Warentest finds no weaknesses
iPhone 15 Pro Max first very good smartphone
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The iPhone 15 Pro Max achieves what no other smartphone has achieved before: a very good overall rating at Stiftung Warentest. The decisive factor is, among other things, a category in which Apple’s flagship narrowly leaves its biggest rival behind in another important test.
Similar to referees in sports, Stiftung Warentest has so far left room for improvement when evaluating smartphones and has never awarded a quality rating of “Very Good”. Now it has happened, the iPhone 15 Pro Max has received the dream grade. It’s not much better than its predecessor, but there are important small differences.
It couldn’t be any tighter
Overall, the iPhone 15 Pro Max achieved a grade of 1.5, while Apple’s flagship from last year received a quality rating of 1.6. It couldn’t be any closer, but in detail the new champion is a tiny bit ahead in almost every category. Its grades for basic functions (1.7), display (1.0) and battery (1.7) are slightly better. In addition to the stability (1.3), there is a slightly larger difference, especially with the cameras, which Stiftung Warentest found very good this time (1.4). The iPhone 14 Pro Max only received a good rating (1.6) in this category.
The normal iPhone 15 Pro made it to second place with a quality rating of 1.6, which it not only shares with four other iPhones from this year and last year. The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and the S23+ also achieved this overall grade.
You can see from the results that the premier class is largely mature and only small steps forward are possible in terms of hardware. The manufacturers rely primarily on cameras, but here too the room for improvement is becoming increasingly thin.
Head-to-head race when comparing cameras
The iPhone 15 Pro Max was able to take an even bigger step in this category with an increase in the telephoto lens from three times to five times optical magnification. In the important DxOMark comparison, the standard Pro performed just as well.
With a total of 154 points, the new Apple duo managed to leave its big rival Pixel 8 Pro behind. But here too it’s extremely close, because Google’s new top smartphone is almost as good with 153 points.
Depending on what is more important to you, the Pixel 8 Pro is also ahead. Because according to DxOMark, it “delivers the best results overall in bright light, making it the best option for daylight photography and videography.” The iPhone 15 Pro Max owes its minimal advantage mainly to its excellent video performance and very good portrait shots.
However, Apple and Google are not at the top when it comes to DxOMark. The Huawei P60 Pro still holds the lead with a total of 156 points, which impressed the testers with “the first-class still image quality of the main camera and most zoom settings”.
