Original release date: September 20, 2024 | Storage capacity: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB | Screen size: 6.3 inches | feature: A18 Pro chip, always at 120Hz promotional display, USB-C port (USB 3), titanium frame, camera control button, action button, 25W MAGSAFE charging, Apple Intelligence | camera: 48MP wide, 48MP Ultrawide, 12MP 5X telephoto, 12MP front| Color options: Natural Titanium, Desert, White, Black | aspect: 5.89 x 2.81 x 0.32 inches | weight: 7.03 oz
Read our full iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max Review
The iPhone 16 Pro is the iPhone we recommend to most people. Yes, its $999 starts at a high price, but a smartphone is a long-term investment. If the question is “what iPhone is most likely to make you happy in the next three to five years”, we think the iPhone 16 Pro’s advantage over the standard iPhone 16 and 16 Plus is still meaningful enough to deserve an extra $100-200, even if the gap is not as good as a few years later.
First, the exploding titanium frame feels on the iPhone 16 Pro Higher quality than the aluminum on the base iPhone 16. It’s a little heavier than the Standard 16 and older iPhone 15 Pro, but it’s far from an anchor, and its slightly curved edges are pleasing. It runs slightly faster, and the A18 Pro chip isn’t a huge difference in daily tasks, but it’s better suited for future work, especially if you have any interest in gaming or content creation. Although every iPhone 16 has a USB-C charging port, the Pro model supports faster data transfer speeds (provided that your cable is correct).
The most prominent upgrade is the display. Although the OLED panels on the iPhone 16 Pro and Standard iPhone 16 are just as sharp and bright, the former is spacious at 6.3 inches (rather than 6.1 inches), although the phone itself is only 0.08 inches taller and 0.02 inches thicker. This is mainly due to the thinner bezels of the Pro, which gives you more space to stream video and read web pages that are effortlessly held on the device.
On top of that, the Pro’s screen has an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120Hz, which makes scrolling web pages, games, and streaming video significantly smoother. Some people will tell you that the average person doesn’t need this, and indeed, not everything is played at 120Hz. However, without interacting with a small screen, using a smartphone is nothing, and once you see faster refresh rates, it’s hard to give up.
It’s a frustrating situation: You can get a budget Android phone with a 120Hz display of around $300, but Apple continues to use “promotions” to attract salespeople from devices that have already spent hundreds of devices. But our job is to tell you the best things – the professional presentation is simply more modern. Unlike the screens on the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, it’s always right, so you can view notifications at a glance without physically touching the device.
Another step is the camera system. The iPhone 16 Pro has three rear cameras: a 48-megapixel main camera, a 48MP Ultrawide shooting game, and a 12MP telephoto camera. The last one is Biggie, because the regular iPhone 16 completely lacks dedicated telephoto lenses. Besides that, the Pro’s main camera has a larger sensor, so it’s better in low-light environments, and it supports night portrait mode. You can shoot sharp macro shots for close-ups, and there are other enthusiast features like shooting Proraw or recording 4K Dolby Vision and ProRes videos, up to 120 frames per second.
If these jargons mean to you, learn about the regular iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus are still great scorched cameras. These devices can now take macro photos as well, and they have the same upgraded photography style features that can help you retouch photos you may find over-processed. They also share new camera control buttons to quickly (if sometimes clumsy) access to the camera app, adjust settings and capture photos. To sum up, 16 professionals will be better, especially if you have more intentions to take photos.
Professionals should It can also improve battery life, although it is not the longest smartphone we have ever tested. Apple scored it as 27 hours of video playback, increasing from 22 hours on the standard iPhone 16 to 22 hours, but both devices may require top-ups. The base model’s batteries are also easier to replace, which is being aggravated for professional owners considering the higher price.
Apple is very straightforward to sell every iPhone 16 because of how they will handle its new “Apple Intelligence” AI features, but you shouldn’t be based on these buying decisions right now. At the time of writing, these tips include a more robust Siri, integration of ChatGpt, email and notification summary, writing help and image generation tools that can remove unwanted objects from photos (like Google’s Magic Eraser) and “GenMoji” Custom Emoji Maker, among others. More updates will arrive over time.
Some of these AI features are useful at the point. Other times…not that much. Few people about them will really change the way you use your smartphone today, and whether or not real They need to write an email of paragraphs or read a short article for debate (speaking in a charitable manner). For now, it’s better to see Apple intelligence as an interesting first step towards a future that may not be achieved.
While we think the iPhone 16 Pro is a great flagship, our next choice should be better suited for those who don’t mind bigger devices and want a phone that really lasts the whole day.
