One of the most important features of any smartphone is its display. Given the premium Apple demands for one of its handsets, users should expect a phone

 

iPhone 15 Plus vs. iPhone 14 Plus: Display

Credit: Reviewed / Seamus Bellamy

The iPhone 15 Plus's Dynamic Island hides its front-facing camera hardware and acts as a notification center for apps that want your attention.

One of the most important features of any smartphone is its display. Given the premium Apple demands for one of its handsets, users should expect a phone equipped with a display that provides crisp, true-to-life colors in the highest resolution possible. Its refresh speed should be high enough that when you scroll through Twitter (call it X, if you must) or Apple News, text and images should flow by, buttery smooth; easy enough for your eyes to make out. Happily, both the iPhone 14 Plus and 15 Plus have this going on in spades.

Both smartphones come rocking a 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR display, with a near-identical resolution. However, the iPhone 15’s display has a brightness of 2,000 nits peak—400 nits brighter than its predecessor can manage. 400 nits isn’t a significant increase. But for those who use their smartphones outside to take photos or for navigation, it could be enough additional brightness to allow for easier use in bright sunlight.

And then there’s the notch.

The iPhone 14 Plus has a small area at the top of its display where the bezel bleeds further into the iPhone’s screen real estate than on the rest of the handset. Inside of the confines of the notch, you’ll find the smartphone’s FaceTime camera and Apple’s TrueDepth camera, which allows for opening your phone and apps, or making purchases, with Face ID. The iPhone 15 Plus? No notch. Instead, the cameras in the front of the smartphone are squirreled away inside what Apple calls a Dynamic Island.

In addition to hiding the device’s front cameras, the Dynamic Island plays host to notifications from a wide variety of apps—interactive elements for using your iPhone’s software more easily. As the Dynamic Island is a part of your phone’s display, it can expand and contract, as needed to fit the content required on screen, at any time. It turns the dead zone taken up by the last-generation iPhone’s notch and makes it an indispensable part of the handset’s user interface.

Our pick: iPhone 15 Plus