All You Need To Know About The Apple iPhone 16 Range
The recent Apple Event offered plenty of innovative upgrades for its flagship range of products, which helped it secure the iPhone’s status as a premium offering for a premium price tag. While Apple fans were intrigued with what was new with the Apple Watch and AirPods for 2024, it was the iPhone that was the star of the show.
This year, we’ll get four models: the iPhone 16, the iPhone Plus, and then the higher-spec Pro versions: the iPhone 16 Pro and the iPhone 16 Pro Max. As the gold standard of phones, it sets the bar for competitors like Samsung, Sony and Google – and most importantly, shows us what today’s tech can do for its owners if budget allows. Let’s take a closer look at the delights of the iPhone 16 series.
Camera
Try as they might, other phones can’t quite deliver the rich photos that iPhones do. With the 16 range, they’ve continued to improve their flagship feature. On the standard versions there’s a main 48MP camera and a secondary ultrawide 12MP. The Pro versions have the same main camera, a 48MP ultra-wide camera, and a 5x optical zoom. The Pro versions also have the capability to capture 4k video at 120 frames per second, and you can edit videos to make slick slow-mo clips afterwards.
The most obvious hardware improvement is in ‘Camera Control’. It almost feels like a button on the side, but it’s a touch-sensitive monitor that means you can open up the camera super quickly. Then you can almost treat it like a traditional camera shutter: you can take photos if you press down quickly, video if you do a long press, plus you can change the zoom and the exposure with slight gestures. That makes the camera quicker, easier and more intuitive to use, giving you the best chance of getting that in-the-moment shot.
Design and display
The design isn’t too far off the 15 models, though Apple say the phones have the thinnest borders on any Apple product. The new Ceramic Shield coating makes it 50 per cent tougher than before, but they also use sturdy aerospace-grade aluminium that help to make the phones feel lighter.
Looking more vibrant and fresh than last year’s colour palette, you can get the standard two iPhones in Black, White, Pink, Teal, and Ultramarine. The two Pro phones come in Black, White, Natural, and “Desert Titanium’, which has a gold finish.
As far as screen sizes go, you’ll find a 6.1” screen for the iPhone 16 and 6.7” for the Plus model. The iPhone 16 Pro is 6.3” and the Pro Max is 6.9”, meaning a bigger screen to be able to stream movies or play games. However the iPhone and iPhone Plus have a disappointing 60Hz display refresh rate, meaning only the two Pro models will be able to offer the crispest graphics at their 120Hz refresh rate.
Battery performance
You’ll be delighted to know that with optimised efficiencies, this year’s two Pro models will offer a “huge leap in battery life”. Expect a whopping 33 hours of video playback with the iPhone 16 Pro Max, and 27 hours of video playback with the iPhone 16 Pro, according to Apple. The standard iPhones aren’t too far behind, with 22 hours of video playback expected from the iPhone 16, and 27 hours from the iPhone 16 Plus.
Expect the speediest charging on the market too: you can charge the phones to 50 per cent in just 30 minutes when using Apple’s MagSafe charger that you have to buy separately. The 25W charging speeds are quicker than the Samsung Galaxy 24 (at 15W) and the Google Pixel 9 (which ranges from 15W to 23W).
As part of Apple’s bid to become more sustainable, the battery is made with 100 per cent recycled cobalt and over 95 per cent recycled lithium – great news when there’s controversy about mining these finite resources.
Features and tech
There’s lots of new upgrades for ease of use – but rather than brand new functionality, you’ll find tweaks that make using an iPhone even easier. That said, you’ll note key improvements in its built-in audio – like studio quality mics on the iPhone 16 Pro, and spatial audio when you’re recording spatial video.
Powering all the amazing functionality and upgrades is the A18 chip, designed to handle Apple Intelligence when it’s rolled out later this year. The standard models of the iPhone will skip out on the A17 chip altogether and go straight to the A18, while the Pro models will get the A18 Pro – the most powerful performer yet – which promises to be 15 per cent faster than the iPhone 15 Pro.
Price and availability
It’s great news that there’s no price increase this year. That means the iPhone 16 starts at £799 (for 128GB of storage) and the iPhone 16 Plus begins at £899 (128GB). The iPhone 16 Pro starts at £999 (128GB), and the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at £1,119 (256GB). It goes all the way up to £1,599 if you opt for 1TB of storage. The phones are available to pre-order on 13 September for a 20 September launch date.
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