I tested the iPhone 16 Plus – why it’s the model most people should buy

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• At $899, the iPhone 16 Plus undercuts the Professional Max by $300 whereas nonetheless supplying you with the majority of the big-screen iPhone expertise.
• The configurable Motion button and Digicam Management provide customers extra iOS shortcuts than ever. Anticipate the educational curve, let your creativeness run wild, and benefit from the experience.
• The options that I hoped Apple would enhance this yr — such because the 60Hz refresh price and slower-than-average 20W wired charging — have not modified.

Being a tech fanatic means I all the time default to the beefiest, strongest, wallet-shredding units that corporations have to supply. So, yearly, when the most recent iPhones roll round, testing the usual fashions brings me again to mainstream actuality. 

These are the iPhones that most individuals purchase, with Counterpoint Research reporting that in 2024, the iPhone 15 outsold the iPhone 15 Professional. Within the yr earlier than, the iPhone 14 outsold each the iPhone 14 Professional and iPhone 14 Professional Max. 

Additionally: We’ve used every iPhone 16 model and here’s our best buying advice for 2024

After testing the iPhone 16 Plus for the previous 24 hours (and with rather more analysis to be achieved within the coming weeks), I am anticipating the same shopper pattern with this yr’s iPhones — however with an ever-wider hole.

View at Apple

With this yr’s commonplace iPhone fashions, Apple is taking what I would prefer to name the “Sibling” technique. You understand how the older sibling tends to get all the most recent and best issues first — shirts, toys, footwear? After a yr, or when the joy for one thing wears off, it is handed right down to the youthful sibling, so what’s previous is new once more. That is precisely what Apple has achieved with final yr’s iPhone 15 Professional mannequin and this yr’s iPhone 16, and I do not thoughts that in any respect. 

Additionally: iPhone 15 vs. iPhone 16: Should you upgrade to Apple’s latest model?

The new Motion button, for instance, replaces the bodily mute-switch toggle and could be mapped to a singular operate, from turning on the flashlight to beginning a voice memo to firing up the digicam. In fact, you may also set the Motion button to modify between alert and silent. 

Contemplating that is the iPhone’s have-it-your-way era, it is best to actually attempt to embrace the customization freedom right here. My Motion button is at the moment set to “activate AirDrop for 10 minutes” as I am camera-testing the cellphone and steadily importing photographs and movies to my MacBook. That immediate will doubtless change by the tip of the week, which is the fantastic thing about the brand new {hardware} key.

There’s additionally a brand new Digicam Management situated on the underside proper aspect of the telephones, which appears to be like and capabilities just like the one on the Professional variations. On the most simple degree, urgent the Digicam Management snaps a photograph or begins a video recording. For some Apple magic, a lighter, extra mild press of the identical key (Apple tells me to not name it a button) brings up a slider to your most up-to-date digicam setting, whether or not that is zoom vary, publicity, or f-stop.

Additionally: Apple says the iPhone 16 is a lot easier to repair than its predecessor. Here’s how

A double mild press on Digicam Management brings up a carousel of capturing modes and settings, every of which you’ll be able to entry with one other mild press. Lastly, swiping on the touch-capacitive floor will dial between the settings. That is to say, Digicam Management has a studying curve, a lot in order that I would not have been mad if Apple made the function unique to the Professional fashions. As a result of it isn’t, it is going to be many customers’ first expertise with adjusting digicam settings at such a finite degree, and that is very thrilling.

Going into my testing, my biggest concern was whether or not the position (or ergonomics) of the Digicam Management would spoil what was in any other case a genius function. Since the secret’s located nearer to the center of the aspect edge (extra so when you’re on the smaller iPhone 16), you are now capturing images by urgent down along with your index finger as an alternative of your thumb. Retraining your muscle reminiscence is required right here; I usually discovered myself habitually tapping the display screen to focus and seize as an alternative. 

Digicam Management encourages you to place the iPhone in panorama orientation, which performs to the 16’s latest capacity to seize immersive spatial photos and videos for VR. It is one other function that is trickled down from final yr’s Professional mannequin, however nothing to emphasize about utilizing. Very like how you will want an elusive 8K TV to observe 8K movies, you will want a appropriate VR headset to eat spatial content material. I’ve watched a number of spatial movies on each the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3, and whereas they are much extra immersive than every other digital content material on the market, the flexibility to seize them ought to be seen as a bonus and never a requisite as you contemplate the iPhone 16.

Additionally: Every iPhone 16 model features a new camera button. Here’s what it can do

One thing you are extra more likely to benefit from: the brand new 12MP ultrawide digicam. With an f/2.2 aperture (versus final yr’s f/2.4), the iPhone 16 can pull in additional mild (learn: seize extra particulars each in the course of the day and night time) and take macro photographs, very like how the iPhone 15 Professional did with its ultrawide lens.

Mix the utility of the ultrawide with the brand new 48MP Fusion digicam (combines the principle with a 2x digital zoom functionality) and Photographic Types that may now be modified earlier than and after the shot, and you have got one of the vital versatile iPhone digicam methods ever. Whether or not it was reproducing the colourful colours of my dinner in a dimly lit restaurant, extracting particulars from small succulents, or capturing the managed chaos of my morning commute, I hardly ever felt just like the iPhone 16 Plus was unable to get the shot.

Additionally: How to clear the cache on your iPhone (and why you should)

I say hardly ever as a result of there was one night once I wished to take a photograph of the moon. It appeared nearer to the Earth than ever, was glowing in a heat orangish hue, and felt like the right photo-op with my household celebrating the Mid-Autumn Pageant. However the iPhone 16’s zoom functionality, capped at 2x, was barely capable of seize the essence of the second. There was a noticeable quantity of noise as I hesitantly dialed up the digital zoom, and I sorely missed the 5x optical digicam on the Professional fashions.

Whereas I hoped to see a minimum of a 90Hz refresh price on the brand new iPhones, assuming that ProMotion (120Hz) was restricted to Professional units solely, Apple continues to ship the usual fashions with 60Hz panels. This is not a deal-breaker by any means, and albeit, customers coming from older non-Professional iPhone fashions will not know what they’re lacking. Rendering fewer frames additionally helps the iPhone 16’s battery life, which has been ample to this point.

However in 2024, when even a $150 Android phone comes with smoother show tech, a 90Hz panel would’ve made me immediately swap from an iPhone 15.

Additionally: How iOS 18 changes the way you charge your iPhone

To Apple’s credit score, it did bump up the wi-fi charging pace (as much as 25W through MagSafe) on iPhone 16 fashions, although wired charging charges stay at 20W. From my testing, the iPhone 16 Plus charged from 0% to 100% in roughly one hour and 47 minutes, which is noticeably slower than most flagship telephones ($700+) in the marketplace.

ZDNET’s shopping for recommendation (for now)

There’s one factor I have never talked about but on this evaluation, and that is Apple Intelligence, the suite of synthetic intelligence instruments scattered throughout iOS 18. That is as a result of the majority of the AI expertise, which features a revamped Siri, name recording, and textual content technology, will not be available till October, when iOS 18.1 rolls out to the general public. That is to say, you should not purchase the iPhone 16 for its AI capabilities — not but, a minimum of.

Till the software program is official, I am going to proceed to judge the iPhone 16 for what it’s and maintain you posted on the way it fares with battery life, video-capturing, day-to-day efficiency, and extra.