Apple iPhone 15 Pro long-term review

Performance

The performance on the iPhone 15 Pro is nearly flawless. The phone almost always feels silky smooth to scroll and responds instantaneously to everything. An app has to be exceptionally poorly built to feel choppy on this device.

However, there is a discussion to be had regarding some aspects of the performance concerning one specific part of the hardware, which is the system memory, a.k.a. the RAM. Apple has outfitted this device with 8GB of memory and there are no further memory options available. The system does use a certain amount of storage as virtual memory but exactly how much is unknown.

The 8GB memory feels perfectly adequate for everyday usage. Despite what some like to think of multitasking on iOS, it usually works a lot better than it does on Android. You can open an app on Android, minimize it, and find that it needs to start from scratch when you get back to it a few hours later because the device decided to close it unceremoniously. On the iPhone, we would often tap an app icon we opened a couple of days ago only for it to pop up like it was just in use. It's not just that the device is fast to open apps but they are kept in the exact state you left them unless an app specifically requires refreshing itself every time it's launched.

However, as impressive as that memory management is for everyday tasks, the device quickly runs out of memory when doing anything slightly more demanding. This can be anything from heavy usage of the Camera app to editing video on the device but usually, it happens in gaming.

The aforementioned AAA titles still impress us in that they run at all on a mobile device considering they were built for home consoles but what usually lets them down is the 8GB memory on the iPhone 15 Pro, which runs out too quickly and occasionally causes performance issues. It also requires the developers to drop things like texture settings all the way down to a soupy consistency as anything higher resolution simply won't fit in the phone's memory. And while yes, the PS4 also had 8GB memory, it did not have an entire smartphone running in the background to fight for it.

Battery life and charging

You'd think a phone of this size would not have good battery life but not once during our seven months of use did the iPhone 15 Pro fall short on us. On busy days with a lot of travel, the phone would manage to get through the entire day without needing a top-up and have a little left in the tank before bedtime. After a while, we stopped carrying a power bank as the chances of the phone dying in the middle of the day seemed quite low.

But the phone was at its best on days spent mostly at home. With a few phone calls and mostly doomscrolling on Instagram and X several hours a day, the iPhone 15 Pro would make it through two full days without needing a charge. This also included listening to podcasts using Bluetooth earbuds and the occasional picture or two while on a walk. To think you can get two days on a phone of this size seems ludicrous but the iPhone 15 Pro did it day after day.

As for charging, it's not fast and remains an activity best done overnight. While an hour and a half for a full charge is hardly appalling, it's not something you can leave for the last minute like with some other phones. This is one area where the iPhone definitely feels very far behind the competition, some of whom are charging much larger batteries in a third of the time. The iPhone also tends to run much warmer while charging than these other phones. Still, with most people choosing to charge overnight, this might not be a concern for them.