A Full Breakdown on Which iPhone 16 Is Right For You

iPhone 16: A step forward, but I’d go Pro

The iPhone 16, the lowest-tier model, starts at $800. That still makes it a premium phone. Which it very much is, don’t let my initial opinions lead you astray. For the $799 price tag you’ll get 128 gigs of internal storage, but you can increase that up to 256 or 512 GB. All 16s come with the 5-core GPU A18 chip, which is plenty powerful as far as phone graphics and computing goes.

New to all iPhone 16 models are the Camera Control and Action buttons. The Action button replaces the toggle switch—often hard to access with a case on—when it comes to turning your iPhone between Silent and Ring. For users like me, who keep their phone on Silent at all times like a sane millennial, the button can be re-programmed to something you’ll actually use it for. Camera Control is a touch-sensitive button on the phone’s lower right side that opens your camera with a press. The cool part is that the button is also a slider you can use to zoom in and out as though you’re using a real camera. Another press of it and you can snap a pic, simplifying one-handed picture taking.

The only place the camera disappoints is the zoom. The dual 48 megapixel Fusion and 12 megapixel Ultra Wide lenses aren’t bad, they just lack options—options for zoom that the Telephoto lens brings to the Pro model. But on a shot for shot basis, it’s given a real run for its money (and maybe even beaten) by Google’s (excellent) budget phone line.

All of this makes it a very capable smartphone, but the iPhone 16 is my least favorite of the lineup. The motivating reason comes down to the screen and what I personally have grown used to. The phone I had for years before testing these iPhones was an iPhone 14 Pro. Since the iPhone 13 generation, base iPhones have had a 60 maximum Hz refresh rate and Pro iPhones have had a 120 Hz refresh rate. Trying to go back from Pro is a no go.

The 60 Hz display is chunky in comparison. This is easiest to notice when scrolling through your home pages of apps. It’s just not very smooth, even coming from the 14 Pro, a two year-old phone. Unfortunately, I discovered I am Pro-pilled. So it was on to the next phone for me.

iPhone 16 Pro: The sweet spot

The iPhone 16 Pro is my preferred entry from the lineup. Which, as an iPhone user, makes it by default my favorite phone right now. Compared to the 16, it’s got some worthy upgrades given the slight price difference of $200. Not the least of which is the 120 Hz ProMotion display—still a cutting-edge XDR retina.

Apple iPhone 16 Pro

Cons

• A18 Pro chip is a minor improvement over the regular A18
• Battery life isn’t that much better than the regular 16

Display	6.3″ Super Retina XDR, 2622 x 1206 pixels, 120 Hz refresh rate
Battery Life	Up to 33 hours
Cameras	48MP Fusion | 48MP Ultra Wide | Telephoto | 12MP front facing
Dimensions	5.89″ x 2.81″ x 0.32″
Weight	7.03 oz
Colors	Natural Titanium, Desert Titanium, White Titanium, Black Titanium
Storage	128GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB

The cameras are the best the iPhone has seen yet. You can get an outrageous amount of detail zoomed in, even at 6x or 8x. It’s a noticeable jump over Apple’s previous telephoto lenses. The ability to record 4K 120 fps video is a game-changer for content creators. It’s got an option for a terabyte of storage as well. Truly, this is the professional’s iPhone.

Aesthetically, it screams Pro with a Titanium build that comes in more classy gold and gray shades. It’s a beautiful phone.

There are many ways in which the Pro’s outclassing of the 16 is imperceptible. I can honestly say the increased computing power of the A18 Pro chip isn’t super noticeable. Most apps run with great stability on both phones, and drain about the same amount of battery on each. The battery is slightly better on the Pro, but in practice each phone will get daily use and therefore require daily charging. And a 6.3 inch screen gives you slightly more real estate than the base 16’s 6.1 inch. Not too much of a difference and both of them are squarely in my sweet spot between six and six and a half inches.

The Pro was the iPhone I wound up using the most to experiment with Apple’s AI features, so it feels fitting to include some thoughts on Apple Intelligence here. By and large, they are fine—in a good way. The less serious an AI feature is, the more fun I tend to have with it. Take the Genmoji, AI generated emjoi, for example, I can make ’em look like my friends, it’s fun.

On the more serious side of Apple AI, Apple has developed its own native language processing that is far more helpful than the generative stuff you get from the usual suspects. Within Apple text apps—Messages, Notes, and Mail—Apple AI will grammar check with better accuracy, offer thesaurus options when you need to find the right word, and summarize long documents of information. It’ll be big for meeting or school note takers, or anyone who doesn’t feel like they’re all that, grammatically speaking. If you want to do generative text—meaning have ChapGPT write you a cover letter, or whatever—Apple gives you a notice that you’re leaving the native platform. From there, you can do all the normal stuff. I didn’t find myself using either of these functions a whole lot, but I’m a writer and don’t like leaning on these features. But for the average consumer, you’re going to get a lot of use out of Apple’s language processing.

iPhone 16 Pro Max: Bigger is, indeed, better

The iPhone 16 Pro Max is now tied with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra for the largest screen on a (non-foldable) smartphone to date. It’s big, and it’s got all the speed and power of the A18 Pro chip, a 120 Hz screen, and all the same color and storage options as the Pro (barring the 128 gig model). It’s got slightly higher pixel resolution, but otherwise it’s got almost identical guts to the 16 Pro. Almost.

Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max

Cons

• …except it’s big
• Can get pretty expensive

Display	6.9″ Super Retina XDR, 2868 x1320 pixels, 120 Hz refresh rate
Battery Life	Up to 33 hours
Cameras	48MP Fusion | 48MP Ultra Wide | Telephoto | 12MP front facing
Dimensions	6.42” x 3.06″ x 0.32″
Weight	7.99 oz
Colors	Natural Titanium, Desert Titanium, White Titanium, Black Titanium
Storage	256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB

The iPhone 16 Pro Max has the best battery life of any iPhone on the market. Seriously, there is a world’s difference between my time with the Pro and the Pro Max. Namely, I could go more than 24 hours without feeling the gnawing anxiety of low battery.

The phone also has better speakers than any previous generation of iPhone. It’s no hi-fi Bluetooth speaker, but it’s miles beyond the iPhone 14 Pro I was using. If hearing your phone speaker over the sound of the shower has been an issue in the past, the 16 Pro Max has the clarity and volume to overpower even the strongest water pressure.

While the large screen is not my preference, it can be great in a lot of circumstances. It’s better for reading eBooks or Esquire articles. Doing the ill-advised act of watching movies on your phone is improved. We had a discussion about this in the office, where we generally found that people who carry their phones in their pocket (men, in our case) found the Pro Max too big to be comfortable. People who carry their phones in a purse instead of a pocket (just women in our office), had no issues with the size and weight. It’s an interesting point that almost gets into the sociology of how people use tech. The stress point is pocket to phone size.

So, this one comes down to personal preference. For as amazing as the 16 Pro Max is, it’s still a big large and heavy for me. That doesn’t mean it’s not an excellent phone. And it doesn’t mean it’s not the best phone in the lineup. It is, objectively, both of those things. Subjectively, it might be the best phone on the market.

What about the iPhone 16 Plus?

It’s just the iPhone 16 with a bigger screen. Same internals and camera. Every other review lumps them together. But compared to the $999 Pro, the $899 Plus is .04 inches bigger and slightly worse in just about every other way. I’d recommend most people just get the Pro instead. Or if a big screen is truly your priority, splurge for the Pro Max for a nice 6.9 inch display.

Final verdict: Which iPhone 16 should you buy?

The best iPhone for you is going to depend on two things: your previous phone and what you care about in a phone. The first part is easy. If you have an iPhone Pro (or equivalent 120 Hz refresh rate smartphone), you will feel the move to the base iPhone 16 as a downgrade. Get the Pro or the Pro Max.

If you care about getting the best of everything—battery life, camera—at any cost, get the Pro Max. If your priority is having the best iPhone you can that can also fit in your pocket, the Pro is your pick. If your singular need is having an iPhone for as cheap as possible, buy an old refurbished one or the iPhone SE.

Frankly, if you’re already dropping $800—or however much a month that breaks down to across two years of payments—the added $200 to get the the iPhone 16 Pro is so worth it. Just be warned that you can’t go back once you’ve gone Pro.

Why Trust Esquire?

At Esquire, our testing process and combined expertise allows us to recommend the best tech for your hard-earned money. We compile our guides by performing heavy research and testing, and the gadgets we choose to award are what we’d spend our own money on.

For the sake of this breakdown, I spent multiple weeks with each of these three phones, using it as my primary device. The screens, batteries, microphones, and speakers all got their fair share of stress testing.