Apple A15 Bionic phones: benchmarks, gaming & which to buy
What the Apple A15 Bionic delivers in real phones: benchmark scores, gaming performance, battery efficiency and the phones that ship with it.
What the A15 Bionic is
Apple's 2021 flagship and arguably the most durable phone chip of the decade — four years on, it still clears every everyday task without effort. It ranks #28 of 79 in our catalog (AnTuTu about 1.41 million, Geekbench 6 near 2,300 single-core and 5,750 multi-core) and powered two full iPhone generations, including the base iPhone 14, which reused it unchanged. Full scores on the A15 Bionic page.
Performance and gaming
Around 37/100 on our gaming scale — ahead of the contemporary Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 in sustained loads and thermals, behind 2023-and-later flagships in peak graphics. Genshin-class titles run at high settings; emulation and heavy 3D are where the age shows. The five-core GPU variant in the 13 Pro carried ProRes and the 120 Hz ProMotion display without breaking a sweat.
Phones that ship with it
| Phone | Year | Used band |
|---|---|---|
| Apple iPhone 13 / 13 mini / 13 Pro | 2021 | $244 / $263 / $368 |
| Apple iPhone 14 / 14 Plus | 2022 | $270 / $320 |
| Apple iPhone SE (2022) | 2022 | ~$116 — the budget iOS door |
Buying advice
The A15 is where used-iPhone value peaks. The iPhone 13 near $245 and the iPhone SE (2022) near $116 anchor the value end — our 13 mini review covers the last truly compact iPhone, and the iPhone 13 vs Galaxy S22 plus Galaxy S23 vs iPhone 14 comparisons place it against Android peers at the same money. The 4-core-GPU base chip (13/14/SE) is the pick unless you specifically want the 13 Pro's telephoto and 120 Hz screen. Up the ladder, the A16 Bionic adds a generation of headroom; down it, the A14 is the honest budget tier.
Benchmarks
| Geekbench 6 single-core | 2,315 #12 of 80 SoCs |
|---|---|
| Geekbench 6 multi-core | 5,753 #21 of 80 SoCs |
| AnTuTu benchmark | 1,413,275 #28 of 80 SoCs |