iPhone 16 Pro vs iPhone 16: All the differences
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Intro
If, like me, you prefer a smaller iPhone, these are your best options: the premium iPhone 16 Pro and the more affordable iPhone 16.
Picking between these two is not easy, and this year, the differences are bigger than usual. On one hand, the iPhone 16 Pro has a slightly bigger screen, a dedicated 5X telephoto camera and longer battery life. On the other hand, the iPhone 16 has quite a few upgrades, but unfortunately it still runs at 60Hz and has no ProMotion. Disappointing, to say the least.
But these are many other differences, so let's see if you should get the iPhone 16 or go all out with the iPhone 16 Pro.
iPhone 16 Pro vs iPhone 16 differences:
| iPhone 16 Pro | iPhone 16 |
|---|---|
| Slightly larger, 6.3-inch size | Smaller, 6.1-inch form factor |
| Super slim screen borders | Regular screen border size |
| Made of titanium and matte glass | Made of aluminum and matte glass |
| Slightly heavier at 199 grams | Weight of 170g |
| Action Button, Camera Control | Same Action Button, Camera Control |
| 120Hz ProMotion | 60Hz refresh rate |
| A18 Pro chipset | A18 chip |
| 6-core GPU | 5-core GPU |
| Wi-Fi 7 | Wi-Fi 7 support |
| Same 8GB RAM | 8GB RAM |
| 128GB, 256GB, 512GB AND 1TB storage options | 128GB, 256GB, 512GB storage options |
| 5X zoom telephoto camera | No telephoto camera |
| New 48MP ultra-wide camera | 12MP ultra-wide camera |
| 48MP main camera | 48MP main camera with slightly different specs |
| 27 hours of video playback | 22 hours of video playback |
| 25W MagSafe | 25W MagSafe |
Table of Contents:
- Design and Display
- Performance and Software
- Camera
- Audio Quality
- Battery and Charging
- Specs
- Which one should you buy?
Also read:
- Apple iPhone 16 Pro Review: Boringly great
- Apple iPhone 16 Review: A Step Forward, But Not a Giant Leap
- iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15 Review
- iPhone 16 Pro vs iPhone 15 Pro
- The best iPhone to buy: our verdict
Design and Display Quality
The iPhone 16 Pro is now bigger, but not by much
The regular iPhone 16 brings colors back! (Image by PhoneArena)
For years, the regular iPhone and the Pro model were roughly the same nice and compact size, at about 6.1 inches. But this year, for the first time, we have a bigger, 6.3-inch iPhone 16 Pro model, while the regular version sticks with the smaller, 6.1-inch size from the past.
Compact phone lovers might be troubled by this now bigger Pro model, but it's not a huge increase in size. The Pro model now gets thinner bezels too, which help shrink the dimensions a bit.
The rest is familiar stuff: a triple camera on the Pro, and a dual camera on the vanilla model (but now in a pill-shaped island).
There is also a divide in materials. The iPhone 16 Pro uses a fancy titanium frame, while the iPhone 16 uses aluminum. Both devices come with a frosted glass back, but the regular 16 model has way more vibrant color options.
All four iPhone 16 models get a couple of new buttons.
The Action Button is above the volume keys on the left, and a new Camera Control now appears below the power button on the right (the mmWave antenna on US models is moved to the bottom left, in case you are wondering).
Both the Pro and regular models get the new buttons (Image by PhoneArena)
Having more physical keys is great! You already know how the Action Button works from the 15 Pro series, but the Camera Control is brand new. It works great if you are looking for a convenient way to open the camera, take a photo or start recording a video.
However, the trackpad functionality where you swipe and tap on it feels fiddly. You get to adjust various settings with it, swap photographic styles or zoom in and out, but it all feels a bit gimmicky, and we found that most of the time it was easier to do these adjustments on the larger screen instead.
You get a USB-C port on the bottom on both the Pro and the regular model, but the Pro supports faster USB 3 transfer speeds, while the regular version only supports USB 2 speeds. IP68 water and dust protection is the same on both.
The iPhone 16 and 16 Pro have same quality screens, but the bezels on the 16 Pro are slimmer (Image by PhoneArena)
Next up, screens. A slightly bigger, 6.3-inch display on the iPhone 16 Pro gives you slightly more space to work with, while the iPhone 16 has a 6.1-inch screen.
Sadly, the big upgrade everyone was hoping for on the regular iPhone 16 model did not happen yet again. Yes, we are talking about ProMotion, which is still only available on the iPhone 16 Pro devices. It's just frustrating having a 60Hz vanilla iPhone 16 in 2024/2025, and that phone costs $800!
At least there are some smaller screen updates that have made their way to both the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro. First, they can both go down to just 1 nit, dimmer than before, which helps for comfortable use at night.
And both also get a new Ceramic Shield cover that Apple says is tougher than the glass on any other smartphone.
As for ProMotion... rumors say Apple will finally add it to the iPhone 17 series, but even that is questionable and way out in the future.
Also read: iPhone 16 colors
Performance and Software
To Pro or to simp
A Pro chip gets you some extra GPU powers (Image by PhoneArena)
Apple is ready to jump head first into AI, or Apple Intelligence, with the iPhone 16 family and you know that requires a bit more firepower.
Both the iPhone 16 and the 16 Pro arrive with new 3nm chipsets with slight differences. The iPhone 16 Pro gets the A18 Pro, while the iPhone 16 has an A18 chip, no Pro.
Both phones come with new heat dissipation materials, which deliver a 20% improvement in thermals. This will help with longer gaming sessions and more intense tasks such as AI ones. And you can see that in benchmarks, the only major difference is in GPU performance, and even that is minimal after throttling.
The regular iPhone 16 is also closing the gap in RAM, as now both the 16 and 16 Pro have 8GB of RAM on board. That has a lot to do with AI features requiring more RAM and we now know for sure that all four new iPhone 16 support the same AI magic.
Speaking of Apple Intelligence, the first features arrived with the iOS 18.1 update on October 28th. What you have is notification summaries, the new writing tools and Clean Up in Photos that allows you to remove objects.
But the big chunk of Apple Intelligence features is coming to both the 16 and 16 Pro later on. The iOS 18.2 update is expected to arrive in December and it will deliver the ChatGPT Siri integration, as well as Visual Intelligence, the Image Playground AI generator, Genmoji and Image Wand.
The big and final Siri revamp will be the icing on the cake, coming with iOS 18.3 around March of 2025.
Also read: iPhone 16 AI features
When it comes to storage, you have a base model with 128GB storage on both. The Pro, however, is available in an insane 1TB option, while the vanilla iPhone 16 maxes out at 512GB of storage.
Both the 16 Pro and the 16 support the new Wi-Fi 7 which can deliver better speeds and lower latency, and will be especially helpful on congested networks. With a new Snapdragon X71 modem, you also can get improved reception in some areas. Tests of this new modem also show faster download speeds on all three major US carriers, so that's a nice extra, but we have also seen some reports about more dropped calls, so the performance seems to be a mixed bag.
Camera
Zoom, zoom, zoom
Apart from ProMotion, camera quality has been the other noticeable difference between a Pro and non-Pro iPhones.
And this year, that difference is growing as the iPhone 16 Pro gets not only a more capable, 5X zoom camera, but also a brand new 48MP ultra-wide shooter with better low-light performance. ProRes video, recording to an SSD and a few other power user features also remain available only on the Pro model.
The regular iPhone 16, however, still has a 48MP main camera that matches the one on the 16 Pro.
In our PhoneArena Camera Score, we find small differences between these two, mostly around zoom quality, as you would expect.
iPhone 16 Pro vs iPhone 16 Camera Differences:
| iPhone 16 Pro | iPhone 16 |
|---|---|
| 48MP main camera 1/1.28" sensor f/1.78 aperture 24mm lens | 48MP main camera 1/1.56" sensor f/1.6 aperture 26mm lens |
| 48MP ultra-wide camera f/2.2 13mm lens | 12MP ultra-wide camera f/2.2 13mm lens |
| 12MP 5X zoom camera f/2.8 120mm lens | No zoom camera at all |
| 4K120 slow motion video | 4K120 slow motion video |
| Studio-quality four-mic array Audio Mix feature | Regular mics Audio Mix feature |
One useful new feature on both phones are the new Photographic Styles, which are Apple's advanced photo filters. Previously, you could only set a filter when you capture a photo, but now you can change a Style and adjust it after the shot. This will make these a lot more useful.
And this year, the iPhone 16 also gets Spatial Video support, which was previously a Pro model feature. Spatial Video is basically 3D video that looks incredibly real on the Apple Vision Pro and other AR/VR headsets. Not many people own such a headset to enjoy this format but it's nice to have that option.
Audio Mix allows you get crisper and more isolated voices in video
In terms of video features, however, the big one is super crisp 4K120 slow motion video, available only on the 16 Pro. The vanilla 16 model maxes out at 1080p120, which we have had for years.
Only the Pro model gets the new four quality studio mics, while the vanilla version stick with regular mics, so audio capture should sound better on the Pro.
Both models, however, get improved Wind Noise reduction in video recordings and calls.
The new Audio Mix video editing feature also arrives to both. With it, you can make voices stand out and isolate them from background noise.
Good news is that for AI-powered image and video editing features, the 16 and 16 Pro have the same ones. With iOS 18.1 in October, Apple is adding Clean Up to Photos which allows you to remove an object, much like the Magic Eraser on Pixel phones. You can also blur someone's face easily with this feature when you just draw on top of it.
Also read: iPhone 16 all camera features
Audio Quality and Haptics
When it comes to audio quality, Apple says loudspeakers have improved in a meaningful way on the Pro models, which is good news.
You also get four new "studio quality" mics on the 16 Pro, which will be super cool for recording voice notes and videos. The vanilla iPhone 16 sticks with the familiar regular mics.
There is no difference between the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 when it comes to haptics: both use the same Taptic Engine inside after all.
Battery Life and Charging
The Pro has slightly longer battery life
There is a negligible difference in battery size between the two (Image by PhoneArena)
The iPhone 16 gets a 3,561 mAh battery, nearly 6% bigger than the one on the iPhone 15.
What does that mean in battery life numbers?
We put both these phones to the test and here are the results we got.
In our battery tests, we found that the iPhone 16 Pro scores better for YouTube video streaming, while for other workloads like web browsing and 3D gaming, the 16 Pro and the regular iPhone 16 go neck in neck.
Also read: iPhone 16 Battery and charging
We were hoping to see faster charging with the iPhone 16 series, but we only get that partially.
Wired charging speeds have not changed, so the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 are still rated to charge at up to 20W via a wire. Not super fast, to say the least.
However, MagSafe wireless charging is now faster than before at 25W, so we have the funny situation of having faster wireless charging than wired charge. We have not seen this happen on any other phone.
You need to have the new 25W MagSafe charging puck and pair it with at least a 30W charging brick to get the full benefit of this faster wireless top-up speeds. With all those conditions met, you should get a 50% top-up in 30 minutes, while previously a 30-minute charge gave you around 35% charge back.
Specs Comparison
And here is an overview of the iPhone 16 Pro vs iPhone 16 specs:
| iPhone 16 Pro | iPhone 16 |
|---|---|
| Size 149.6 x 71.5 x 8.25mm | Size 147.6 x 71.6 x 7.8 mm |
| Weight 199 g | Weight 170 g |
| Screen 6.3-inch OLED 120Hz ProMotion | Screen 6.1-inch OLED 60Hz |
| Processor Apple A18 Pro Second-gen 3nm tech | Processor Apple A18 Second-gen 3nm tech |
| Configs 8/128GB for $1,000 8/256GB for $1,100 8/512GB for $1,300 8/1TB for $1,500 | Configs 8/128GB for $800 8/256GB for $900 8/512GB for $1,100 |
| Cameras 48MP main 48MP ultra-wide 12MP 5X zoom 12MP front | Cameras 48MP main 12MP ultra-wide - 12MP front |
| Battery Size 3,582 mAh | Battery Size 3,561 mAh |
| Charging 20W wired 25W MagSafe | Charging 20W wired 25W MagSafe |
- You can also use PhoneArena's comparison tool to compare iPhones
Which one should you buy?
So... which one should you go for?
Let's start with price. A base 128GB iPhone 16 costs $800, while the same storage 16 Pro will set you back $1,000, so we have a price difference of $200.
Those $200 dollars buy you a slightly bigger screen on the Pro model, slightly longer battery life, a 5X zoom camera and most imporantly, a smooth 120Hz ProMotion display.
A few other smaller features are also only available on the Pro version: 4K120 slow motion video, fast USB 3 data transfer, recording ProRes and ProRaw formats, and a better GPU for gaming.
So what's the verdict? Well, you still should go for the Pro if you enjoy having smooth scrolling and a zoom camera, but for all the rest, the regular model has improved a lot and supports all the same Apple Intelligence features and cool new buttons.
What do you think? Are you getting the iPhone 16 Pro or the regular model?
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