iPhone 16 Pro Review: Full of the Little Things.

In spite the everlasting “iPhone is boring” narrative, Apple somehow continues to sell a lot of iPhones every year. Whether it’s the Apple ecosystem or its reputation as a “status symbol”, the iPhone continues to be relevant even today. While I don’t usually review iPhones in the same frequency as Android phones, I do it from time to time. Despite making Apple Intelligence a big focus for the iPhone 16 series, we’re seeing those features in a sporadic manner. Because of this, my iPhone 16 Pro review won’t mention a lot of Apple Intelligence at all. Is this iPhone worth upgrading from a previous model or worth considering over the base iPhone 16? Find out in my review.

Disclaimer: I purchased a 256GB iPhone 16 Pro in Natural Titanium during Power Mac Center’s iPhone 16 Midnight Launch at Robinsons Galleria Cebu on October 18, 2024. The unboxing of the phone happened shortly after I purchased the phone. I’ve been using this phone as my daily driver for around 2 months.

Design and Build

It’s surprising just how similar the design of the iPhone has been for the past 4 years. While the regular 16 and 16 Plus got a nice design refresh, we’re stuck with the same design language on the Pro models. Coming from the iPhone 14 Pro, I do love the slightly curved back and the lighter feel of the 16 Pro. I picked the Natural Titanium color because I was never a fan of the new Desert Titanium (that’s actually just bringing back the “gold” color).

This iPhone is my first time using an iPhone with USB-C. Unlike the 16 and 16 Plus which gets stuck with USB 2.0 transfer speeds, the 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max get USB 3 transfer speeds (AKA USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 speeds).

While a lot of what I said was positive, most of the nice things I said were already present in the 15 Pro. The only major differences here are its slightly bigger footprint for that bigger display and Camera Control. The size difference wasn’t noticeable for me unless I compare two iPhones side by side. More about the Camera Control in the Cameras section. While this was in last year’s 15 Pro, this is my first iPhone with the action button. I like its more customizable nature, but I barely use it since I just stick with the default Silent/Ring action.

Display

A highlight feature of the iPhone 16 Pro is its slightly bigger display. We now have a 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion technology (adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz). What amazed me is how Apple put a bigger screen without making the “smaller” of the two Pro models too big.

Apple made the bezels on the 16 Pro slimmer even than the 15 Pro (that phone already had slim bezels!). I noticed it right away when looking at my old 14 Pro and the 16 Pro side by side. While the bigger screen gives you more room for content, iOS doesn’t take advantage of that size in the user interface. (Remember when iOS had a landscape mode on the home screen?)

Besides the size, the display on this phone is still one of the best in the market. From its 2000 nits peak brightness outdoors to its deep blacks and 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut, watching videos on the 16 Pro’s display is a delight. While I have found the Dynamic Island useful, it can be distracting when watching videos or playing games.

Performance

The iPhone 16 Pro rocks Apple’s latest A18 Pro chip with 8GB RAM. This phone comes in multiple storage configurations: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. I’m starting to think that the reason for Apple to keep the 128GB config for the 16 Pro is to keep that “magical” $999 price point.

I almost hesitate to talk a lot about the iPhone’s performance at this point. If you’re getting a flagship phone in 2025, you expect a certain level of performance that’s worthy of its flagship pricing. One thing I appreciate about having more RAM is keeping more apps open in the background. The 16 Pro tends to keep apps more often than not. (This was not the case 5 years ago.)

While you could argue that Android phones have better peak performance, I just value the smoother and more consistent experience on the iPhone.

Software

The iPhone 16 Pro launched with iOS 18.0. Before I got the phone, I was already using the Public Beta. While I still feel the Apple polish for the most part, there are times when the phone would get kinda sluggish when scrolling through menus. I initially thought that it could be a defect of the screen. After doing multiple hard reboots due to this issue, it’s pretty clear that it’s the software. Here’s hoping Apple fixes that in a future software update.

More Customization!

One feature I like in iOS 18 is the ability to change how the icons look and even make them bigger! I personally prefer the Dark Mode look, but some icons wouldn’t cooperate at times.

Not a Fan of the New Photos App

By far the most controversial change Apple did for iOS 18 is the new Photos app. I’m not sure who pushed for this internally, but I haven’t heard anyone ask for change here. The new Photos app overall feels more cluttered than before and I wish Apple can just revert it back to before this update.

Let’s Talk About Apple Intelligence

This is the only section where I’ll talk about Apple Intelligence, or how it’s missing at launch. When I initially found out, I didn’t really mind since I wasn’t excited for Apple Intelligence to begin with. (Every phone maker and their mother put out generative AI features last year and they were basic at best.) I found it baffling that Apple would heavily push Apple Intelligence as a highlight feature of the iPhone 16 lineup when the company itself said that the features wouldn’t arrive until iOS 18.1.

I did try some Apple Intelligence features when the public releases of iOS 18.1 and 18.2 came out. (After the major release is out, I tend to avoid beta releases on my main iPhone.) The features I found myself using the most were the Writing Tools and the ChatGPT integration. I already had a ChatGPT account, so using the latter was a no-brainer for me. The Writing Tools were mainly useful for me when I need to jumpstart my writing.

This isn’t my final verdict on Apple Intelligence since the rest of the features won’t be out until at least March of this year. I just don’t expect them to be game-changers. Here’s hoping you prove me wrong, Apple.

Battery Experience

Here’s something I haven’t said in an iPhone review: Apple can’t make all of its iPhones have good battery life. Unless you get a Pro Max, you shouldn’t expect your iPhone to last more than a day. While the iPhone 16 Pro doesn’t change that status quo, I can say that I mostly get through my day with around 20 to 30% battery remaining. This is mostly mixed use (mostly on Wi-Fi, at least 1 hour of watching YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels, social media use, and using the camera for photos and videos). On heavy days, I would charge my phone around 6 or 7 PM.

Here are some screenshots of my battery usage within the past two months:

And here is my current charge cycle count as of writing this review:

Charging time generally just takes an hour using an Anker 100W charger and an Anker USB-C to USB-C cable. Your mileage may vary depending on whether you use the included cable and an Apple charger.

Cameras

If there’s one big reason to get a Pro or a Pro Max, it’s the cameras. While the changes to the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are more substantial, I’m glad we got three camera upgrades on the 16 Pro:

• the 5x telephoto camera that was exclusive to the Pro Max last year
• a new 48MP ultrawide camera
• new 48MP Fusion camera (main camera)

After the launch, I got curious whether the camera upgrades alone justify an upgrade from the 14 Pro for me or not. Of all the aspects of the iPhone 16 Pro, I spent the most time just taking photos and videos. Here are my thoughts on the cameras of this phone.

Click on the photos for full-resolution versions!

Is Camera Control Worth It?

I want to start with my thoughts on the new Camera Control “button” that’s below the power button. It’s an actual button that also has haptic feedback for the extra functionality such as adjusting certain camera settings.

Besides using it as a shutter button, I don’t see myself using the other Camera Control features a lot. While the haptics felt good, the implementation of camera setting selector isn’t. It’s finnicky at best and it doesn’t offer any improvement over just touching the screen for the more obvious settings.

It’s nice to see Apple try something new with camera controls but I just wish they spent more time polishing these features to make it as good as I thought they would be.

Next-Gen Photographic Styles

One software feature I like is the new Photographic Styles. You might think these are just filters at first glance, but these do more. In these four photos of the beach view, the rightmost fishing boat slightly differs depending on the selected style.

While the above example wasn’t too drastic, the next photo below is the opposite. This Dramatic photographic style somehow tends to lean towards a more blue or blue-green tone to the overall photo. It works for the photo below, but I would use this less often.

One genre I do see myself going away from the default “Standard” style is with taking food photos. Out of the three photos of the burger with salad and pickles, I prefer the one with the Amber photographic style.

A Spotlight on Product Photography

On my old 14 Pro, I had a problem when it comes to doing product shots since it would get blurry sooner than I thought. It’s a good thing that the 16 Pro has different “virtual focal lengths” for the 48MP Fusion camera, especially since it puts out a final 24MP image. I generally use the 35mm (1.5x) one to better zoom in on the products while keeping that higher-quality output image.

That 5x Telephoto Though!!

What really impressed me was the 16 Pro’s 5x telephoto camera. I would normally doubt it if I just took a few photos in god lighting like the one below. It’s honestly nuts just how detailed the photo taken with the 5x telephoto camera is.

The photos that convinced me of how good the 5x telephoto is when covering events and I need to zoom in to the presenters. These were taken at different times and with different lighting indoors.

The best kind of photos to take with the 5x telephoto camera though? Dogs. Just dogs.

Portrait mode feels more polished on here thanks to the already included portrait data for every photo. This is regardless of whether you explicitly want to take a portrait photo or not!

Does the 48MP Ultra Wide Camera Make a Difference?

Honestly speaking, I always found photos coming out of the iPhone’s ultrawide camera to be decent to good. I personally don’t use it often since the main camera covers most of my needs. Whenever I do need a wider perspective, having a better ultrawide camera is good for me.

While the iPhone 16 Pro does have a new 48MP ultrawide camera, the output image is still at 12MP. This means that the quality stems from the additional detail provided by the image processing. Are the photos any good though?

Unfortunately, the new ultrawide camera on the 16 Pro really doesn’t add much in terms of the overall quality. While I am getting more detail in some places thanks to having more pixels, outputting 12MP by default doesn’t add much overall. You can, of course, take a full 48MP photo with that ultrawide camera though.

You can see below a photo comparison between the ultrawide and the main cameras. While I personally prefer the main camera, having that extra detail available for the ultrawide is handy.

I also like that the low-light shots from the ultrawide are slightly better when using the default 12MP output option. The main camera is still better, but at least the ultrawide photo is usable.

Should You Buy the iPhone 16 Pro?

If I have to identify three big upgrades of the iPhone 16 Pro, it would be the bigger screen, the 48MP ultrawide camera, and Camera Control. Out of the three, I appreciate having a bigger screen the most. It’s actually a bigger upgrade for me since I come from the 14 Pro, where there’s a more noticeable difference with the bezels. Camera Control isn’t fully baked, but I hope to see improvements there.

All the other things I love about the 16 Pro were upgrades introduced last year: USB-C, the slightly curved back, weighs less thanks to Titanium.

If you’re looking for the best that Apple has to offer in a more compact form factor, the iPhone 16 Pro is one I can highly recommend.

You can get the iPhone 16 Pro from apple.com/ph, or at any authorized Apple reseller in the Philippines. Power Mac Center has an ongoing promo where you can get any iPhone 16 model for up to P8,000 off when you pay in cash, straight, or even installment. Promo is valid until January 31, 2025.

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