Advice Needed: iPhone for Content Creation

tl;dr: should I buy refurbished iPhone 15 Pro Max for light- to medium-intensity social media content creation (focus on video)?

Currently an owner of a Samsung Galaxy A73 (I know), I've been thinking of making the jump to the apple side, purely for the video camera. I work in the creative field and have been getting into social media for a while. I've tried on and off, but now I'd like to get serious and professional with the quality and give it a real try, focusing mainly on design-focused content, taking videos of myself talking to the camera indoors.

I've used my father's iPhone 13 Pro Max for videos before and I'm just very impressed by the video quality, especially the cinematic mode. I use an iPhone 16 at work for social media, but I'm unhappy with the photo and video quality, I feel like it doesn't match the power of the Pro Max of 3 generations before. So, I'm thinking of getting the iPhone 15 Pro Max, thinking it would add a lot of quality to my videos. To be a bit more specific, I'd use optical zoom to add some depth and shoot in RAW to get more control when editing. I'm not a professional editor (not my design field!) but I think I do a decent job.

Here's where I need help. I don't want to spend much, so I was thinking of getting a refurbished version from refurbed or back market (I'm in Germany). The versions I'm eyeing are half-price and claim "very good" quality (defined as fully functional only with a few optical imperfections like barely visible scratches). Basically around 700 euros with 1 year warranty. What do you think about this? Anyone who's had an experience with these sites specifically?

Also, would the iPhone 15 Pro Max be a good choice? I loved using the 3x on video or cinematic mode on the 13, but I think there's only 2x available on the 15. Not sure if it'll be the same...any advice?

I know many will advise me only to buy Apple refurbished or to just buy new, but let me answer that now and say I can't pay for that much.

FYI I was able to use my dad's phone and charisma + my editing skills to make videos of him with great hooks and engaging topics (though a different niche than mine) and I got him a total of +15M views and +80k followers across Insta and TikTok. So, I think I have some potential.