Firstly JL were excellent, the phone turned up on time, well packaged and of course plenty of emails /texts from DPD to let me know within the hour when they would deliver.
And thats where the pleasant-ness ends.

Having paid top prices for a high end gadget from Apple who market their premium brand as easy to use, it couldn't have been a more miserable, painful and downright frustrating experience (even for an ex IT manager like myself ) getting my new phone to work.

According to Apple you simply check your old phone is running IOS 18 and place your new phone next to your old phone and everything, data, apps and settings will be copied over in around a hour.

NOT SO

After 5hours of doing nothing, both phones decided to lock up. My old phone had to be re booted, my new iPhone wouldn't reboot, so I had to do a factory reset and this rolls the phone back to IOS 17.7
1.5 Hours installing the updates to firstly iOS 17.8, then iOS 18, then iOS 18.01

Having done a Google search there are literally hundreds of posts on numerous forums about this 'bug' - yes Mr Apple your software does have bugs - contrary to your slick PR dept.

Four hours later and after trying numerous 'fixes' suggested on the internet I gave up - once again factory resetting my new phone and decided to manually load everything back .....
So again 1.5 Hours installing the updates to firstly iOS 17.8, then iOS 18, then iOS 18.01

Gave up, went to bed at 1am after starting the copy over process in the afternoon

So as a consequence of not being able to copy over I lost all my watch faces and settings for my Apple Watch - that refused to connect to the iPhone 15, even after unpairing from my iPhone 12. Another hour hunting on forums for a work around

I've a couple of apps that saved data locally to the phone, not to the cloud - so all that historical data was lost. Lesson learned here - dont assume every app that comes from the App Store will save data to the cloud.

And now I'm looking at perhaps another half a day to finish loading all my apps back and setting up the phone to work like my previous model.

The only thing that worked well was iCloud - at least my diary, notes, passwords, photo's, files and documents did eventually sync across

I cant really comment much about the phone features / camera etc, as it's still being set up, it hasn't moved off the desk - my trusty iPhone 12 will be used for a next few days.

Moral of the story - make sure everything is backed up and if you are really lucky the copy over process may work.
But, if like me, you rely on a fully loaded and functional phone for work private/ life - DONT even attempt the copy over process unless you have AT LEAST half a day to sort out moving your stuff across manually when it fails.

Hugely disappointed in Apple......

Probably one of the first ever reviews I have ever made and for good reason. I paid upwards of around 640 for this and it came in a condition I wouldn't necessarily call "new". I would of made a review sooner but I went on vacation before I could use this phone so it took me some time to make one properly. Once I got home I opened the package, and for my own sanity and the previous reviews about this product, I felt the need to record myself opening this package as some kind of "quality assurance".

In short, the phone came banged up, not even in apple packaging, it came in some knock off box and not even an apple charger brick, but some knock off one. Corners were chipped and the backplate wasn't even attached properly. Scratch marks on the camera and screen, and what really told me that I needed to return this was that something was rattling inside when I shook it. I mean, for something that says "Refurbished" "Like-New" My first impression would be a few scratches here and there but not what I was given.
I returned this package as soon as possible so I didn't get the time to take some pictures, but in the end.. They do give you a phone- Just not the one you need.
Wouldn't recommend.

i15 pro has been the most disappointing iPhone that I ever owned. Over a decade paying $1000 and phone plans that just drains my bank account. So I have gone through Apples check list

check that list multiple times and yes I have more than enough storage. But yet my iPhone15 pro locks up 5-10 times a day. Do you have any idea how much I have lost in wages do to your inept iOS’s. I drive fulll time for Uber and time and time again the 15 locks up while I’m working but it’s hard to do my job when your engineers, iOS failures, algorithms or even the AI . Extremely disappointed in this entire experience with this phone and I’ve got it brand new so that’s all I gotta say but you guys don’t care so it won’t really matter anyway. So all right. You have a wonderful day. Take care. I’m sure my night will be horrible because my phone will keep locking up because you make a product that doesn’t work very well. You guys are even losing to Samsung and all the foreign companies. Apple is slipping. You need to do better for your customers. I’ve paid you thousands and thousands of dollars over the years in your when your most up-to-date phones might as well be a rotary phone that’s unplugged to whom it doesn’t care

The first iPhone 15 plus I purchased I had to return it after about ten days. It had lagging texting. It would randomly text my contacts with no message. And it did this once while I was on the phone with the person I was talking with. It also was very inconsistent with connecting with or recognizing my AT&T internet. Sometimes it would connect other times it wouldn’t and it was driving me crazy. I just got a secondary line on my iPhone 15 plus and the secondary line ate my primary line and I didn’t know this until I took it back in for the third time from on going problems within the first ten days. That’s when I said enough is enough. I want a new iPhone 15 plus this iPhone 15 plus is possessed. And received my current iPhone 15 plus and this also has an inconsistent lagging during texting. But I’m assuming this is supposed to be this way. However, the other problems I’m not having with this iPhone 15 plus. At least not yet. I’m thankful Verizon exchange my IPhone 15 plus. But I’ve never had an issue with any of them like this. And I’ve been purchasing IPhones ever since IPhone 8 and each year as they debut because it’s always around my birthday. So I get it as a gift to myself. Knowing that it’s usually in October or November and my birthday being 11/18.
This is the first year that I’m purchasing late because of the horrible inflation we are all going through. I wasn’t able to do it when it debuted this time. I absolutely love this product and this has been the first time I’ve ever been disappointed and/or let down by Apple and thank you Verizon for coming to the rescue.