iPhone 16 review: Who needs the Pro?

Apple did something amazing with the iPhone 16. Out of the four models in the newest iPhone lineup, the base iPhone 16 is the cheapest and least technically capable. Therefore, it should be the least interesting. But that’s not at all what has happened.

Instead, the iPhone 16 is a refreshing, satisfying, and surprisingly capable smartphone that I’ve had a blast with. It has its shortcomings, yes, but there’s so much good here that they’re (mostly) easy to overlook. If you’re thinking about buying a new iPhone this year, here’s why you should really consider the iPhone 16 over anything else.

iPhone 16 specs

The iPhone 16’s design is so, so good

From the moment I first picked up the iPhone 16 at the Steve Jobs Theater, I was immediately taken by its new design. No, it’s not a dramatic redesign, and it still looks like an iPhone, but there’s enough new here that it feels fresh and exciting in a way the iPhone 16 Pro does not.

It starts with this year’s colors. My iPhone 16 review unit is in White, and while it’s nothing jaw-dropping, it’s a stark white that was annoyingly missing from the iPhone 15 lineup last year. It’s a classic Apple color, as is the dark Black shade.

Also unlike the iPhone 15, which focused on muted pastel colors, the other iPhone 16 colors are super saturated. This year’s Pink hue is as Barbie pink as it gets, Teal is one of the loveliest teal colors I’ve ever seen on a phone, and the new Ultramarine color is a stunning mix of blue and purple that I’m 100% obsessed with — so much so that I preordered an iPhone 16 in that color partly because of how good it looks.

And it’s not just the new colors that I love. I also really like the new camera design, which is much smaller than previous generations and very reminiscent of the iPhone X. The square cutout we’ve had since the iPhone 11 has long overstayed its welcome, and going back to a small pill shape is a nice touch.

I also have to call out the Action button, which is now available on all iPhone 16 models after only being available on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max last year. It works exactly the same as it did on those phones, and having it on a non-Pro iPhone is fantastic. I have mine configured to turn on the flashlight, but you can also use it to open your Focus modes, use Shazam to identify a song, start a voice recording, and more.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max was my go-to iPhone for the last 12 months, but switching to the iPhone 16 has been such a treat thanks to its light and small size. At just 170 grams, it’s about the same weight as the Samsung Galaxy S24 and over 20 grams lighter than the Google Pixel 9. And the 6.1-inch display is so incredibly easy to use one-handed.

The iPhone 16 doesn’t reinvent the wheel for iPhone design, but if you ask me, it’s the best non-Pro iPhone hardware ever. It’s stylish, well-built, and has the same hardware features as its Pro sibling (the Action button and the Camera Control, which we’ll get to later). Apple really killed it this year.

A great display — with a catch

There’s a lot to like about the iPhone 16’s display. As mentioned above, the 6.1-inch size is extremely easy to manage, but still roomy enough for apps, games, videos, etc. The 2556 x 1179 OLED panel looks excellent, and the range of up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness and down to 1 nit minimum brightness makes the display comfortably visible in virtually any setting. The Dynamic Island is also here, and I still love it.

Unfortunately, this otherwise excellent display is hampered by a 60Hz refresh rate. That means scrolling, swiping, and other animations on the iPhone 16 look visibly slower and choppier compared to the 120Hz refresh rate on the iPhone 16 Pro.

For a few years now, 120Hz displays have been the norm for flagship Android phones and even many mid- to low-end phones. The fact that the iPhone 16 — a $799 smartphone in 2024 — still ships with a 60Hz screen is absurd. It doesn’t ruin the phone, and I’ve gradually gotten used to it, but there’s no reason for Apple not to give the iPhone 17 a 120Hz display next year or, at the very least, a 90Hz one.

Similarly, it’s worth noting that the iPhone 16 also doesn’t support an always-on display. Like the 60Hz refresh rate, it’s not a deal-breaker, but it really should be on a phone this expensive.

Camera Control is so much fun

OK, let’s talk about Camera Control. This is the new button on the right side of the iPhone 16 below the power/Siri button. It’s weird and requires a learning curve, but I adore it.

No matter what you’re doing on your iPhone, pressing the Camera Control opens the camera app. Once the camera is open, a single press of the Camera Control takes a photo. Alternatively, pressing and holding it records a video, and your recording stops when you stop holding the Camera Control. So far, simple enough.

Here’s where things get funky. While the Camera Control is a physical button, it also has a capacitive sensor on top of it. When you lightly press twice on the Camera Control while the camera is open — but don’t fully press the button — you get a new UI for selecting various camera controls.

There are six options in this menu: exposure, depth, zoom, cameras, styles, and tone. You slide your finger across the Camera Control to cycle between them, lightly press the button to select one, and then slide your finger again to adjust whatever control you choose.

It is a strange experience at first, and it took me a few days to get truly comfortable with it. But once you get the hang of how Camera Control works, it’s such a fun way to interact with the camera app. I wish Apple had placed the button just a little bit lower on the frame, but otherwise, I’m happy with it.

Even if you solely use Camera Control to open the camera app, you can still free up the Action button to do something else. As someone who had it set to open the camera on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, being able to switch it to something else has been such a treat. Six paragraphs on a new button may seem excessive, but this really is such a fantastic addition to the iPhone. I think you’re going to like it a lot.

A fun and capable camera system

OK — it’s camera time. Specs-wise, the iPhone 16 has a 48-megapixel primary camera that can crop in for an optical-quality 2x zoom. There’s also a 12MP ultrawide camera, plus a 12MP selfie camera. It’s very similar to the iPhone 15 camera setup, though there are a couple of important changes.

For one, the ultrawide camera now has autofocus — the main benefit being that you can now take macro photos. You can also capture Spatial photos that you can view on an Apple Vision Pro. There’s a new anti-reflective lens coating over the primary camera, and the primary camera can now capture photos with zero shutter lag (something that’s been on Pro iPhones before, but never on the base models).

Overall, I’ve been incredibly happy with the iPhone 16’s cameras. The primary camera is excellent, capturing detailed photos with really pleasing colors. It focuses quickly, handles moving subjects very well (see the picture of my friend’s dog licking its nose), and does a great job in lowlight environments. The ultrawide camera is good (if not amazing), taking macro photos is a treat, and the selfie camera is as reliable as ever on the iPhone.

All of that’s good enough on its own, but the improvements to Photographic Styles are where things get exciting. First introduced with the iPhone 13, Photographic Styles have long been an interesting, if seemingly forgotten-about, iPhone feature. Unlike applying a filter in Instagram, Photographic Styles are applied in real time when you take a picture.

So, what’s new with Photographic Styles on the iPhone 16? Not only are there many more styles to choose from (15 versus the previous four), but you can also now customize the tone and color of each one using a super slick slider control. Each style really does change the entire look and feel of your image; you can see a couple of examples above and below this paragraph.

What I’m most excited about is that you can now edit Photographic Styles after you’ve taken a photo. I’ve always found it a bit awkward to mess with them while I’m taking a picture, so the ability to apply one after the fact is huge. It means I’ve been using Photographic Styles more on the iPhone 16 than I ever did with the iPhone 15, iPhone 14, and iPhone 13 combined, and I’ve had so much fun with them.

Good battery life, slow charging

I’ve been happy with the iPhone 16’s battery life. It’s not the best endurance I’ve seen on a phone this year, but even with heavy use, the iPhone 16 still gets me through an entire day without requiring a midday recharge — something I haven’t been able to say of my iPhone 15 Pro Max for much of the past year.

I’ve been averaging around six hours of screen time each day while often using Threads, Instagram, Snapchat, and Telegram, plus spending a lot of time in the NFL Fantasy app. If I start my day at 7 a.m., I can reach 10 or 11 p.m. with 10% to 15% battery remaining. Again, it’s nothing mind-blowing, but it’s been reliable. What I’m really curious to see is if this reliability holds up over the coming weeks and months, which was not the case for the iPhone 15 series.

What about charging? Using my trusty Anker 747, charging from 5% to over 60% takes 30 minutes. However, getting to 100% takes over an hour and a half.  Charging from a low or dead battery to around 70% is pretty quick, but that final 30% takes a while.

Also, if you prefer MagSafe charging, you’ll be happy to know that charge speeds have increased from 15 watts to 25W.

Performance, iOS 18, and updates

The iPhone 16 has Apple’s new A18 chip, which is a pleasant surprise coming from the A16 chip on the iPhone 15. Apple says the iPhone 16’s CPU is up to 30% faster compared to the iPhone 15’s, while the GPU is up to 40% faster.

That’s an impressive year-over-year jump, and while you may not notice it much in day-to-day use (the iPhone 15 was already very fast), the more capable chip is important for a few reasons. First, it makes the iPhone 16 powerful enough to run Apple Intelligence, whereas the iPhone 15 cannot. It’s also what enables the changes to Photographic Styles mentioned above, and it’s more power efficient — allowing for the better battery life I just talked about.

What you’ll likely notice more than the new chip is the iOS 18 software that’s present on the iPhone 16 out of the box. This latest iOS version has some big changes, and for the most part, they’re solid.

One of the most noticeable upgrades is the improved home screen customization. Press and hold on a blank part of your home screen, tap the Edit button in the upper-left corner, and tap Customize to find a slew of new customization controls. You can make your app icons larger/smaller and change their color — including to the default Light appearance, a new Dark mode, Automatic, and Tinted. Tinted allows you to make all of your app icons and widgets a single customized color, and while I personally don’t love how it looks, I can see some folks having a lot of fun with it. Similarly, you can finally place your app icons and widgets anywhere on the home screen.

The other big visual change is the Control Center, which has a completely new look. I’ve come around to liking it quite a bit, and you can also now customize all of the toggles here to your heart’s content. Speaking of customizing, you can now replace the flashlight and camera lock screen shortcuts with whatever you’d like.

What else should you know about? The Messages app now supports RCS, allowing you to text Android phones and still get typing indicators, read receipts, and high-quality image sharing — just like you do with iMessage conversations. The Photos app has received a big redesign, which has taken time to adjust to, though I appreciate how much more customizable it is now.

That’s ultimately the central theme of iOS 18 — the arrival of features that were either long overdue, or make the platform significantly more customizable than before, or (in many cases) both. Yes, a lot of this should have been in iOS ages ago, but I’m happy it’s all here now.

As for software updates, expect the iPhone 16 to receive updates for the next several years. Apple promises at least five years of updates, though don’t be surprised if the iPhone 16 is supported for six or seven years.

A quick note on Apple Intelligence

Across Apple’s website and in many of its advertisements, you’ll see the company make a big deal about Apple Intelligence as a prominent feature of the iPhone 16 — including tools to fine-tune your writing, AI image generation, and a more powerful version of Siri. Apple’s marketing even goes as far as to say the iPhone 16 is “The first iPhone built for Apple Intelligence.”

If Apple Intelligence is such a big part of the iPhone 16, why haven’t I talked about it yet? Because it’s not fully available. Apple Intelligence is technically available as part of the iOS 18.1 public beta, but it won’t officially roll out to the iPhone 16 until sometime in October.

The iOS 18.1 public beta was released the day before this review was published. As such, I’ll need some extra time to test the features and I will update my review once I do. It’s nice that folks open to testing public betas can use the features now, but it’s still worth repeating that the final release of iOS 18.1/Apple Intelligence won’t be ready until October. And even then, some Apple Intelligence features aren’t coming until later this year or sometime next year.

While I could care less about almost all of the Apple Intelligence features, it feels odd for Apple to make such a big deal about things that won’t be available until October at the earliest — and some later than that. It even hinges on misleading, given just how prominent Apple Intelligence is in the iPhone 16’s marketing.

The iPhone 16 is still a fantastic phone even without Apple Intelligence. Just make sure that if you buy the iPhone 16, you’re buying it for the phone it is today, not what Apple says it might be in the future.

iPhone 16 price and availability

You can buy the iPhone 16 directly from Apple and most major retailers and carriers. It starts at $799 for 128GB of storage, with 256GB and 512GB options also available for $899 and $1099, respectively.

While 128GB should be enough if you rely a lot on cloud storage and don’t download too many movies or games, I’d recommend the 256GB option if you can afford it. Here’s to hoping Apple increases the default storage amount to 256GB next year, as 128GB is starting to feel pretty tight in 2024.

Should you buy the iPhone 16?

So, let’s answer the question above. Should you buy the iPhone 16? Yeah, you should. I’ve had a fantastic time using it over this review period, and out of all the new iPhones available this year, it’s the one I ordered as my next personal smartphone.

The base model iPhone has often felt like a notable downgrade from its Pro counterparts, but that’s not the case this year. Whether it’s the design, performance, camera, software, or extra hardware features like the Action button and Camera Control, you don’t make any severe compromises when choosing the iPhone 16 this year instead of the iPhone 16 Pro.

So long as they can get used to the 60Hz screen and the lack of an always-on display (they will), I think most people will be hard-pressed to justify buying one of the more expensive iPhones over the iPhone 16. If you’re in the market for a new iPhone this year, this is the one to get.