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TOApple has updated the iPhone 16 Pro by adding the 5x zoom camera from the great Pro Max line, making size its main differentiator and turning the smallest “pro” into an instant contender for best small smartphone.
The 16 Pro costs the same (£999 (€1,199/$999/A$1,799)) as last year’s model, and sits between the £1,199 16 Pro Max and the basic iPhone 16, which starts at £799. That also puts it in direct competition with Google’s £999 Pixel 9 Pro, which has the same screen size.
At first glance, the 16 Pro looks similar to last year’s 15 Pro, but the screen is 0.2 inches larger and measures 6.3 inches diagonally. Thinner bezels around the screen have absorbed some of that growth, but the phone is still slightly larger and 12g heavier, making it about the same size as its predecessor in a slim case.
The sleek, sharp screen is one of the best on the market and looks particularly good for photos and videos, although it doesn’t reach the higher maximum brightnesses offered by its rivals when outdoors. The glass covering it is 50% stronger than previous iPhones, according to Apple, but the 16 Pro will probably still need a case to protect it from drops.
A new camera control button has been added to the side, which you can press, swipe, and click to do different things, like quickly open the camera. That brings the total number of buttons to five, including the action button added last year.
The 16 Pro runs iOS 18, which adds plenty of customization features for the home screen, Control Center, updates to the Photos, Notes, and Maps apps, a new password manager, and RCS support for the Messages app.
But Apple Intelligence’s much-hyped features such as smarter Siri, notification summaries, various AI writing tools, emoji, and image generators are not yet available. They will begin to be implemented in beta version with a iOS 18.1 update in October in the US and December in the UK, Australia and other non-US English countries, while the rest of Europe will be out of luck for the foreseeable future.
Budget
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Screen: 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR (120Hz OLED) (460 ppi)
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Processor: Apple A18 Pro
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RAM: 8GB
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Storage: 128, 256, 512 GB or 1 TB
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Operating system: iOS 17
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Camera: 48MP main, 48MP UW and 12MP 5x zoom, 12MP front camera
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Connectivity: 5G, Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSS
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Water resistance: IP68 (6 meters for 30 minutes)
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Dimensions: 149.6 x 71.5 x 8.25mm
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Weight: 199g
The new A18 Pro chip is faster and more efficient
The 16 Pro has a new chip that is 10-15% faster with 20% faster graphics. It feels fast in use and will stay fast for years to come. It’s also about 20% more efficient to stay cool when playing high-end games.
Battery life is solid for this size phone, lasting between 38 and 40 hours between charges with a combination of 5G and Wi-Fi, and actively using the screen for more than five hours. This is pretty much the same as its predecessor and means charging it every other day or overnight for heavy use days.
Sustainability
Apple says the battery should last over 1000 full charge cycleswith at least 80% of its original capacity, and can be replaced by £109. Out of warranty screen repairs cost £349. The 16 Pro has repair guides available and was awarded seven out of 10 in repairability by iFixit specialists.
The 16 Pro contains more than 25% recycled material, including aluminum, cobalt, copper, gold, lithium, plastic, rare earths, steel, tin and tungsten. The company breaks down the phone’s environmental impact in its report. Apple offers free exchange and recycling programs, even for non-Apple products.
Camera
The camera gets a big upgrade for the 16 Pro, gaining parity with the Pro Max line, including the 5x optical zoom camera added to the 15 Pro Max last year and the new dedicated camera control button.
The button quickly opens the camera when the phone screen is on. Pressing twice brings up a menu to switch between adjusting exposure, depth, zoom, cameras, styles or hue with swipes, before swiping the button to make adjustments. Fully clicking the button takes a photo. It’s really useful for quickly launching the camera and taking photos, but using the more advanced tools was slow and took practice to get right.
The 48-megapixel main camera captures great images and now shoots at full resolution without lag. The ultra-wide camera was upgraded from 12MP to 48MP this year, generally improving wide-angle images but providing a bigger boost to macro photography for larger, more detailed close-up images.
However, the 5x telephoto camera’s extended optical zoom is the biggest improvement, significantly shortening the distance to objects with significant magnification. The digital zoom on top extends up to 25x magnification, with good results up to around 10-15x.
Apple has also updated its Photo Styles feature to adjust the color, tone, and palette of photos as you capture them. Various presets are available to change the mood, such as vintage or vibrant, or adjust tints to make things look warmer or cooler, increase contrast and depth of shadows, or make other adjustments.
Either style can be modified using a virtual D-pad and intensity slider. It’s hard to be precise, but you can get really creative, like replicating the look of certain film cameras or creating very dramatic looks. You can set a new one as the default using a short guided tutorial and change the one used for each photo after the fact in the Photos app.
Other fun new features include spatial or 3D photography, which can be viewed on headsets like the Vision Pro. A video recorded at 120 frames per second in 4K can be converted to cinematic slow motion after the fact. The new audio-to-video mixing feature can eliminate background noise or make it sound as if each person in front of the camera has an individual microphone, which is completely awesome.
Overall, the camera takes predictably good images in a variety of conditions. The photo styles feature is great for those who want to get creative without having to develop images on a computer afterwards. The 5x telephoto camera added on the 16 Pro is a great feature that keeps it on par with Google’s Pixel 9 Pro. But there is a complete lack of AI features, particularly compared to Google’s extremely useful “best takes” and similar tools.
Price
The iPhone 16 Pro costs from £999 (€1,199/$999/A$1,799) with 128GB of storage.
For comparison, the iPhone 16 costs £799, the iPhone 16 Pro Max costs £1,199, the Google Pixel 9 Pro costs £999the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra costs £1,249 and the Fairphone 5 costs £499.
Verdict
The iPhone 16 Pro strikes the best balance between size and capability with a large enough screen and all the high-end trimmings compressed into a relatively small frame.
The addition of 5x optical zoom puts Apple’s smallest Pro on par with its monstrous 16 Pro Max, so the choice for iPhone buyers is now simply a matter of size and price, not capability. Faster chip and camera updates, like fun photography styles, are welcome.
The new camera control button is a mixed bag: very useful for quickly launching the camera, but fiddly to use to adjust settings and difficult to press hard enough to capture an image without shaking the phone. It needs some work to be great and is not the ideal placement for lefties.
Apple’s much-hyped AI features aren’t available yet, and for the first time in a long time, Apple has real competition from Google’s excellent Pixel 9 Pro for the best smallest phone available.
It’s not cheap, costing £200 more than the regular iPhone 16, but the 16 Pro is Apple’s best phone and at least costs £200 less than the 16 Pro Max.
Advantages: relatively small and easy to hold, great cameras including 5x optical zoom, great screen, USB-C, action and camera control buttons, good battery life, top performance, long software support, Face ID.
Cons: expensive, camera control is a bit complicated, getting bigger and heavier, same design as its predecessors.
