Best iPhone (2024): Which Model Should You Buy?

The iPhone 15 range ditched the long-standing Lightning port for USB-C, and it’s now in the iPhone 16 range too. This is the same charging port on iPads, MacBooks, Android phones, Windows laptops, and many more personal tech gadgets. USB-C is often called the “universal port” because it can technically handle various responsibilities. For example, you can plug in external displays and extend the iPhone’s screen or connect the same USB-C accessories you might be currently using on your laptop, like SD card readers. Sadly, it does mean your Lightning accessories won’t work unless you get dongles. You can read more about what the new port does here, but there are two important things to note:

The iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 16, and iPhone 16 Plus support the USB 2.0 standard just like the iPhones before, so you’ll max out at 480 megabits per second of data transfer speeds. The iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max support the USB 3.0 standard and are capable of up to 10 gigabits per second of data transfer speeds.