The iPhone 16 Pro is the first small Pro phone to get Pro Max cameras. In other words, this pocketable powerhouse gets a tetraprism periscope zoom for big-phone-level telephoto shots at 120mm. This pits it against the Google Pixel 9 Pro, making it one of a handful of compact ultra-grade camera phones.
More than just upgraded camera hardware, the iPhone 16 Pro also comes loaded with an Action Button, which enables quick access to the camera and camera settings and offers a couple of inputs when in the camera app. But here's where things start to get very un-Apple.
Historically, Apple has always been a refiner. It makes customer-ready products that aren't always the first to market with new tech, but tend to be the most polished. But the iPhone 16 Pro's software is not polished.
Running iOS 18, the phone ships without Apple Intelligence, and the new iOS features seem to be buggier than much of the Android competition. Is this enough to knock the new iPhone 16 Pro series down a peg or two, or can its Pro Max-grade camera keep it in our good graces?
iPhone 16 Pro Max design
The iPhone 16 Pro is a compact phone weighing 199g and measuring 8.3mm thin (not including the camera bump). Exceptionally pocketable for a phone with its performance, it feels both solid and manageable.
The back of the iPhone 16 Pro combines a flat piece of glass with a chunky camera bump. The metal frame curves at the edges into the front and back, softening the feel in hand, while the flat sides add a good amount of grip.
If you're thinking about picking up one of the best iPhone 16 Pro cases, the phone's size makes the extra heft a case adds much easier to handle than the Pro Max. We reviewed both phones alongside one another, and while we opted for a super-protective Mous case for the iPhone 16 Pro, we chose a super-slim, less protective alternative for the Pro Max to keep it manageable.
There's a USB-C port at the base for data and charging, volume buttons and a shortcut button are on the left side, and on the right side are the power button and Action Button.
We'll cover the Action Button functionality in the camera section, but it's worth touching on its positioning, and the consensus isn't great. The button is too far up the phone's right side, so when you use it like a camera button while holding the phone sideways, you have to bring your index finger in front of the display to press it. This is slightly better on the 16 Pro than on the 16 Pro Max, but neither phone's Action Button is small-finger-friendly when holding the phone like a traditional camera. The fact the button is also flush with the right side of the phone makes it even harder to locate with a feel.
On the plus, the Action Button is easy for a thumb to double tap when holding the phone tall in portrait orientation, so Apple's probably positioning it for Gen Z portrait shooters and not fuddy-duddies like us.
With IP68 water and dust resistance, tested to 6m for 30 minutes, and with Corning tempered glass on the front, the iPhone 16 Pro is as durable as a flagship needs to be. We did get a couple of mystery micro scratches in our month with the phone despite taking good care of it, so we opted for a screen protector to prevent further scratches.
While initially, we chose a third-party screen protector that we fit ourselves; this didn't play nicely with the cases we opted for, so we bit the bullet and got a Belkin UltraGlass 2 screen protector, which was fitted at our local Apple Store.
You can also pick up the 16 Pro Max in four colors: Black Titanium, White Titanium, Natural Titanium, and Desert Titanium, with the device pictured in this review being Black Titanium.
iPhone 16 Pro screen
2024 looks like the year for 6.3-inch flagship phones. Google's Pixel 9 Pro packs a 6.3-inch screen, the 9 Pro Fold also sports one, and we've just returned from the Vivo X200 Mini launch in China. There, Vivo explained its research found that 6.3 inches is a sweet spot for smartphones. It's no wonder the iPhone 16 Pro's screen is such a great size for comfortable one-handed use.
Spec-wise, the LTPO Super Retina display delivers, with HDR 10 and Dolby Vision support, a smooth 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 2000 nits when auto brightness is fired up and 1000 nits when manually ramping it up.
With a 1206 x 2622 resolution and a 460PPI pixel density, it's also sharp, and thanks to the AMOLED tech, visuals look deep, punchy, and inky, with excellent viewing angles. In our experience, we didn't have any responsiveness issues either.
Our biggest gripe with the 16 Pro is the Dynamic Island. You might remember this pill-shaped cutout around the selfie camera and Face ID sensors adds some UI features. What it also does is cut out a sizeable chunk from the top of the display. This is the same size cutout across the Pro and the Pro Max, and looks like more of an imposition on the 16 Pro's smaller screen.
If you think you can get over an oversized cutout, though, you shouldn't have any issues with the 16 Pro's display.
iPhone 16 Pro camera specs
The 16 Pro has the same camera spec as the 16 Pro Max, finally upgrading the telephoto lens and adding Apple's 5x tetraprism periscope system. This might please anyone who wants maximum zoom, but it also adds a bigger gap in optical focal lengths between 24mm and 120mm – we're curious to see how Apple's processing can compensate for this.
The main camera has a 48MP resolution, a 1/1.29-inch sensor, and a 24mm f/1.78 aperture lens. It also uses Apple's sensor-shift OIS and can capture 48MP and 24MP photos.
The ultra-wide has been bumped up for 2024, from 12MP to 48MP, retaining the same 13mm focal length and an f/2.2 aperture lens. The sensor size is similar, so beyond pixel-binning gains, photo improvements will likely be modest.
Apple has come under fire in recent years for unflattering photos in certain scenes, so goes some way to fix this for its 2024 flagships by giving users more control over how their photos look. When you set up the phone, you not only get the chance to choose a camera look but also set the tone and color, choosing from a standard or numerous preset color profiles.
You can retrospectively customize the look of your photo with an intuitive matrix editor, though to take advantage of this feature, you need to shoot in HEIF or HEIF Max.
iPhone 16 Pro camera review
The iPhone 16 Pro's camera manages to edge ahead of the 15 Pro Max, despite both packing the same wide and telephoto spec. Processing is slightly refined, and Apple leans into computational photography to clean up shots between 1x and 5x – a serious weak point for the 15 Pro Max. This computational boost can't be overstated, as evidenced below in two 4.9x shots, and we really hope Apple rolls this out to 15 Pro Max's to plug major gaps in its imaging performance.
Generally, photos taken on the 16 Pro are consistent across cameras. In bright environments, all three capture Instagram-ready pictures with a fair bit of sharpening and contrast applied. Colors look lively while still being relatively natural, and shots from the primary and telephoto camera can pull out a pleasing amount of depth separation.
The primary camera will always be your go-to option. Its bigger sensor means it can capture lowlight shots without having to rely on super-extended night mode shutter speeds, and because of the telephoto camera's minimum focus distance of 1m or more, it ended up being our default for product shots, food photos, and portraits.
Dynamic range from the primary camera was also strong, and even when shooting in RAW/RAW Max, we could pull back plenty of salvageable shadow detail from the 1/1.29-inch sensor.
As for the telephoto camera, on a practical level, we prefer 70-85mm periscope cameras, as found in the OnePlus Open or Vivo X200 Pro, over the 120mm setup Apple adopts. The iPhone's optical zoom does reach further, which is handy, but owing to the smaller sensor, it struggles in dark or high-contrast scenes or environments with moving subjects.
Apple's ultra-wide camera is competent while being unremarkable. Its photos look a bit cleaner than those of the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, once again illustrating improvements in computational photography for the 16 Pro series. The dynamic range is once again strong, especially for static subjects or bright environments, and Apple does a great job of creating color consistency across all three rear cameras.
Video shot with the iPhone 16 Pro's primary camera is class-leading. Apple's frame rates across lighting conditions are the most consistent of all the phones we've tested, and the large primary sensor means you can get meaningfully detailed ProRes footage for edits after the shoot and some subtle depth separation too. The slow motion 4K 120fps footage also looks excellent this year, making the primary camera a clear video champ.
We wish Apple had invested a bit more in its secondary cameras. With their small sensors, they fall behind competition like the Honor Magic 6 Pro and Xiaomi 14 Ultra for image quality in almost every environment, so even steady frame rates can't save ultra-wide or telephoto clips in challenging scenes. On a sunny day or in a brightly lit space, though, footage looks predictably good.
On the subject of underwhelming secondary cameras, Apple's modest 12MP resolution front camera has a small 1/3.6" sensor. Its photos are only ever fine in challenging scenes, though you can eke out a usable selfie with the help of Apple's Portrait Mode, which is respectable across both the front and rear camera mix.
iPhone 16 Pro Action Button
The Action Button is a handy way to fire up your camera. You can set it to launch with a single or double tap, and when you're in the camera app, half-press and slide your finger across the button to zoom in or out, or full-press it to take your shot.
If you double half-press the Action Button while in the camera app, you can cycle through slider functions, with exposure, depth (for Portrait Mode), cameras, styles, and tone, in addition to zoom.
We mentioned the awkward positioning of the button – too high for comfortable landscape pressing – but it's also too low for comfortable portrait orientation swiping. While it's super-responsive and does what it needs to, we only ever found ourselves launching the camera with it, deferring to on-screen controls for everything else.
iPhone 16 Pro additional features
Running with an Apple A18 Pro 3nm chipset, the iPhone 16 Pro is a powerhouse when it comes to performance. We played back Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves at max settings for long bouts with no overheating and respectable battery drain. We did, however, experience a couple of instances of the apps force closing. Historically, Android phones were regarded as less stable than iPhones, but the 16 series looks set to challenge that notion.
iOS 18, Apple's latest interface, does more to overhaul the visual experience than any version before it. You can recolor your icons, organize them how you see fit, and do a lot of other stuff Android has been slowly baking into its experience for years. This overhaul to iOS, however, seems to have added a few more gremlins than we've seen before from the operating system. Occasionally, after taking a photo, when we tapped the photo thumbnail to open the gallery, half our screen would flicker before we viewed it. When using universal search by swiping down on our home screen, our colorized icons would display in their default colors for a split second before being redrawn in our chosen style.
To clarify, we aren't running a Beta on our iPhone 16 Pro. This is final retail software, and when you consider the high price of these phones, especially in the UK where a higher Apple tax is levied compared to most other regions, it's pretty difficult to stomach.
Then there's the lack of AI features. While Samsung launched its AI tools with the Galaxy S24 series at the beginning of the year, and Google's Pixel 9 family dropped with a full suite of AI tools in tow a few months ago, we've been using our 16 Pro for a full month and have had no Apple Intelligence feature drops. Yes, we could update to iOS 18 Beta, but we shouldn't need to access features Apple advertised as part of the OS of the 16 series.
All this takes the shine off Apple's latest launches, and makes the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max seem like equally compelling choices if you don't need the latest power or that Action Button.
There is one critical area the iPhone 16 Pro beats out the 15 Pro, though, and that's battery life. We got through a full day with 15-25 percent battery remaining, while our iPhone 15 Pro often struggled to make it through an intensive day. Background tasks like Wi-Fi hotspotting and music playback tended to drain and heat the phone less, and even screen-on time gave us long-lasting battery life for a phone with this much power and this much size. Considering the 16 Pro Max has a modest 3580mAh cell, we have to commend Apple on the efficiency of iOS 18 and the A18 Pro chip powering the experience.
As for charging speed, the 16 Pro is a pretty slow charger with PD 2.0 support, charging the phone fully in a little over 90 minutes, and wireless charging caps out at 15W, so will take significantly longer.
iPhone 16 Pro verdict
For anyone upgrading from an iPhone 12 or 13 Pro, the 16 Pro is a smart choice. The biggest wins will be the battery life, telephoto reach, and the brilliant screen. We wouldn't say the action button is enough of a sell to sway us, but if you like the idea of physical camera controls, it could add value to your shooting experience. For anyone with a 14 or 15 Pro, you probably shouldn't feel compelled to upgrade anytime soon.
It's impossible not to be underwhelmed by Apple's software this year. Not only does it lack AI features that were announced at WWDC, but we also found it to be less stable than past iOS releases. With the starting capacity of the iPhone 16 Pro only sporting 128GB storage, and prices for the more sensible 256GB model starting at $1,099/£1,099/AU $1,999, this year, Apple is struggling to justify its premium.
So, while Apple once sailed to the top of our best camera phones list, for 2024, competition is hotting up, and the iPhones aren't leveling up as quickly as some of the Android alternatives. Once Apple fully realizes the software experience for its 16 series, expected around Q1 2025, the phones may be more compelling, but as it stands, the 16 Pro is a good phone but a far cry from a must-buy.
