' (which, oddly, doesn't have a 5 in it!) 

This is the most common kind of titanium alloy, widely used because it has very high strength and low ductility – that means it can be stretched or hammered thin without breaking. Grade 5 titanium, an alloy, has a higher tensile strength than pure titanium and is more scratch-resistant than Grade 2.

According to metals company Ulbrich, Grade 5 is a popular choice, and has 90% titanium, 6% aluminium and 4% vanadium. The latter is often used in alloys for toughness and shock resistance.

OK, very excited now as the video is live – doing some singing and animation. Don't forget to click the play button above on the live video window. Get comfortable folks – the phone might not be the first thing Apple want to talk about!

Not a total surprise, but the emotional kick off to the video is centering on the SOS satellite rescue and Apple Watch health alerts of previous generations and the people who have celebrated birthdays they might otherwise not have. Shift to uplifting tone. Wonder what's next...

Ah, now we can see Apple Park in what is actually a pre-record. Tim Cook is excited about the ways we use iPhone everyday, but is going to start with Mac updates.

He even quoted our friends at Tom's Guide about how lovely the MacBook Air 15 was.

Plus he's talking about what developers are doing with the Apple Vision Pro. Although no actual specifics. Or an actual launch date, beyond 'early next year'.

Apple Watch first. If this were live and not a carefully curated video, the phone-obsessed majority of the audience might audibly groan at this point. OK, it seems this is going to be an Apple Silicon discussion, with the predicted S9 chip.

18-hour battery life with a more powerful neural engine. Not actually that exciting, is it, even though Siri is now processing on-device.

it does mean you'll be able to ask Siri your health data because it's secure and on-device, though only 'later this year'.

Watch OS10 will also get Namedrop to share contact data, and the ability to ping your iPhone using precision finding (which appears to confirm a prediction about the iPhone location services too). Find My is clearly getting a lot of work.

New display can go to a lower as well as higher brightness – just one nit – so it can't embarrass you at the cinema!

The watch is also getting a single hand finger gesture - you double-tap your finger against your thumb and it can feel it (something learned from the Vision Pro research?)

Tim is back and he is talking about Apple's environmental goals. Oh, and a video. Interestingly there is a mention of increased water shipping rather than air freight – will the iPhone come slowly?

A lot of promises on Apple Watch Series 9 which Apple say is a Carbon Neutral - and certified as so. There is a logo to that effect. Seems at the same exciting, it's also a bit of a tricky thing to say just before you announce a Phone which may well not do so well!

On the same front, leather is out for watch bands and, probably, phone cases. We've seen hints about this elsewhere – a big opportunity for phone case makers serving less vegetarian customers?

Apple Watch Ultra – Ultra 2 – is getting the new S9 chip, a new brighter display – 3,000 nits – and the ability to connect Bluetooth cycling accessories. Lot of swooping drone shots near the coast. Battery life will stay the same, but the environment is getting a nod with 100% recycled materials and (if you choose the right loop) it'll also get Apple's new Carbon Neutral logo.

OK, "Now let's talk about iPhone..." :)

iPhone 15 is here, so the 1,600 nits OLED with 2,000 nits peak is confirmed, as is the dynamic island. New tough glass, water and dust resistance.

Interestingly Apple are talking about holding value (they know it's pricey!)

The new Camera for the dual-camera iPhone 15 is confirmed as 48-megapixels – (though they'll all be reduced to 24-megapixels in processing), 26mm focal length f/1.6. 

The new 48-megapixel sensor allows for a 12-megapixel 2-times zoom mode, a 2x button will appear in the camera. In video mode the pinch-zoom is smooth.

Portrait mode using a depth map will happen automatically – no need to choose portrait mode. The depth map and focus control data will be saved with the image and you can choose later. Or switch focus subject after... hmmm... that rings a bell. Lytro anyone? Here, though, it'll be a software choosing not to apply blurring!

Find your friends in a crowd (assuming they're using an Apple device). Machine learning driven background noise filtering is also being discussed. Roadside assistance (in America with AAA, anyway) is being added to satellite.

USB-C – without a single mention of the European Union mandate – is being given a big promo now by team Apple!

Tim is back – it's time to talk Pro!

Looks nice. Titanium confirmed and we're hearing a lot about how strong it is. Colors confirmed too (the dark blue being the 'interesting' one).

Talking Apple's A17 Pro CPU is impressive – more about the neural engine which finally means better auto-correct and, apparently, better at removing images from backgrounds. ProRes codec is on the chip too and a USB controller is on chip for fast transfer. 10Gb per second.

Energy efficiency, mesh shading and a ray tracing accelerator meaning Apple is shamelessly thinking of games!

Here's a lovely shot of the color choices while the games are being shown!

Joswiak's camera summary says there are effectively 7 lenses in the pocket, though the phone still seems to have 3 cameras!

Ok - predictions about the Pro and Pro Max's periscope zoom seem to have been very accurate.

Apple are also suggesting immediate transfer of RAW images direct to Mac, to treat the phone as a live studio.

We're being told the main camera has a bigger sensor and a coating to prevent lens flare, though it's still 48 megapixels.

The tele will be 120 mm EFL (5x) 

Price-wise $1199 with 256GB – no 128GB option for the iPhone Pro Max (so price hike not so bad after all).

Pre-order starts on Friday, shipping on the 22nd September.

You can create 3D 'spatial video' with the two lenses and share them with anyone with an Apple Vision Pro. Er...

Finally, iCloud is going to get some larger storage options than 2TB! Can't say how long I've been waiting for that (oh yes I can).

Now, back to Tim... (or 'It's all over' in other words!)

Anker’s Nano chargers are some of the smallest wall chargers that offer big power for fast charging your mobile devices. Anker is now expanding (or rebranding) the Nano range to encompass even more new and reworked products under one umbrella for charging phones, tablets, and other on-the-go devices.

Although Apple is yet to confirm anything, Anker (along with the rest of the world), is anticipating the iPhone 15 series finally making the switch from Lightning to USB-C. And with Apple almost certainly not going to include a charger in the box, this means a golden opportunity for Anker to sell lots of USB-C-enabled chargers to new iPhone owners, when the iPhone 15 is launched on September 12.

The fun new look of the Anker Nano series will set it apart from Anker’s beefier Anker Prime chargers for laptops and bigger devices, with their sleek and serious gunmetal grey looks such as the Anker Prime 100W charger. With this change, it looks like Anker might actually be creating much more characteristic product categories and cleaning up its quite extensive catalog which has so far been separated under less distinctive ‘Series X’ titles.

Firstly the Anker Nano 30W charger is your standard wall charger, although true to its Nano name, is tiny in size and comes complete with folding pins for easy storage and travel. As the name suggests it is capable of 30W output which is six times faster than the standard 5W iPhone charger. The plug also has a new look and comes in several different colors to match your style (or phone). The charger is available for US, EU, and UK plugs, although each with a slightly different design.

The Anker Nano 22.5W power bank has a flip-up USB-C connector that enables the entire power bank to be a minuscule 3 inches long and 1.4 inches wide, but still manages to provide a 5000mAh boost of battery to your mobile devices. This is enough capacity to charge a Samsung Galaxy S23 phone one full-time, or one full charge of an iPhone 14 via the additional port on the side, which can also be used for charging a second low-powered device like an Apple or Galaxy Watch.

Finally, the Anker 30W power bank is more of your typical design of power bank, although this one comes with a built-in dual-directional USB-C cable that can be used both for charging the power bank or your devices. When not in use, this cable also does double duty as a carry handle. 

With 10,000mAh of capacity, you can charge your phone up to twice over via its 30W output, and there are also additional USB-C and USB-A outputs on the side of the bank should you want to charge multiple devices at once, or something without a USB-C connection (like the current crop of iPhones). Like the rest of the new Nano range, this also comes in a choice of colors, as has as a TFT color screen that displays charging information.

Find out more about charging your phone on the go with our top picks for the best iPhone power banks or the best GaN chargers.

Apple has gone and done it – the clock is definitely ticking for the iPhone 15 launch, called the "Wonderlust" Event by Apple, which will take place at 13:00 EST, 18:00 BST on September 12 (03:00 on September 13 in Sydney).

As well as the new iPhone 15, Apple is expected to use the event to introduce new AirPods – or at least new cases with USB-C charging ports – as well as an Apple Watch Series 9 and a revised Apple Watch Ultra. There has also been some discussion over whether Apple might include a camera strap, or include a camera, with that device.

The center of attention, though, will be the iPhone 15 family. We've kept our eye on the latest rumors with our iPhone 15: What we know so far page, but things seem to be coalescing around:

• 3-nanometer A17 processor in the Pro & Pro Max
• USB-C charging port across all phones
• Customizable 'Action button' to replace mute switch
• 5x or 6x Optical zoom via periscope lens for Pro Max only
• Price rises, for Pro models at least

The price rises seem to be considered an inevitable response to wider inflationary pressures in the market, as well as an overall lowering in the rate people update their phones. The later is expected, by analysts, to mean corporate responsibility "requires" Apple to try and earn more from their phones by increasing prices if unit sales aren't doing the trick any more.

The other thing which seems to be causing a lot of discussion is the still unconfirmed periscope lens – the technology behind a more powerful zoom lens. Because it is physically bigger, most think it'll only fit in the larger 'Pro Max' phone, but that marks something of a change from recent iPhones where the camera blocks have been the same on both Pro models.

Oh, and since Apple used to like a 'One more thing...', another relatively recent rumor is that Apple will focus attention on the new USB-C charging by introducing colored braided charging cables. Perhaps they're hoping this will make the 'choice' to switch to the world's standard charging connection seem more like Apple's decision and less like a pro-environment directive of the European Union!

Whether you're thinking of splashing out or more excited by the prospect of a price drop for the iPhone 14 check back here nearer the time, we'll be covering the event live.

Get a feel for the current lineup by reading about the best iPhone for photography or the best camera phone.

With September fast approaching, Apple is gearing up to release the new iPhone 15 family. Rumors and leaks are hinting towards the standard iPhone 15 getting some serious camera upgrades, while the Pro models seem to have less to shout about – with some Apple analysts suggesting it might be worth waiting until the release of the iPhone 16 in 2024 if you want to get some seriously upgraded features.

However, a year is a long time to wait to upgrade your camera phone. And even if the iPhone 16 could include an upgraded 48MP zoom camera, with WiFi 7 technology that can transmit data at 6GHz with speeds of around 40 GBps, if you’re looking to upgrade ASAP then waiting till 2024 is a bit of a stretch – especially if like me you’re still stuck in the “dark ages” with an iPhone 11.

• Check out the best iPhone for photography including older models better for a smaller budget and the latest most advanced features

If your main reason for upgrading your current iPhone is to benefit from a better camera, the iPhone 15 standard models are touted to feature the same 48MP cameras as in the current iPhone 14 Pro models. We’ve also heard rumors that the standard iPhone 15 models will include a stacked sensor, which will improve low-light capabilities, noise reduction and overall image quality. With the addition of increased battery life, and the replacement of the infamous Lightning port with a universal USB-C port, the iPhone 15 to me is looking very desirable. 

I could wait until 2024 to get the iPhone 16 but, realistically, it’s likely to be well out of budget (the iPhone 15 alone is expected to cost two hundred bucks more than the iPhone 14) – plus the thing I care about the most is the camera. As previously mentioned I currently use an iPhone 11 and, to be honest, I don’t have a massive issue with the image quality. Sometimes I do wish that the wide-angle camera was better, but I don’t use it all that often. So while a 48MP camera would be amazing to have, it's definitely more of a 'want' not a 'need'. 

According to Apple analyst Ross Young, via HD Tech, the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max could benefit from a much larger screen – 6.3 and 6.9 inches respectively, which for me is just too big. The standard iPhone screen is perfect for my small hands; any larger and I’d find it a struggle to hold unless using a pop grip, and it wouldn’t fit in the pocket of most of my jeans / trousers.

Despite being a photographer, I have never bothered to invest in the Pro or Pro Max iPhone models. When I really need to take amazing photos I use my Sony A7 III, but when I don’t have it on me I still get by with the image quality of an iPhone 11. I don’t want to wait over a year to upgrade so, even if the iPhone 16 is going to include all the bells and whistles, I’m just not patient enough to wait for it. 

This is everything we know about the iPhone 15 so far – including rumors, leaks and our own speculations. 

UPDATE: Not only could the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra be getting a 50MP telephoto camera with 3x zoom, it might also be getting a new sensor capable of 8K 30p in tele mode.

That's according to the latest reports about the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra successor. Tipster Ice Universe states that the S24 Ultra's new camera module could boast a physically larger 1/2.52-inch sensor, replacing the 1/3.52-inch version seen in its predecessor for superior performance at 5x (digital) zoom. 

SamMobile suggests that not only would this new sensor offer improved low light performance, as expected, but could also make the S24 Ultra capable of 8K 30fps video in telephoto mode – something not possible with the old 10MP sensor.

…

ORIGINAL STORY (Aug 12): The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, which is expected in early 2024, is touted to come with a 50MP 3x telephoto zoom camera, according to a report by frequently correct tipster Ice Universe.

If it’s true, it would be a massive improvement on the current 10MP 3x zoom found in the current Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra – and could blow away the upcoming iPhone 15, with Apple left playing technological catch-up. 

• Beyond flagships, check out the best budget camera phones that can still take stunning shots

It feels a little bit like the sky is the limit when it comes to camera phones. With each new version we are seeing higher-resolution sensors, increased zoom capabilities, more advanced lenses and more powerful processors – which, combined, massively improve image quality. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is expected to feature the same 200MP main camera as its predecessor, as well as the astonishing 10X zoom periscope lens. 

Although it’s still early days, Ice Universe is usually pretty on the ball when it comes to rumors. The phone itself is likely to look very similar in terms of design, but other improvements we might see include an upgraded chipset, a larger capacity battery (possibly 5,500mAh), a more high-res display and perhaps even faster charging. 

The built-in S-Pen style should remain a feature on the S24 Ultra, too, and we imagine that with a better chipset and significant camera upgrade, there might also be the option to buy a model with up to 16GB of RAM. 

It’s not just the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra that we’re expecting to see a big jump when it comes to camera specs. The iPhone 15 is due to be released in September and is also rumored to be getting some significant improvements – especially the standard models. 

From upgrading the basic camera from 12MP to a 48MP double-stacked CMOS sensor to improving battery life – not to mention the biggest change for Apple, the addition of a USB-C charging port – the next generation of phones across the board seems to be very promising. 

As for the standard Samsung Galaxy S24, it’s likely that it too will have an even better telephoto zoom lens. It could also finally get the LTPO display upgrade (low-temperature Polycrystalline oxide, for dynamic refresh rate changes) and, due to a suspected new titanium frame, there might be a slight increase in screen size. 

There’s been no official release date yet for the S24 and S24 Ultra, but it’s likely to be February 2024. Until then we will keep you up to date on any rumors and leaks we hear – as something tells us there may be one or two more before then!

Why not also check out the best selfie sticks perfect for mounting your smartphone, action cam or compact camera.

The iPhone rumors never stop and, with the announcement of the iPhone 15 range expected to take place in September, everyone is eagerly anticipating what these new models might bring to the table.

Apple's iPhones have consistently been some of the best camera phones available, pushing mobile photography and video further than ever, and no one expects the ball to be dropped now. There has been a lot of speculation around exactly what camera sensors Apple might use for its next iPhones, with rumors already surfacing that the company might introduce its first periscope camera on the iPhone 15 Pro Max model.

Thanks to respected Apple tipster Ming-Chi Kuo, we have learned that the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus might be getting stacked rear sensors, with these sensors being expanded across all iPhone 16 models next year. This all sounds great, but what exactly is a stacked sensor?

What is a stacked sensor?

A slightly complex question, but the simplified version is that a stacked sensor is two layers, consisting of a photodiode and phototransistor that are stacked on top of one another, enabling the sensor to capture more light, with a raft of other benefits like lower noise and better color accuracy. Stacked sensors can also read sensor data faster and more efficiently, which can mean faster shutter speeds or less image distortion of fast-moving subjects.

All of these should have huge benefits with Apple's next generation of low-light photography, computational photography like cinematic blur, as well as all-round better image and video quality. Stacked sensors have been used a lot in high-end mirrorless cameras like the Canon EOS R3, Sony A1 and Nikon Z8 / Z9, but haven't yet made a huge impact on mobile devices.

Sony recently included a stacked sensor in its Sony Experia 1 V phone; using its own customer-designed Exmor T mobile sensor, Sony claimed that it is twice as good in low light as before. Although Apple likes to design as much of its phone's components as it can, Apple still buys its camera sensors from Sony (as do most other companies) so there is a high likelihood that we will see a similar sensor to the stacked design from Sony's flagship phone.

Remember though that the sensor is just a tool, and Apple adds layers of its own computational photography and image processing, so we really don't know what Apple's cameras will be capable of until we see them for ourselves in a few months!

Find out more about the latest Apple rumors, and you can also check out our recommendations for the best iPhone for photography, and the best phone for video recording and vlogging. 

The new Apple iOS 17 beta was released to developers earlier in the week and in the code MacRumors noticed a reference to an "Action Button." It offered nine potential functions the user could choose: Accessibility, Shortcuts, Camera, Flashlight, Focus, Magnifier, Translate, Voice Memos, and – crucially – Silent Mode.

This sounds a lot like a contextual button, which chimes perfectly with the rumors swirling that such a user-definable button will replace the physical mute switch. Even the name from the leak, Action Button, is already known from the Apple Watch Ultra, so it's excruciatingly plausible.

iPhones have boasted a real mute switch since the very first iPhone generation which Steve Jobs revealed in 2007. It might just be a tiny switch but I love it. You can reach into your pocket and confidently set to 'silent' with no worries about checking the screen or trusting the OS. The phone vibrates its acknowledgment, or you can just look and see the physical truth.

I, for one, say "Don't you dare change this, Apple!" And I don't think I'll be alone. When I mentioned the rumor in the office, our Lab Manager (and iPhone deserter) said the physical switch was "The one thing he misses" about switching to Android phones.

I've upgraded my iPhone consistently every generation, selling the previous one to part-fund the next so I remain on what Apple see as the cutting edge. It already annoys me that the edge feels a bit blunter than it should, especially as I also see hopes of a new Sony image sensor seemingly drifting back to the iPhone 16.

The reason I say this is because it'd take a lot to stop me from upgrading, but the loss of this switch – more even than the lack of an exciting new camera – might be what makes the difference for me this time. It is such a marked and negative (for me, anyway) change in the phone's functionality 

I accept that, in truth, the physical switch is probably just monitored by the OS and has no magical veto, but there is something so convincingly tactile which cannot be replicated by a button. Moreover, we all have experience of button presses being ignored by operating systems when they get busy. A switch remains in place, so will likely be checked again, but a button press? That can get unreliable if a device gets laggy.

Worse still, there is talk of a button that isn't a button, though perhaps not until the iPhone 16. Instead of real buttons, solid-state buttons that give only haptic feedback (vibration) via the Taptic Engine have been mooted. Rumors suggest only large-scale manufacturing issues have pushed these back from the iPhone 15. I say "Good." It was one thing for the iPhone's Touch ID on the front, but for buttons on the side? How will they cope with gloves?  

None of this is to say I wouldn't want an Action Button too. I don't think, on the Max-sized iPhone an extra programmable button would be confusing if the very different sliding switch remained.

I'm not against an improvement, but this increasingly likely swap from switch to button seems only to hamper the user experience. Who gains? I suspect it makes making manufacturing easier & cheaper though I doubt that will be passed on. In the long run, it may pave the slow way for the removal of any potential points of water entry, but I'm not convinced a phone without a charging port will be a good thing either (a debate for another day!)

I'm sure Apple will tell us, that all potential customers would love to be able to toggle the torch or camera instead of mute but I, for one, think they're very wrong. 

I really just want a phone that can be set to mute and has no danger of coming on in meetings or the cinema. But that's just me - and a million other users!

Check our guide to the best iPhone for photography – until September you can be sure of a decent mute switch! And keep up with all the iPhone 15 rumors too

The iPhone 15 hasn’t even been released yet and already there are rumors flying around about the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Year after year, we see pretty notable upgrades between iPhone models but when it comes down to it, the changes to the camera are what matter most. 

September might signal the end of summer (or the end of winter, depending where you live) but it’s also when the latest iPhone is generally released. In just a couple of months we will be able to get out hands on the new iPhone 15 family for the first time and – rumor has it – all the models will feature a 48MP main camera, not just the Pro. This is a huge upgrade from the previous 12MP camera found in the standard iPhone 14, but already there is talk about what the iPhone 16 Pro Max could feature. 

• These are the best iPhones for photography – from the latest and most powerful to more affordable older models

Expected in September 2024, the iPhone 16 Pro Max could include a super telephoto periscope zoom camera according to GSM Arena. If true it will extend the zoom range from 77mm (3x optical / 15x digital) on the current iPhone 14 Pro Max to an impressive 300mm! As things stand the best camera phones include models such as the Google Pixel 7 Pro which has a 5x optical and 30X digital zoom and the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra which has up to 100x digital zoom. 

We’ve already established that a mirrorless camera is not a smartphone upgrade. They both have their time and place. However, for those people who don’t want to carry around anything bigger than their pocket, increasing the zoom capabilities while maintaining picture quality is a big tick. 

It’s crazy to think that the first ever iPhone (and, coincidentally, smartphone) was launched way back in 2007. It completely revolutionized the mobile phone industry and ever since there has been stiff competition to improve the camera, processor, screen resolution and battery life. While some brands have come and gone (remember HTC?!) some have continued to get better and better. Apple may have been around for the longest, but Google – who first released a phone in 2016 – is now a serious competitor when it comes to specs and value for money. 

Before we start getting excited about the iPhone 16 though, let’s hold out for the official iPhone 15 to find out whether everything we know about the iPhone 15 so far is true.

If money is tight check out the best budget camera phones which still deliver good quality photos and videos

As we edge closer to September (or, as we call it, the new iPhone month), we all start to speculate on what features will be included and will the upgrade be worth it. With the launch still a couple of months away, there has already been some massive iPhone 15 leaks and while some things remain the same, there are some very exciting changes, especially for the camera on the standard iPhone 15 models. 

We had already heard rumors that the entire iPhone 15 family would boast a 48MP camera- that's a massive upgrade from the 12MP sensor in the iPhone 14 to the same 48MP sensor as found in the iPhone 14 Pro models. This has now all but been confirmed which is great news for anyone interested in the standard models but those looking to buy the Pro or Pro Max may be left wondering what will set it apart.

• These are the best iPhones for photography - from the latest models to more affordable earlier releases

According to India Today, the iPhone 15 Pro models are likely to include a telephoto optical lens and a LiDar scanner which can improve low light capabilities, produce sharper images, and enable users to use augmented reality apps. It’s also expected that the camera on the pro models will extend more than on existing pro models to compensate for a periscope lens that will allow a 5-6x zoom. 

If you use your phone a lot, it will be welcome news that the iPhone 15 series is set to have an increased battery capacity of 3,877mAh while the Plus models will have a massive 4,912mAh battery - a significant increase on the iPhone 14 Plus 4,325mAh. Translated into hours of use, it means you could the standard iPhone 15 could last for nearly 24 hours of video playback while the iPhone 15 Pro Max could last up to a jaw-dropping 32 hours which contends with the successful Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. 

The biggest change across all the iPhone models will be the removal of Apple’s decade-old lightning cable in favor of the universal USB Type-C port following new EU guidelines. Apple may have lost the ability to monetize on their unique port but for almost everyone, this will be a welcome move as most devices these days are USB-C.

When it comes to screened display, the iPhone 15 will remain the same in terms of size but we could see an improved 120Hz refresh rate though this is unconfirmed. Powering this in the standard iPhone 15 models will be the same Bionic A16 chipset as found in the iPhone 14 Pro models while the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Mac models are likely to benefit from Apple’s latest and greatest, Bionic A17 processor. 

All in all, it seems the iPhone 15’s most exciting upgrades will be delivered to the standard models. Some top-spec differences set apart the pro models but you can't deny that a 48MP in the lowest prices model is something worth shouting about. There's been no mention of price or color options (although I'm hoping they'll be better than the iPhone 14 color palettes as I was not the biggest fan). I say bring back the colors of the iPhone 11 as I'm a sucker for pastels but keep these advanced specs.

If you're not a fan of Apple, check out the best camera phones which include models by Google, Samsung and Sony

Sure as night follows day, the iPhone 15 will follow the iPhone 14. Apple has been treating us to a new model reliably every year and the iconic phone series is the company's biggest profit center, so we're confident this year will be the same.

Apple don't share a lot of information in advance, but as a big company that has an enormous impact a lot of other sources seem to share info. Apple has to share case specifications in advance, and details with manufacturing partners, for example. Things always get out, and we're listening.

We're organizing this page into Leaks that have an identifiable source, Rumors which are doing the rounds, and Expectations from those in the know, as well as a list of FAQs.

iPhone 15 Camera Leaks

Leaks about iPhone 15

We don't expect lots of leaks, even with the date now announced, because Apple keeps a tight ship, but we have started to see some revelations since developers gained access to iOS17, and because case designers know the final shape.

Now, since Apple have announced the event, and invitation images have started to circulate, people have got some artwork to influence their speculation.

Rumors about iPhone 15

iPhone 15 Expectations

iPhone 15 FAQ

Summer has only just begun but some Apple enthusiasts are already looking forward to September, when the launch of the new iPhone 15 series is expected. The upcoming announcement promises to bring a host of significant upgrades to the standard iPhone models, potentially bridging the gap with their more premium Pro counterparts especially when it comes to camera capabilities.

Rumor has it that the 48MP main camera found in the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will feature in every phone in the iPhone 15 series lineup; the current iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus have 12MP main cameras. But, according to ITHome,  Sony (who supplies camera parts for Apple) is struggling with "insufficient production capacity" which could cause delays. 

• The best iPhone for photography is usually the latest but you'll be surprised at how good older models are too!

Sources suggest that one of the primary reasons behind this setback is the surge in demand for color filter films, which are crucial for the enhanced camera modules expected to grace the basic iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus models. While the news of high-megapixel sensors across the range is very welcome, those hoping to upgrade sooner rather than later may be disappointed if the launch is delayed due to parts shortages. 

Since all iPhone 15 models are supposedly going to have an upgraded camera system, the main difference between the basic and Pro models will likely be the inclusion of the A17 processor chip, which might be reserved for the more expensive phones. It’s also thought the look of the iPhone 15 will change again to fit more in line with the new rounded Macbooks. 

Perhaps the biggest change to the iPhone 15 series for most people will be the eradication of the lightning port charger in favor of a universal USB-C port. While some Apple users might be sad to say goodbye to the unique charger, personally, I cannot wait to be able to top up my phone with my friends' chargers – even those who don’t own an Apple device! It’s been a long time coming, and Apple certainly didn’t want to budge, but thanks to new European laws, the decision was made for them. 

If you love using your camera phone for photography why not check out the best lenses for iPhone and Android camera phones

All the rumors were pointing to a new primary camera for the iPhone 15 Pro Max – and perhaps a new zoom, too – but now it sounds like there might not be such a big change from the IMX803 48MP module in the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max.

With its launch coming in just a few months, the iPhone 15 rumors have been coming thick and fast. This latest claim has been reported by generally reliable rumor site GSMarena, but represents a bit of a backward step from the previously expected Sony IMX903 1-inch sensor. If it does come along, the potential advantages are true 12-bit Dolby Vision HDR recording, so we were pretty excited.

• When we first heard the rumor, we talked about why a 1-inch sensor isn't actually 1-inch (or even close)

It also seems that the same M12 display panel will make its way into the iPhone 15 Pro Max, according to the source, Revegus, powered by a 3nm A17 Bionic. That, at least on paper, sounds like an improvement – the iPhone 14 Pro has 4nm A16 Bionic processors, so that's something!

The iPhone 14 Pro's main camera sensor is a Quad Bayer array of 48MP, though both the wide and 3x tele cameras are 12MP. Arguably the improved optical image stabilization was the main improvement – not the resolution – when the 14 Pro arrived, but a lot of people were excited by the bigger pixel count.

A 1-inch (in so far as that dimension is true) sensor has been used before in a phone: the Sony IMX989 in the Xiaomi 13 Ultra. But the rumor mill suggests that the IMX903, which we might not now see, was expected to cost the manufacturer twice the amount.

Another phone rumor source, Ice Universe, told followers that the iPhone 15 Pro would use about 90% of the area of the IMX903, as Sony had with its Xperia Pro-I. 

On the other hand, rumors still point to a potentially much better optical zoom (5x or 6x has been suggested). That would necessitate mechanical re-arrangement inside the case, including a so-called periscope lens design (no, nothing pops out). 

On a personal note, every year I tell myself I won't upgrade my iPhone and go through the heart-wrenching process of auctioning the old one and praying it won't get stolen by a porch pirate. This year I really might not have a reason to give Apple a pile of my hard-earned.

Of course, there is another hypothesis that has been discussed. An iPhone Ultra, presumably with a similar price differential to the Watch Ultra, which is nearly twice the price of a standard Apple Watch. Look too at the price differential between the iPad Air and iPad Pro. Apple is not shy of wildly more expensive products, so if you're looking for a higher-spec camera don't give up hope – just temper your expectations.

One option would be to check out other phones in our best camera phones list, and since much of what people are looking for in a high-end device is quality video for filmmaking and vlogging, perhaps check our list of best vlogging cameras instead.