iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus review: Smart upgrades

The Apple iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus are two near perfect phones but they do have one blemish. In this iPhone 16 review, we find that these are the iPhones best suitable for those upgrading from Android or moving from an old iPhone.

iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus review - 8/10

Pros

• Superb performance
• Good design
• Good cameras
• Battery life

Cons

• AI features are late
• 60Hz screen refresh rate

In Short

• iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus are already on sale in India
• The two phones come with fresh camera features and new chipset
• The price of the iPhone 16 starts from Rs 79,900 in India

A few days ago, over here at India Today Tech we called the iPhone 16 Plus the best value iPhone for Indian consumers this year. And now as I go into this review, I see no reason to disagree with that assessment. The iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus may look the same as last year's iPhone, as they have the same design barring a few tweaks here and there, but they carry within them enough upgrades to justify their existence. The fact that despite all these upgrades, the iPhone 16 still starts at Rs 79,900 is tremendous.

The new iPhones do have a few blemishes though, and I am going to talk about them in a while. But even with a few things missing, the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus are remarkably solid phones that will appeal to anyone looking to upgrade from a mainstream Android phone, or someone who is still on the iPhone 13 or something older.

Same design, a few new tricks

If you have seen the iPhone 15, or the iPhone 14, then you have seen the iPhone 16. Kind of. The design of these phones is the same. Although, there are a few small changes. Let's quickly run through them. One change is the action button on the left. It replaces the toggle that would turn on or off the silent mode. The new button, which we earlier saw in the iPhone 15 Pro, this time is part of all four iPhones. It is customisable, which is handy, although some users will miss the satisfying click of the toggle button.

The other change is the camera control, which sits on the right. It is a touch-sensitive button through which several camera settings and features can be accessed. This is not a particularly useful — or even usable — button. But mileage will vary with different users, some may like it and some may not.

Third, the camera module has lenses placed vertically instead of diagonally. This is the most visible change, and while Apple has been trolled over it — "oh, they just moved the lenses around and called it a new phone" — the reason why the company has placed the lenses vertically is because in landscape mode it makes the lenses parallel, and which allows the iPhone 16 to record spatial photos and videos.

Apart from these three changes, the iPhone 16 is a familiar phone. It uses a similar aluminium frame and similarly soft matte ceramic shield on the back. On the front too there is a ceramic shield, which Apple says is now 2X stronger compared to the one in the previous iPhone. The bezels are marginally — like marginally in very small letters — thinner. The iPhone 16 still has a 6.1-inch display while the iPhone 16 Plus has a 6.7-inch screen.

Internally, there are few changes which we know courtesy iFixit. The iPhone 16 is now using better cooling material — it should help in sustained performance. And two, the battery has a new housing, which should also probably help keep it cooler, healthier, and safer.

In terms of design, well, this is an iPhone. This means the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus are incredibly well-built. They feel premium in hands, and the workmanship is absolutely top notch. In terms of size, I personally prefer the iPhone 16 Plus because of its bigger screen. But unless you have very small hands, both the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus will feel handy and usable to you. Compared to the iPhone 16 Pro phones, they are lighter and easier to use and easier to carry. Just to put it in perspective: the 6.7-inch iPhone 16 Plus weighs 199 grams, same as the smaller 6.3-inch iPhone 16 Pro. Both iPhone 16 models are IP68 rated, which means they are good for rain and swimming pools.

The iPhone 16 also comes in new colours: Ultramarine, Teal, White, Pink, and Black. The best, according to my eyes, is the Ultramarine which you can also see in this review. White too you can see here. Although Teal will find its own fan following because of just how good it looks.

Using the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus

While the design of the iPhone 16 is more or less the same, there are a few significant changes inside. One of them is the A18 chipset. Just like the Pro chip in the Pro iPhones, this one too is an extremely fast chipset capable of hitting around 3100 points in single-core Geekbench — by the way, single-core is what matters in benchmarks. This is a wowsie score, making the iPhone 16 one of the fastest phones ever.

As I tried it, I never struggled with the iPhone 16 Plus, which I used extensively. This is a very fast phone, capable of running games at highest settings and handling the day-to-day stuff, even a bit of video editing through the Photos app, with ease and fluidity.

One important bit to note is that the phone runs cool despite a super-fast chipset inside it. Even 30 to 40 minutes of gaming doesn't heat it up in any significant way.

As I used the iPhone 16 Plus, in no area I noticed anything that would be of concern to a user. Except two, relatively minor but still worth mentioning. One, the screen — although bright, colour accurate and largely superb — is still stuck with the 60Hz refresh rate. This will not be an issue if you have not used a fast and lag-free phone with 90Hz or 120Hz screen. But if you have used or have tried the screens with higher refresh rate, your eyes will immediately notice the UI jitters on the iPhone 16. It's a perception thing, but it can be quite jarring. At least for me it was and I think Apple would do well to move to the ProMotion displays across all iPhones next year.

And two, the iPhone 16 lacks an always-on display. Again, if you have not used the always-on display, it wouldn't matter to you. But if you have, you will notice its absence. I did.

Apart from these two minor niggles, I didn't find the iPhone 16 lacking in any meaningful way in terms of user experience. In fact, its bright and vibrant display is much better than what you get from Android phones in this range. The same goes for the speed, iOS software — which continues to offer incredible advantage to Apple — speakers and features like Face ID.

Talking of the iOS, although the iOS 18 is largely superb, it is missing the Apple Intelligence — generative AI — features that will only start arriving with the iOS 18.1. I think this is a rare miss on Apple's part to launch a phone without some of its most-talked about and top features. But hopefully this month, these AI tools will be arriving. And once they do, the iPhone 16 users will have access to handy features like ability to erase objects in photos in AI, a more conversational Siri, ability to use AI to write and transcribe text.

Both iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus also come with marginally bigger batteries, and combined with a more efficient chip, they offer slightly more juice compared to the previous iPhones. In use, I easily managed the full-day of use, plus some more, with the iPhone 16 Plus. The iPhone 16 too is good enough to last at least a day without needing a charger. Though, once these phones need a charger they sip the juice slowly. Fast charging is missing, although the phones do charge at a rate of around 25W. In other words, expect at least 100 to 120 minutes before the iPhone 16 battery would reach 100 per cent once it has been drained fully.

New camera tricks

Cameras are important in phones nowadays and the iPhone 16 comes with, if not a completely revamped camera system, then at least with enough new features to make it a good camera phone. The 48-megapixel sensor is slightly smaller than the one used in the iPhone 16 Pro, and the 12MP ultra-wide camera also is the old one and not the new 48MP that we see in the more expensive iPhone. At the same time, there is no telephoto lens here but Apple is offering 2X mode in the camera app. This is achieved through cropping and processing, although Apple says it is optical quality. In use, I did not find it so. The 2X mode is good when the scene has a lot of light but is barely usable in poor light.

Overall, the camera system in the iPhone 16 is quite capable, particularly when the light is good. It captures brilliant colours and tons of details. Cycle through the image samples and you will realise just how spectacular it can be. The camera also captures good dynamic range, although it is missing the oomph that more capable systems — for example the one in the iPhone 16 Pro — can manage. Like it is the case with the ultra-wide camera in the Pro phone, here too the ultra-wide camera can get crazy close to objects and capture macro photos better than what the regular macro mode can manage. For example, that yellow flower in the image samples. In reality this flower is tiny. It looks big because it has been clicked from a distance of just a few centimetres.

In low light, the iPhone 16 camera is good. But it also clicks photos that have smoother details, particularly in the photos clicked with the ultra-wide lens. I wish in low light it were slightly better.

When it comes to the video recording, the iPhone 16 is missing some of the pro features — such as the 120 fps 4K dolby recording. But for day-to-day video recording — say pet dogs frolicking in puddles — the iPhone 16 is more than good enough. It is nearly as good as the iPhone 16 Pro, although it lacks the versatility of the more expensive iPhone.

To get a better idea of the iPhone 16 camera, click on the image samples. In total there are 18 image samples and they all showcase the capabilities of the iPhone 16 camera system.

Like the more expensive iPhones, the iPhone 16 and the 16 Plus come with the Camera Control button. While the intent behind it is understandable, in actual use it is not terribly useful. It's finicky and the way it works — multiple clicks with multiple pressure strength — is not at all intuitive.

Same but solid

Smartphones, in general, are now mature tech. Year after year we see that the upgrades have become incremental. In a way, the iPhone 16 is also an incremental update. I wish it had a faster screen. But it doesn't. The design, although boring, is solid. And in the rest of the components, the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus are a mix of everything old but gold and some new bits. Of the new bits, the action button is going to be useful to most users. At the same time the Camera Control button is not going to be useful to most users.

Yet, the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus are solid phones. They are not the phones that iPhone 14 or the iPhone 15 users should move to, but they are perfect for anyone looking to upgrade to from iPhone 13 or older. They are also perfect for people looking to upgrade from a mainstream Android phone because of the iOS 18, sorted design, superb speed and in general the reliability and lag-free experience that the iPhone can offer.

Most significantly, the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus are — except for the camera and screen refresh rate — fairly close to the iPhone 16 Pro phones. In fact, for most users they are a more sensible choice given their price that, by the way, remains the same as last year's even though the phones have gotten an upgraded chipset and now offer a more rounded experience.