Apple announced its new line-up of iPhone, Watch and AirPods a few weeks ago, with the iPhone 16 series going on sale in India recently. Starting at Rs 1,19,000, the iPhone 16 Pro at launch is priced a bit lower than the iPhone 15 Pro, which isn't common. I have been using one for a bit now, and here's the lowdown on it:
The new iPhone 16 Pro at first glance isn't too different in look and feel compared to its predecessor. But once you take it in hand, you realise it has a slightly bigger 6.3-inch display with narrower (and symmetrical) bezels. The frame is all titanium again while the front has a Gorilla Glass on top with the back having a tougher ceramic shield, as per the company. The Dynamic Island, front camera and one outlet for loudspeakers, ear-speaker grille are pretty much identical and neatly placed at the top. The left side locates the action button, volume buttons and the SIM card tray near the bottom. The right side has the elongated power/lock key as well as the new Camera Center, which is a capacitive plus physical button for the camera (more on it later).
The phone is IP68 dust and water-resistant and weighs nearly 200gm. I like how it feels in the hand and it didn't come across as slippery, either. The only thing that struck me was the oleophobic coating on the display which seemed to catch a little more smudges than the last time, but it's no big deal. The back has a familiar triple camera setup on a raised squircle in the corner with LED flash and LiDAR scanner and secondary mic; the Apple logo in the middle is glossy on an otherwise matte glass surface. At the bottom, you have the USB type C ports with the primary mic and one outlet for loudspeakers on either side of it. The phone comes in Natural Titanium (the one I tried), Desert Titanium, White Titanium and Black Titanium colour options.
Coming to the 6.3-inch Super Retina XDR (2868x1320) OLED display with support for up to 120Hz refresh rates - this is a top notch display with some of the best colour calibration you can get on a smartphone, without much surprise. It's bright and doesn't compromise on HDR output when watching something over, say, Netflix. There're good viewing angles with crisp and sharp colours that don't look oversaturated. True Tone seems to be a little more aggressive this time compared to last time, though, but it is not a hurdle when watching content.
Talking about the triple camera system on the back, you have a 48MP (f/1.78) Fusion main camera, a 48MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera, and a 12MP (f/2.8) telephoto camera. You can open the camera with a single tap of the Camera Center and futher use it with double capacitive touches to choose exposure, aperture, photographic styles or lenses. Once you've entered this little UI inside the camera app, you can exit it only by tapping somewhere else on the display. It does take a bit getting used to and I still find it a little less reliable when compared to simply using the onscreen controls to get around. The photos from the camera look crisp and sharp with a very iPhone-y look to it. HDR output seems to have been improved in terms of contrast and handling of shadows when indoors or outdoors. You can now also shoot 4K videos at 120FPS with Dolby Vision provided you have an external storage disk attached to the phone. Photographic styles, too, are a little better version of filters and do seem useful for different lighting conditions, including low-light shots when you may not be getting sufficient details by default. The camera app is quick and responsive whether taking photos or taking videos. The front-facing 12MP (f/1.9) face depth camera takes detailed and well-stitched shots for daylight and can hold its ground in low-light stills, not sure I see any significant improvements over the predecessor for this camera, though.
The device is equipped with the A18 Pro chipset (up to 4Ghz 6-core CPU, 6-core GPU and 16-core neural engine) along with 8GB LPDDR5X RAM with 1TB storage (also comes in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB) and is running on iOS 18 that brings a lot of customisation options to the OS, including for Control Center, Home screen, and more.
Apple's event for the iPhone 16 series and others was themed around its AI take called Apple Intelligence, but other than things such as summarising Emails and Messages, there's no on-device AI to be found here. Apple intelligence update is still months away for the India market. For performance, I found the phone to be snappy with multimedia apps, social media apps, streaming apps, all working smoothly without any stuttering issues to be seen. I would say, though, the OS does seem to make 120Hz a little less frequent in use even though you've enabled it under Settings when compared to high-end Android smartphones. Control Center can now have multiple pages where you can add more Shortcuts, widgets as well as connectivity shortcuts. App icons on the home screen can now be moved anywhere on it, something long awaited by users.
Powered by a 3,582mAh battery unit, the phone lasted me about a whole day. Only when I had it charging with WiFi hotspot in use that it turned mildly hot at the back, which is much better than the iPhone 15 Pro. It now charges at near 35watts wired - charging from 1 per cent to full in about 80 minutes using a fast charger. You get a braided USB type C to C cable in the box (though the phone supports USB 3.0) and a SIM card tray ejector tool but no longer Apple stickers.
The loudspeakers on this phone are loud and clear with similar depth to the predecessor. 5G network reception seems to be a little better than the 15 Pro and I could use it quite reliably on the go even with WiFi hotspot over 5G or 4G used for multiple devices. WiFi as well as GPS performance on the device didn't show any glitches throughout my usage.
All in all, the iPhone 16 Pro brings in some small and some meaningful updates to the iPhone line-up. It isn't a huge upgrade over the iPhone 15 Pro or even the 14 Pro, as per the experience, but if you're on the lookout to upgrade to a Pro model from, say, iPhone 12 Pro or iPhone 13, then this is worth consideration. There's no Apple Intelligence so that remains to be seen, but for now, what we do have, is something that fits well in the top high-end smartphones of today.