Warm Winter Good Thing Award
I really like the iPhone 15 Pro Max's camera, and it performed well in both our review and recent camera tests.
After finding a long-forgotten old Apple iPhone 5 in a drawer at home, and discovering that it was still in perfect working order, I wondered how the **shot with it would be different* to the current counterpart.
In September 2012, Apple released the iPhone 5, a $650 flagship smartphone that competed with the Samsung Galaxy S3 and a host of other phones such as the Nokia Lumia 920 and HTC One S. More than 10 years later, at the end of 2023, Apple released the iPhone 15 Pro Max, priced at $1,200, competing for attention with phones like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and OnePlus 11.
Compared to its modern counterpart, the iPhone 5 appears small and is easily recognizable due to the large bezels around it, as well as the physical Home button on the lower part. There is an 8 MP camera on the back and a 1 on the front2 MP ** camera. There's no wide-angle camera, no portrait mode, just 1080p** recording, and there's absolutely no AI or clever camera technology like Deep Fusion.
Both the iPhone 15 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra are feature-rich, with multiple cameras and very different specs. I added the OnePlus 11 to this test, and the camera is backed by Hasselblad – one of the most recognizable brands in the camera industry.
Obviously, these new phones are going to shoot even better**. But how much has that really changed in the last 11 years?
Why should I start with night mode?This is because the main differences between the low-light performance of the iPhone 5 and today's phones also seem to affect the performance of the main camera. As you're about to see, low light is also an area where smartphone cameras have really made progress over the past decade.
It's no surprise that what was taken in the dark with the iPhone 5** is a far cry from the image taken by a modern smartphone. In ** above, the Christmas tree is recognizable, but not defined;The lights are off, and the background is noisy and lacks detail. Judging by the **mobile phone shots**, the situation is completely different, with their sharpness, sharpness and detail throughout.
Interestingly, you can see the similarities between the overall tone and low-light scene handling of the two Apple devices, as the iPhone 15 Pro Max's ** isn't too bright either. In comparison, the brightness of the Galaxy S23 Ultra and OnePlus 11 has increased considerably, and it is up to personal preference which one to choose.
The tree's ** was photographed in an environment with plenty of ambient light. The second one has much less light, with only nearby street lights illuminating the scene. You don't need me to point out the difference here, the iPhone 5 can't absorb enough light (or the software is able to compensate for the lack of light) to show anything valuable. It's accurate, though, because it seems to me that it's almost so dark.
Take a look at these four phones, and you'll see that the OnePlus 11's ** is much brighter than the others – showing more of the surrounding scene and even enhancing the colors. This is the most unreal but the most impactful**. Viewed side by side with the iPhone 5's, it's almost unbelievable that these two were taken at the same time and in the same place.
Now that we understand how light affects the iPhone 5's camera at night, you will be able to see how it changes its performance during the day.
The iPhone 5 has only one camera, so let's see how it performs in different environments. The first ** of the church was taken around noon, and the lighting was quite poor, although it was not sunny, but it was not dark either. Unfortunately, the image is dark and dull, without any color even on the grass. It doesn't represent what I've seen with my own eyes at all.
The OnePlus 11 also doesn't perform well in this environment, with poor degrees, the sky is submerged and details are shrouded in shadows. The iPhone 15 Pro Max and Galaxy S23 Ultra capture very similar**, but there are slight differences in color, contrast, and balance. But all of them show a very different description of the scene, and it's much more accurate than the iPhone 5.
How about something a little more colorful?The iPhone 5's fruit** also lacks punch and vibrancy, with a particularly dull yellow hue. As you'd expect, there's a lot less detail and texture, taking into account the difference in pixel count. The image captured by the iPhone 5 is 3264 x 2448 pixels, which is much lower than the 5712 x 4284 pixels of the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
It's also a dreary day when shooting, but today's cameras somewhat mask that, which makes the scene even more enticing than in real life. The iPhone 5's view of the dark reality simply doesn't inspire you to shoot a lot**. 
The iPhone 5 can still surprise people, and I think it does in the lake image, where the contrast, degree, tone, and color are all much more natural and appealing compared to the iPhone 15 Pro Max's. It's all wrong. Still, the OnePlus 11 and Galaxy S23 Ultra shoot great** and are more engaging and natural than the iPhone's**.
Shot on a bright day with an iPhone 5** looks more like a painting than ** due to minimal detail and inherent blurriness. In the ** shot with the iPhone 5, the sky is no longer so blue, the green is no longer so vivid, and the world has clearly become more gloomy. Modern smartphone cameras all enhance color, contrast, and saturation, making the world around you more visually pleasing.
The world captured through the camera of a modern mobile phone is not only more visually exciting, but also more joyful. The iPhone 5 captures the fun Christmas decorations** on the wooden table**, the sky is excessive, and the colors are monotonous, but the same scene captured by other cameras gives a very different feel. It should cause a reaction, but it's hard to get any sense of what the iPhone 5 is.
When I used the iPhone 5 and looked at the generated **, what really impressed me wasn't the quality of the image. It's clear that modern phones shoot better than 10-year-old phones, and it's not surprising to see the difference in detail.
If the iPhone 5 were the pinnacle of today's smartphone cameras, I wouldn't have taken that many ** at all, and certainly wouldn't share them very often, at least not as much as I do today. There will be less creative freedom and less chance of shooting the special ** you want to edit and enhance. But if the iPhone 5 is in my pocket every day in 2023, I certainly won't care too much about taking pictures.
Over the past decade, many factors have influenced changes in phone cameras, with technological advancements, social**, and even faster data speeds making sharing images faster and easier, all of which have played a role. The iPhone 5 isn't accurate or enticing, even if modern phones sometimes swing a little too much in the opposite direction – through powerful HDRs, manufacturer-specific tweaks, and plenty of filters. And the iPhone 5 can't do that.
We often look back with tinted glasses, but the iPhone 5's camera reminds us that some things can really get better.