MobileManDan
Intro
That time of writing this review, the iPhone 16 Pro has been on sale for around about 7 months, whilst it might be quite late, it gave Apple a chance to fix any potential issues with software in updates over the last couple of months and have a real chance to test it out instead of rushing to be one of the first, especially as Apple Intelligence has taken a while to roll out.
My loan device was provided by Vodafone UK along with a SIM card to use to experience their network, and some great news is where I am based, we have just had 5G rolled out using their new OpenRAN technology so was able to test not only what the handset was like but also the network.
Of course network experience will depend area to area, it is also worth pointing out that no one else has had any input or any influence on any of this review.
All opinions are solely based on my experience with the device and no one has seen any of the content before it’s gone live. Everyone gets to see at the same time as it is purely my opinion and my thoughts on my time with the phone without any influence.
Design
iPhones very rarely change their design language over the years, they seem to be ‘if it’s not broke don’t fix it’ and this means sometimes there are very little changes from previous models to the new ones.
Looking at the front of the phone, it’s all screen as you would expect with a 6.3 inch display with a 120hz refresh rate that makes it one of the best displays on the market and as a joy for watching videos or playing games as well as browsing your content of course.
The 6.3 inch screen is slightly up from the normal 6.1 inches we saw on older models, this is mainly due to the smaller bezel size, Apple were able to get a slightly larger screen.
The dynamic island is technically a pill-shaped hole up top which houses the front facing camera as well as the sensors for face ID, however, it also can be interactive and display content as you will see in some of my screenshots.
The dynamic island allows you to do things such as tap on it to see what track is playing, to see your countdown timer, to track your Uber, as well as a lot of other options.
It does take a bit of getting used to, but once you embrace the dynamic island you actually find you use it more than you think you would and I much prefer this over the notch cut out which did nothing whatsoever so it is an improvement, but does take a little getting used to.
The actual display itself is fantastic. It offers bright colors, great contrast thanks to what Apple call their Super Retina XDR OLED display, for the techies out there it offers HDR10, Dolby Vision and has a typical brightness of 1000 nits which can go all the way up to 2000 nits if needed.
This means you can use the phone outdoors with no problem whatsoever, It really is a fantastic display.
Looking at the left hand side of the phone, you have your Action Button up the top which lets you quickly switch different modes you can set, even make it load a custom shortcut you might have made within the Shortcuts app.
This button replaces the slider switch which only let you pick between silent mode and normal mode, it is definitely an improvement and more functional.
Below that you have the volume up and down keys and below that you have the SIM tray which lets you remove the single nano SIM, however, you do also have the option for eSIM if you want one built-in and to have a physical sim at the same time.
Over on the right side you have the power button which also loads Siri if you hold onto it, to turn the phone off you have to hold this button as well as the Volume Up like on some older iPhones.
A new feature to the 16 range is the Camera Control key which is a button which once held will open the camera, you can also slide your finger left and right on it to zoom in and out, and a slight press lets you change between modes.
This has come into a lot of debate as many people did not like this type of control for the camera, myself included, not only did I find it a bit fiddly to use, it is also in a strange location just a little too high on the side of the phone to feel comfortable and what you expect for a camera control button.
At the top there is nothing to see apart from a single antenna band. There are a few of these dotted around the phone which help improve reception in tricky places, but you’ve seen these on many iPhones in the past so it’s hardly anything new.
Down at the bottom you have the speaker phone slightly trange that the drilled out holes are not the same amount each side considering attention to detail the company is known for.
You have three one side and five the other side but that’s just me being picky.
In the middle you still have the USB C port which was introduced back with the iPhone 15 range and has now become the standard connection type for Apple thanks to a regulation needing it to replace the older Lightning port that the company used to use.
Thankfully this now means your laptops, tablets, phones and other electronic devices will now use a single connector which means less cables needed when traveling.
Over on the back you’ve got a nice smooth matte finish, as you can see by the pictures.
It looks great in the light and is one of my favorite finishes Apple have made on an iPhone, but of course color will be very subjective and you can go for a multiple choice of different colors.
A big part of the phone is taken up by the camera module in the top left to house the new camera tech, there’s a big square which has the LED flash, the microphone and three camera sensors.
The main one of these sensors offers 48 megapixels which is the same as you get in the new ultra wide also offering 48 megapixels, the 3rd camera is the 12 megapixel periscope zoom, but this will be talked about more in the camera section of the review.
The only other thing on the back is the traditional shiny apple logo which does stand out and just adds to that distinctive look of an iPhone.
Software
The software installed on the iPhone 16 Pro out of the box at time of writing this review is iOS 18, however, a major part of the software promoted at WWDC for the new iPhone was their new AI also known as Apple Intelligence and this has taken several months to roll out, even now 7 months later we still don’t have all the expected features yet.
It adds a few extra tweaks and upgrades which was great to see and I did really enjoy using this, however, the main way the system works is the same as it has been over the years.
Apple fans will love the upgrade to iOS 18 and using it on the iPhone 16 Pro will just be a simple switch over as a lot of the features still work the same.
You still have the same apps. They’ve just added a few improvements.
Apple finally let you customize the lock screen with widgets as well as customizing the background to allow depth. This means if you have any portrait photos on your phone you can now put this as your wallpaper and have the clock appear behind. It almost like a 3D effect, which is nice to have as long as it doesn’t cut off too much of the clock, but it does at least have some interactivity and some customization of the iPhone which users have been wanting for years.
With Apple Intelligence on the iPhone 16 Pro you can do many things such as highlight some text you are writing and change the tone so you can make your content more friendly, more professional and change any bits that it highlights would be best to replace.
As well as writing tools you get the additions to using the camera called Visual Intelligence, this lets you find out more about the objects you are looking at or even add something into your calendar if it includes a date, for example a meeting or concert.
Siri has improved, although not as much as it will in the future, you get a nice new glow around the screen when accessing Siri and can even double tap the bottom of the screen to open a text box so you can write to Siri which was handy.
Siri also now offers ChatGPT integration so if you are asking something that needs more detail it asks if you want to use ChatGPT to help with your request, this is a nice improvement.
However what we are still missing is the ‘New Siri’ that integrated more with the system and to ask things like to show an email from someone where they asked something specific or find a photo with someone and a specific location.
These will be coming in the future and when it does the iPhone 16 Pro will be supported so it’s not like you will miss out on using this like standard iPhone 15 models or before will because they don’t support Apple Intelligence at all.
Performance
Performance is one of the key areas you’ll never have to worry about, especially with one of the top of the range iPhones this year and the impressive Apple Silicon they use to power them.
With performance you get the top processor the company make for mobile devices with their custom A18 Pro chip, this is the same processor found in the Pro Max model but better then the standard A18 found in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus.
When it comes to the battery you get a 3582mAh non-removable cell which on paper might seem quite low in numbers considering some of the competition have even up to 5000mAh capacity batteries, but Apple do a great job with optimizing, especially as they make all the hardware and software themselves so they can get the best out of every bit possible.
I was easily able to get through a full day even with quite heavy use and the screen doing some 120hz gaming and watching plenty of videos back on various streaming services.
Storage wise you get an option of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB or the top end 1TB which is non-expandable.
Of course you do also have the option of iCloud storage to expand the memory if needed, but as is most common these days no actual expandable storage but Apple have never had that so this is is not anything new.
All the models come with 8GB of RAM which is plenty enough when it comes to heavy multitasking and playing graphic heavy games, again due to Apple’s optimization of their software and hardware.
8GB is also the minimum requirement for a device to use Apple Intelligence their fancy new AI technology.
On the networking side, you get all the usual things you would expect from a flagship smartphone such as Bluetooth, NFC for contactless payments Wi-Fi including Wi-Fi 7. For faster performance, you also get 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G which I was able to experience in my time with this phone. 5G speeds were great, often getting me in certain locations around 400 megabits per second, which considering this as a wireless connection was fantastic and allowed me to do a lot of my work on the move and not be tied down to a wired connection in an office or where there was Wi-Fi.
Camera
Cameras on an iPhone have been something they standing out for for many years and this year is no different especially with their Pro and Pro Max models.
The main camera has dual pixels technology, this means you get 12 megapixel photos but with much more detail than before.
You can however get the full 48 megapixel if you switch on the RAW option in the settings.
This obviously takes up much more storage. So if you are into your RAWphotography, maybe look at getting the higher option for storage or at least opt for iCloud storage.
The other improved camera is the ultra wide which now offers 48 megapixels, up from the 12 megapixels in the previous model and this gives higher quality photos when you need to get more into the shot, it also helps get some great macro photos when you want to get closer.
Finally you get the 12 megapixel periscope camera which has an impressive range of up to 5x optical zoom letting you get closer to your subject without losing any quality from the photo.
The cameras as you expect off a fantastic quality in all lighting conditions, as you’ll see by some of my sample photos, some of them are in daylight and some of them were in very cloudy conditions. But the phone does a lot of the work itself in a split second and gives you overall fantastic photos 99% of the time.
The front facing camera is also very good offering 12 megapixels and 4K video recording housed in the dynamic island.
As mentioned before, the quality is fantastic as it has been for many years and it’s great for anyone who likes to video blog on the move or do lots of video calls.
You’ll not be let down by the quality of any of the cameras on the iPhone 16 Pro.
Main video on the back camera is up to 4K resolution at 60 frames a second and as mentioned before, you’re not be let down by the quality of this camera. It is absolutely fantastic for video recording easily one of the best on the market and is an area Apple are well known for performing well in.
Final Thoughts
It’s been about 6/7 months since the iPhone 16 series was launched, so I’ve been able to look at public opinion and gain their thoughts as well as give my own after having some of my hands on time with it, also I left it later on because if is only now that most of the Apple Intelligence features have launched which were heavily advertised as the event bit missing on the device launch back in September.
I really enjoyed my time with the iPhone 16 Pro.
I do normally like larger phones, especially for consuming media such as watching back Netflix or other video content, however, having a slightly smaller phone in my pocket did have his advantages and I found myself enjoying it more than I thought I would.
It will really come down to if you prefer a bigger phone or not.
If you do then the iPhone 16 Pro Max is the clear winner for you with its larger display, however, if you want all the same features such as all the camera tech in a smaller phone then the iPhone 16 Pro is definitely the one for you.
It offers a fantastic option of technology and size for most people and comes in at a bit cheaper than the Max model.
Another question to ask yourself is do you actually need a Pro phone?
Many people out there will do perfectly fine with just the iPhone 16 or 16 Plus, however, that does have the A18 processor instead of the A18 Pro, and only two of the cameras plus different build quality, but also comes in at quite a bit less to pay.
Overall though I would say that in this size the iPhone 16 Pro is the best phone they’ve ever made.
It offers fantastic set of cameras, both front-facing and rear facing, plenty of storage options, a great screen at 120hz refresh rate which is great for gaming and a smooth user interface which Apple uses will have grown to love over the years and it just gets better and better over time.
A big thanks once again for Vodafone for supplying the iPhone 16 Pro for me to do this review.
