I’m using the iPhone 16 for the past three months, ever since its launch. The iPhone 16 feels like an iPhone 15 in disguise but I’d say that’s not entirely true. I think it’s more like an iPhone 15 with slight upgrades. So, what do we mean by that? I’ll tell you all about it in this long-term review.
Design
I want to start by saying that the ultramarine color of the iPhone 16 is the hero color this year, but I think the pink one looks better. It’s vibrant, fresh, and poppy but that’s just my opinion.
After 90 days of testing this phone, we haven’t used a case once on the iPhone 16, mainly because we were confident Apple built it sturdily and that it wouldn’t break during regular use. This phone has been dropped multiple times, and we have a couple of dings to show for it one on the action button and another below. Basically, the aluminum frame is slightly malleable, so it dings first.
What you get is Ceramic Shield 2.0 protection on the rear and front. The rear has a frosted finish, so it looks good, and you can’t easily see scratches, if any. However, the front panel scratches up way too easily. Ceramic Shield is terrible for scratch protection but good for drop protection. Of course, you’ve got the IP68 rating, which is nice, but multiple Android phones now offer IP69 ratings, which are even better.
The iPhone 16 also gets the action button for the first time. Just like the Pro model, you also get the camera control button. The camera control is definitely a button, even if Apple doesn’t want you to believe so.
Another major problem with the iPhone 16 is the fact that the Type-C port at the bottom is Type-C 2.0. You don’t get a faster Type-C 3.0 port. Apple, you’ve given us Type-C make it fast Type-C! What’s the point of saving costs here?
Display
The display on the iPhone 16 hasn’t been upgraded at all from the iPhone 15. What you get is a 6.1-inch OLED panel, which is a 60Hz OLED panel. Trust me, for the iPhone 16’s asking price, it should have come with a 120Hz panel. It’s currently unpardonable. And you know iPhone fanboys will be like, “Oh, you can’t tell the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz because the animations are so good.” Well, they’re not, because now all of the Android phones are doing animations much better, especially with 120Hz and LTPO. The kind of animations on Oxygen OS 5, Color OS, FunTouch OS 15, and even One UI 7 are way better than what iOS is doing now.
It’s established that we feel bad about the fact that the phone has 60Hz only. Is it a dealbreaker? Definitely, 100%. If you’re planning on buying the iPhone 16, just know that this is something you’ll have to live with for at least 3–4 years. By the time, say, the iPhone 17 comes out, and if it comes with 120Hz, you’re going to rue it. Trust me. While we might feel bad about it, people seem to be okay with it, which they shouldn’t be. They should ask for better that’s when we’ll get better.
Apart from my rant about the 60Hz panel, the panel itself is very well-tuned. Of course, Apple makes some of the best displays in the industry, so what you get is a supremely color-accurate panel, which you can trust for editing photos and videos. It’s very, very good. Apart from that, you also get HDR support, both on YouTube and Netflix, and the display can get really bright. We didn’t face any brightness issues when we took it outdoors either it’s pretty good.
With respect to speakers, for a tiny phone, this one does have really good stereo speakers, so we don’t have any problems with that. But remember this: for a complete audiophile experience, you’ll still need to buy an Android phone, not an iPhone, primarily because iPhones still do not support high-quality Bluetooth codecs like LHDC, LDAC, or AptX Adaptive. That’s definitely a letdown.
With respect to haptic feedback, it’s been tuned well but Android isn’t just catching up, it’s also going far ahead in terms of how it’s being implemented in software. OnePlus, OPPO, and Realme phones have fantastic haptic feedback, and even the recently reviewed iQOO 13 has fantastic haptic feedback. In fact, it’s better than the iPhone 16. So, yeah, the advantages that iPhone used to have at one point are slowly being matched and even surpassed by Android.
Performance
We’ve got the A8 chip inside and for the very first time, we’ve also got 8 gigs of RAM to support Apple Intelligence, which I will talk about in a bit. The power efficiency of the A18 chip is fantastic. This time around, Apple has improved power efficiency by leaps and bounds. With this tiny battery inside the phone, we’re getting a commendable 6 hours of screen-on time under extremely heavy usage. If you use it normally, you can easily get 7 to 8 hours of screen-on time, which shouldn’t be a problem.
Having said that, the 18.2 update did cause a problem with battery life, and I’ll discuss it further in the software section. This great battery life is achieved on a phone that’s just 7.8 mm thick and weighs about 170 g, showcasing Apple’s engineering prowess. However, charging speeds are still abysmally slow. In our testing, it reached about 22 watts to 27 watts at best and took 1.5 hours for a full charge from 0 to 100%, which is a long time.
The A8, I’m glad Apple didn’t use a last-generation A7 Pro chipset or the A17 chip in the iPhone 16, unlike the iPhone 15 which used the A16 processor. The A8 chip is actually a slightly binned-down version of the A8 Pro, and it’s still very powerful. AAA titles not supported on the iPhone 15, like Assassin’s Creed Mirage or Death Stranding, work on the iPhone 16 without any problems.
When comparing compact Android flagships to this phone, the performance is better. However, in this price range phones like the IQ 13 and OnePlus 13 with the Snapdragon 8 Elite will perform better than the iPhone 16. The A8 this year is not the most powerful chip; the Snapdragon 8 Elite takes that crown, which might be difficult for iPhone fans to hear but is the unfortunate truth.
Software and IOS 18 Updates
We’ve seen multiple updates, and we’ve now reached iOS 18.2. iOS 18 itself is one of the biggest software updates in recent times, bringing a lot of features Android has had for years. For example, you can move icons freely on the grid on the home screen, which is nice. You also have a very customizable Control Center and lock screen.
There are a bunch of useful features in iOS 18, but the problem right now is that Apple is lagging behind in AI features. Of course, Apple Intelligence exists, and there are some nice features already available. For example, the writing tools are something I absolutely love. However, Image Playground feels too limiting since the images are generated on-device, which is good, but the results don’t look very impressive. Genmoji is somewhat useful but it’s easy to forget it even exists. And while using Charity is nice, taking full advantage of it requires a Charge premium subscription.
The Apple Intelligence features don’t feel very Apple-like, if you ask me. Also, another issue we’ve noticed with the iPhone 16 and the 18.2 update is that battery life, while previously fantastic has declined.
Cameras
The camera setup is a basic setup but a solid one. You get a dual-camera system on the rear: a 48 MP primary camera and a 12 MP ultra-wide camera, which Apple says has been upgraded for better low-light performance. You also get a 12 MP selfie camera.
The thing with the iPhone camera is its consistency. You get excellent skin tones that no other phone has matched. Even with the iPhone 16, the skin tones are the best. The 2x zoom captures a lot of detail because of the 24 MP output, which is fantastic. With the 2x camera, you can crop in and still get near-lossless performance. However, zoom beyond 2x and the quality drops.
Photographic Styles is a new feature with the iPhone 16. It lets you create a custom look for your photos from scratch while retaining all the details in the 24 MP JPEG. You can also capture neutral images, which is great. The ultra-wide camera is pretty good, taking great shots. With autofocus, it can now take excellent macro shots too.
Low-light images with the primary camera are fantastic and flagship-class. The ultra-wide loses a bit of detail in low light but is still decent. Portrait shots look great on the iPhone 16. You can zoom up to 3x to get a focal length that shows the right proportions for a face, which is a nice feature.
Video recording on the iPhone remains excellent, with 4K 60 FPS video being superb. However, Android phones have surpassed the iPhone in low-light video performance.
There are a couple of issues. Lens flare remains a problem that hasn’t been resolved. Another issue is the new camera control button, which feels unnecessary. After 90 days of using the phone, it hasn’t been useful even once.
Conclusion
The 3 month later our perspective is more critical. The iPhone 16 is definitely lacking a lot of features compared to Android phones in this price range even the smaller Android phones like Galaxy S24 and the upcoming S25, Xiaomi 15 or even something like the Google Pixel 9 XL. Also included is something like the OnePlus 13. All of these phones offer a 120 Hz refresh rate for the same price I’m talking about, and they also include a proper telephoto camera.
All of these phones have a great software experience now with long software support. How exactly are Apple users or Apple fans trying to justify the iPhone 16? I’m finding it very difficult, honestly.
