Apple says its “Glowtime” but will the iPhone 16 get its fair share of glowing reviews? Only hours after the Cupertino company’s announcements, we now have more insight into the iPhone 16 specs and features, and on the surface of it, the details are impressive for a base model. The main focus, just as it was for the Pixel and S24 launch, has been centered around the AI capabilities of the smartphone, so if you want to give Apple Intelligence a whirl, this device is your best bet to do it at an affordable price.
The iPhone 16 Pro Max is obviously the best of the lineup, but let’s reserve that review for later and focus our attention on the base model—the humble iPhone 16.
Image: The teal iPhone 16
iPhone 16 Review—More Buttons For Everyone
The iPhone 16 was announced on September 9, 2024, at 10:00 am PT (1:00 pm ET), during the special event held at Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park. Its earlier WWDC 2024 event showed us all the software advances that the team has been working on so we had a good idea of how the product performance was going to take shape, but the recent event filled in all the holes we had in our understanding of the hardware.
With a wider range of colorful options on showcase, the iPhone 16 series has one other crowd-puller to set it apart from its older models—other than the AI function of course. We’re talking about the camera button and the emphasis on photography.
The base iPhone 16 model has the much-loved action button from the Pro models that came before, but along with it, there’s a new camera button to take photos, zoom into the view, and adjust settings for the perfect shot. This single new feature makes the smartphone a desirable upgrade for photography enthusiasts but is it enough to warrant a purchase for the wider customer base? Let’s dive in deeper to know more.
iPhone 16 Design and Display—Colorful Companions With a Familiar Camera Layout
Apple’s iPhone 16 has a much more fun take on the colorways than the iPhone 15 did. The color-infused glass backs come in ultramarine, teal, and pink for those who want something more adventurous, along with a black version and a white version for those with a more subtle taste. With the power button and volume buttons on the left, and the action button and camera control on the right, there’s a lot of attention on the frame of the phone, all of it showcased on its aluminum frame.
The ceramic shield front provides sufficient protection for its users, also employing a fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating to protect it from the users. Turning face-up to showcase its Super Retina XDR display, you’ll find that the Dynamic Island only takes up minimal-screen real estate. At 6.1 inches diagonally, the screen supports 2556x11w79-pixel resolution at 460 ppi, a 60Hz refresh rate, and swings between 1 nit minimum brightness up to 2,000 nits peak brightness outdoors.
The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus feature a dual rear camera setup that looks familiar to the vertical style we’ve seen in older models, but the raised square design around the cameras has been replaced with a pill-shaped design around the lenses. There are more than enough jokes online about the minimal changes from older models, but these are inevitable every time an iPhone is launched and reviewed.
What About the Internal iPhone 16 Specs?
The iPhone 16 has the A18 chip with a new 6‑core CPU with 2 performance and 4 efficiency cores. This gives the device a decent leg up from the A16 Bionic chip featured on the iPhone 15, skipping the A17 Pro to go straight to the next generation of chips to match up better with the rest of the series.
The 5-core GPU also promises to support all the users’ needs, paired with the 16-core neural engine for advanced processing. The device also provides support for hardware-accelerated ray tracing so smartphone gamers should have a much easier time keeping up the fast-movie graphics and capabilities of their games. For those wondering about software, the smartphone ships with iOS 18 capabilities.
Apple hasn’t revealed the RAM capacity of the device, which is an odd move from their otherwise detailed specs list, but there are three storage options available—128 GB, 256 GB, and 512 GB. Users have hypothesized that a minimum of 8GB RAM is essential for Apple Intelligence to function, but we’d prefer if the company gives us more than the bare minimum on their latest lineup.
We appreciate Apple’s chipset choices when it comes to the iPhone 16 review, but the RAM detail has us wondering about the device’s capabilities.
Are we Impressed With the iPhone 16 Camera?
Apple’s choice to regress back from its staggered camera layout to this linear pill-shaped setup is interesting. It’s not unappealing or impractical, but it does stand out in a way that doesn’t do anything favorable for it. Perhaps the company thought it better to change the layout from the iPhone 15 to eliminate any complaints echoing the “same old design” sentiment, but those reviews of the iPhone 16 are innumerable anyway.
The iPhone 16 camera setup includes a 48MP fusion main lens with a ƒ/1.6 aperture, that allows high-resolution images with the option of zoomed images with 2x optical-quality Telephoto capability. There is also a secondary ultrawide lens at 12MP with ƒ/2.2 aperture and 120° field of view. The secondary lens is just as good at close-up macro shots as it is with wide full-scene shots. Apple says “It’s like having four lenses in your pocket,” which is a minor exaggeration, but we’ll let them have this one.
The various shooting modes and video quality enhancements will be quite useful for those who frequently put the cameras to use. The audio mix setting to determine how sound is portrayed in your video post-recording is particularly interesting, and so are the stylistic customizations you can make with the Photographic Styles in your photos.
The Camera Button Is Innovative But It Isn’t Enough to Warrant Buying a New Phone
The camera button is the most innovative addition Apple has made to the device since the Action button. The button’s most basic use is to launch the camera app and then capture a photo when clicked successively. When you switch to video mode, the button can be used to start recording. Lightly pressing the button allows you to slide through your zoom setting, and a double light press brings up additional settings that you might want immediately available. We have to say, we’re more fascinated with the feature than impressed by it enough to recommend spending money on the device just to try it.
Image; The Photographic Styles feature
iPhone 16 Battery—Apple Doesn’t Want to Talk About Size
Apple has withheld the details regarding the battery size, only claiming a “big boost in battery life” without evidence. The iPhone 16 battery is expected to last much longer due to the optimizations of the A18 chip. The company claims you can expect up to 22 hours of video playback and 80 hours of audio playback on the iPhone 16.
It supports MagSafe wireless charging up to 25W and Qi2 wireless charging up to 15W. It is also capable of fast charging, climbing up to 50% battery in 30 minutes, which is a decent proposition but it’s nothing particularly impressive to write about in an iPhone 16 review.
AI Unleashed—iPhone 16 Does Not Get Left Behind
The iPhone 16 features list undoubtedly revolves around Apple Intelligence and it’s good to see that the baby of the new family hasn’t been left behind. With the A18 chip locked in, the iPhone 16 gets to enjoy the benefits of the AI through the camera and photo editing tools, writing tools, call transcripts, focus mode, smart reply mail functions, etc.
The new and improved Siri will also bolster the device’s functionality, ensuring you’re in tune with your smartphone all the time. You should be able to create custom Genmojis, and eventually gain access to the emergency SOS live video functionality later down the line. It’s good to see that Apple hasn’t reserved all its best features for the Pro Max exclusively, so even with these cheaper models, you can enjoy the entire Apple experience.
iPhone 16 Price—Will You Consider a Purchase?
The iPhone 16 is priced at $799 USD for the base model with 128 GB storage, which is the same as last year’s model. With the additional inclusion of the AI features, we assumed the company would aim for a higher number but the decision to stick to the older price is a very reasonable move. For 256 GB storage, the price of the iPhone 16 goes up by $100 to $899 USD, and for 512 GB, you can expect to pay $1,099 USD.
Preorders for the device will open on September 13 so if you’re of the mind to get your hands on the device, you have enough time to read through the initial stream of iPhone 16 reviews before you play your hand and put in your order.
The iPhone 16 is a good phone well worth the price it is asking for. If you want to get on the iOS train and experience the popular universe for yourself, this is a great phone to start your journey with. It’s a comfortable size, its cameras work well, you get the latest processor, and you have access to all of Apple’s AI features. For existing Apple users who didn’t make an iPhone 15 Pro purchase but now want to experience Apple’s AI, the iPhone 16 is a good investment.
For those who don’t care about AI, there is little reason to upgrade to the iPhone 16. There are phones with more advanced cameras and better battery lives out there and the iPhone 16 doesn’t even flip or fold so there aren’t any hardware upgrades that really warrant a purchase. The value of the device is entirely dependent on how you plan to use the phone, so read through the iPhone reviews carefully to see if they align with what you actually need from your smartphone.
