iPhone 16 and 16 Pro Review: A Worthy Upgrade After Three Years of Waiting

Sep 28, 2024 Apple Camera

iPhone 16 and 16 Pro review: A worthy upgrade after three years

To Pro or not to Pro?

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a sort of rubber-band effect between the basic iPhone and the Pro. One year, the Pro has substantially more and better features (especially in the cameras). The next cycle—like last year—Apple plays catch-up by adding the features from the previous year’s Pro to the current year’s base iPhone, and it becomes a little less tempting to spend extra on a Pro.

This year, Apple is continuing to bring the phones closer rather than widening the gap again. The 16 Pro gives you marginally more screen space, though I don’t think most people would notice—nor would any but display geeks like me recognize the improvements in the screen itself. The Pro has an improved wide-angle camera for sure, but the big differentiator is the presence of a 5x optical zoom lens. Performance is pretty similar, though there’s that longstanding 60 Hz vs 120 Hz screen gap, which ends up being one of the most noticeable differences.

It’s very easy to recommend the base iPhone 16 this year. It’s the full package, pretty much, and the Pro features are really just there for niche use cases or to justify a steeper price for folks who want “the best” purely for the sake of having the best.

That’s not to say the niche use cases aren’t relevant to some consumers. It’s common to harp on Apple’s “Pro” nomenclature for its products—often, a more accurate term would just be “premium” or “extra.” But it’s getting hard to level that criticism at the Pro phones these days. Apple really is adding features that are hyper-specific to a particular audience of professionals: content creators like YouTubers, TikTok videographers, and so on.

From expanded photography features to support for pro-specific file formats to external drive support, Apple really is treating the iPhone 16 Pro as a high-level device for a certain kind of professional.

But if you’re not that kind of professional, you probably don’t need to spend the extra premium for the pro features. The always-on display and 120 Hz refresh rate are arguably the only big features that matter to people outside of those professional disciplines. I’m not convinced they’re worth it, but you might feel differently. If you’re not sure, just get the iPhone 16. It’s already a better phone than most people really need.

A mature product

I wrote last year that the iPhone 15 was the iPhone’s “final form.” I wasn’t trying to suggest that nothing will change in these phones again, but that the core features and priorities—as well as the design in a general sense—are set and unlikely to shift.

I still think that’s the case. These are, for almost all intents and purposes, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro. This is one of the smallest year-over-year updates Apple has ever done—especially if cameras aren’t your end-all, be-all reason for shopping for a new phone.

Gradual growth isn’t as exciting, sure, but there’s nothing bad at all about a mature product. More than ever before, you know exactly what you’re getting. Forget flashy marketing and tentpole features; that stability is a clear win for the consumer, if for no other reason than it’s hard to imagine a scenario where you’d buy this year’s phone but regret it because next year’s ended up being impressively better in some way.

Contrast this maturity with the Vision Pro, which is still finding its feet. Those who bought the Vision Pro have no idea what the future of that platform holds.

The future of the iPhone is clear as day: boring excellence. I’ll take it.

The good

  • These phones still have some of the best screens you can buy—even the non-Pro iPhone hits it out of the park
  • They have by far the best smartphone performance, too
  • Solid gains in GPU performance
  • Camera Control brings the long-awaited physical shutter button
  • The customizable Action button makes its way to the base iPhone
  • New photographic styles allow you to move away from the pitfalls of Apple’s computational photography decisions in any direction you choose
  • High-end camera features previously reserved for more expensive models have trickled down
  • Ultra-wide photos in low light got quite a bit better
  • Battery life improvements are always welcome

The bad

  • 60 Hz on the non-Pro phones is looking a bit long in the tooth
  • Likewise, always-on displays are now standard in some of the iPhone 16’s direct competitors
  • The Pro phones don’t offer enough to justify an upgrade over the base models for the majority of consumers
  • Possibly the most subtle year-over-year upgrades in iPhone history—if that’s really a bad thing

The ugly

  • Not much, other than the steep prices
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