Apple iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max Review: Compelling Upgrade With My Favorite iPhone Feature in Years

A few days into my week-long test of the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, it became obvious to me that the best feature on Apple’s premium devices isn’t the new camera control button, bigger screen or larger battery. It isn’t even Apple Intelligence.

The iPhone 16 Pro’s ability to record high-resolution slow-motion video is the best new iPhone feature I’ve seen in years. I used the 16 Pro to record footage of a lion dance rehearsal and was surprised by how the slow motion made the dancers’ fast acrobatic movements look graceful, sustained and powerful — something that’s difficult to appreciate in real time. OK, I’m biased because I used to make short films and love the beauty of slo-mo.

See more: Apple iPhone 16 and 16 Plus Review: Little Improvements Add Up

But is the 16 Pro’s 4K, 120-frames-per-second video capability really enough to get people who aren’t camera nerds excited about Apple’s new premium iPhones — especially as the company touts the power of its Apple Intelligence suite of generative AI features? 

With its straight-sided titanium build and Siri’s rainbow glow, Apple hyped the iPhone 16 Pro as a vessel that will bring generative AI, in the form of Apple Intelligence, into our everyday lives.

Turns out, the complete vision for the iPhone 16 Pro with Apple Intelligence that the company showed off at its September iPhone event just isn’t ready yet. I appreciate that Apple is taking its time to wade into the gen-AI waters — it can hopefully avoid the blunders associated with a rushed rollout that we saw with Google’s AI Overviews release. But it’s unfortunate that people who may have bought the iPhone 16 Pro or 16 Pro Max specifically for Apple Intelligence will have to wait before experiencing it on their new phone.

And while I did get to test an early preview version of Apple Intelligence on the iPhone 16 Pro, key features were missing. I didn’t get to test the ChatGPT integration, Genmoji or Image Playground.

However, other standout features left me impressed with the 16 Pro. That high-resolution slow-mo recording function, various iOS 18 capabilities as well as hardware upgrades help the iPhone 16 Pro feel like a compelling upgrade.

Watch this: Review: Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro Is an Impressive Upgrade

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But should you buy it?

If you’re buying the $999 iPhone 16 Pro (£999, AU$1,799) or the $1,199 iPhone 16 Pro Max (£1,199, AU$2,149) for Apple Intelligence, don’t. At least not yet. Apple has indicated that iOS 18.1, which will introduce the AI features, will come out in October.

If you have an iPhone 12 Pro or older, upgrading to the 16 Pro makes a lot of sense. If you’re on a 13 Pro and still have a decent battery capacity, I’d say save your money. And if you’re on a 14 Pro or 15 Pro, there’s no need to upgrade. Also, I should note that the entry-level $999 iPhone 16 Pro only has 128GB of storage. For perspective, Motorola’s $300 Moto G Power comes with 128GB. Apple’s charging over three times the price, so it could have at least included 256GB of storage in the base model.

This year the 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max have the exact same cameras — unlike the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max, which had different telephoto options. Screen size, battery life and price should be the deciding factors when you’re choosing between the two.

Shortcomings aside, the iPhone 16 Pro is impressive, and it will likely be even more so as software updates and promised features are added. Just don’t buy it hoping for Apple Intelligence (yet).

iPhone 16 Pro’s 4K 120fps slow motion

The year was 2020 and in the middle of the lockdown, Sony sent me the Xperia 5 II, which could record 4K, 120fps, slow-motion videos. The feature was the first time slow-motion video in 4K resolution had ever been offered on a phone. The Xperia 5 II was clearly ahead of its time and, until now, had been the high-water mark for phone-based slo-mo recording.

Apple takes all this to another level.

Not only can the 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max record 4K 120fps slow motion video, it can do so with little effort. Unlike the Xperia 5 II, which required using a professional camera app to record and preserve the footage, Apple bakes in the ability right into the iPhone’s native camera app.

And the results look outstanding, which is why this feature is such a big deal. Previous slow motion videos shot on the iPhone could look good if there was a lot of light. But they topped out at a lower HD resolution and the image quality was a significant step down from regular 4K 30fps video recording.

The iPhone 16 Pro’s new slo-mo has great details, good dynamic range and accurate colors which puts it on par with regular iPhone video quality. Even when I was recording a lion dance rehearsal by the Lion Dance Me company in their San Francisco warehouse space, under medium lighting, the video looked good. You can see this slo-mo footage and more in the video below.

Watch this: iPhone 16 Pro 4K 120fps Slow Motion Video Test

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Apple Intelligence: Beta steps

The review unit Apple loaned me ran the iOS 18.1 developer beta, which allowed me to preview some Apple Intelligence features. It was a similar experience I had running the developer beta of 18.1 on my iPhone 15 Pro. And while Apple Intelligence is the headline feature for the phone, it’s not quite fully baked. But from what I was able to test, I found Apple Intelligence to be useful and fun, and could see its potential.

The writing tools are clever. You can have it proofread something you wrote, or prompt it to rewrite it in a different tone and style, like concise, professional or friendly. The professional style is a bit stilted. It rewrote a text to a neighbor who was cat sitting for me, in which I joked about my cat being sad that I was gone. It conjured: “My feline companion is experiencing distress due to my excessive work commitments, which have resulted in a neglect of his preferred activities, such as playtime and quality interactions.”

I found this hysterical.

As a professional writer, I don’t expect I’d use these rewrite tools regularly. But one Apple Intelligence feature that I did use a ton was the Summarize tool, especially in Safari for news stories. I read a bunch of articles every day, so I can see the Summarize tool being the key to help weed out the clickbait from stories I should actually peruse.

The Create a Memory Movie in the Photos app is fun. I gave it the prompt “San Francisco brunch,” and it made a Memory Movie titled “Brunching in the City” complete with the song Cissy Strut by The Meters.

But probably the most notable feature has to be the Clean Up tool in Photos, which lets you remove unwanted elements from an image. In this photo of CNET’s Lisa Eadicicco, I removed a chair on the left side and monitor on the right. I would have a hard time telling if there had been something there – aside from the leftover chair wheels.

Here’s one of CNET’s Lexy Savvides and Celso Bulgatti.

Below is the same photo after I used the Clean Up tool to remove a person from the background who was talking to someone out of the frame. The results are good. But when I removed the van from the background, it was replaced with a Salavdor Dali-like bike wheel blob. 

Siri’s glowing interface looks cool and the assistant seems faster and more helpful. When talking to Siri, I can be more natural and change what I say mid-thought. But this is far from the Gemini Live capability on Google’s Pixel 9 phones, which has its own issues. Siri handles changing phone controls well, but when I asked what my phone’s serial number was, it was unresponsive. The same was true when I asked how much storage I had on my phone.

Again, this was a preview version of Apple Intelligence, and the public release should arrive in October. While I take issue with Apple linking the iPhone 16 Pro and Apple Intelligence despite the gen-AI feature not being available, I do see where Apple is headed with generative AI and large language models, and I’m glad it’s taking its time to get there.

The iPhone 16 Pro has more Camera Control

Apple added the Action button last year, and in 2024 gave us the Camera Control button — which is so much more than just a button. Essentially, it’s a shortcut key for the camera. Press it to open the camera and press it again to take a photo. Press and hold to record a video.

The button, located just below the power button, sits flush with the iPhone’s side and can also be lightly double-tapped to bring up a gorgeous tiny menu of camera tools that gives me Q-Tip-in-the-ear levels of satisfaction every time I see it. If you select the zoom tool, you can slide your finger across the button to zoom in and out, almost like a miniature MacBook trackpad. You can also set it to adjust the “aperture” for Portrait mode photos to make the background look more or less blurry.

My favorite use is for swiping through Apple’s new Photographic Styles to get a preview of different looks before I take a photo. Apple said that more functionality is in the works, including the ability to half-press the button to lock focus and exposure and full-press to take a photo — like a dedicated professional mirrorless camera.

The biggest downside is if I’m holding the phone one-handed (I’m right-handed) to take a horizontal photo, I usually have my index finger across the side to help get a good grip on the phone, and that can accidentally interact with the Camera Control key.

As useful as the Camera Control button is, it seems ideally geared for Visual Intelligence, which can add context to whatever your iPhone’s cameras are pointed at, a bit like Google Lens. Unfortunately, it won’t arrive until later this year. 

The Camera Control button will work with other photography apps, but I wish it could be used to swipe in apps like TikTok, or scroll through social media feeds and stories. It could be the elegant 2024 version of Blackberry’s iconic scroll wheel.

iPhone 16 Pro cameras and photos

In essence, the regular iPhone 16 Pro has three new cameras. It inherits the 12-megapixel 5x telephoto camera from the Pro Max, replacing last year’s 3x telephoto on the 15 Pro. It gets a new 48-megapixel ultrawide camera, and the main camera’s 48-megapixel sensor gets upgraded to a faster one. And it’s worth noting again that both the 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max have the same cameras.

Take a look at some of my favorite photos from the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max.

The higher resolution ultrawide camera allows for truly great macro photos: super close-up ones like this one of a lion dance head mask — look at the details in that fur!

But the ultrawide in macro mode can also grab good food snaps like this image of a Four Barrel cortado and scone.

Ultrawide photos look good and are closer in parity to the main camera in terms of image quality, but there’s still quite a gulf between them. Check out this photo of a wine bar taken with the main camera.

And here’s an image of the same bar taken with the ultrawide.

I like the contrast in the ultrawide photo, but it has less dynamic range than the main camera’s image, which is also brighter. Lens flares are minimal; notice the street light (out of frame) bleeding in at the top of this photo and the small soft flare.

Main camera images have a wide dynamic range like this shot of the SoMa neighborhood in San Francisco.

Photos from the main camera have great image quality. Skin tones look wonderful. Here’s a group shot of some CNET-ers backlit by a San Francisco sunset. Everyone’s complexion has a nice soft glow — maybe a tad too soft, but it’s far from looking plastic-y and processed.

Here’s a night mode photo of San Francisco’s city hall taken on a foggy evening.

Apple overhauled its Photographic Styles, and this is one of the places where I enjoy using the camera control button the most, just swiping between styles to achieve the look I want. It reminds me to an extent of the film simulations on the Fujifilm X100VI — not only in how these styles smartly change aspects of a photo, but for the fact that you can take control and customize each.

When reviewing a photo or video in the Photos app, especially right after shooting it, you have to tap the display to see it full screen. It’s not the end of the world. But when I’m filming a video and want to check a shot, it’s just one more step – and sometimes in the heat of the moment, this adds friction that doesn’t need to be there.

iPhone 16 Pro’s Audio Mix is outstanding 

Speaking of the Photos app, I’m impressed with the new Audio Mix feature for videos. iPhone 16 Pro videos straight out of camera already have a solid default noise-isolation feature. Audio Mix lets you adjust the audio you’ve recorded even more to isolate a person talking on camera, and make them sound like they’re recording on a studio microphone. You can also place voices on a center audio track for film and preserve environmental sounds on a separate audio track.

Watch the review video that’s attached to this story to see Audio Mix in action. I recorded a video of CNET’s Jessica Fierro singing and playing a guitar on a noisy rooftop. And we were blown away by how Audio Mix was able to remove city sounds, HVAC noise and wind.

The iPhone 16 Pro is all about iOS 18 and A18 Pro

One of the best parts of the 16 Pro and Pro Max is iOS 18, which is all about personalizing your iPhone to fit your needs. Whether it’s being able to move apps anywhere on the home screen, change icon colors and size or even remove app names, or add shortcuts to the Control Center, iOS wants you to customize your iPhone.

The flashlight controls in the Dynamic Island are fun and useful, and being able to use any emoji or live photos sticker as a tapback in Messages is such a delight. The QR code in the Passwords app for Wi-Fi is fantastic. For more on the new iPhone software, read CNET’s iOS 18 review.

Powering everything on the 16 Pro series is Apple’s new A18 Pro chip. In use, the 16 Pro has been peppy, and able to handle big workloads from filming copious amounts of 4K slow-mo footage to playing video games and everyday scrolling.

In terms of battery, I’ve been primarily using the smaller 16 Pro, and it gets through a day fine. On my heaviest day of use (filming on it, having the screen at full brightness) the phone started at 6:30 a.m. with a full charge and dropped to 12% by 7 p.m. I topped it off for 15 minutes, which brought it back up to 37%, and it made it to 1 a.m. with 22% left. Check back on this review, as I will be updating it with results from CNET’s battery tests.

iPhone 16 Pro wrap-up

The iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max have everything we’ve come to expect in a year-over-year upgrade. Even without Apple Intelligence, the 6.3-inch iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9-inch iPhone 16 Pro Max have a slew of upgrades including a good battery life, outstanding photo and video chops and iOS 18. And the negatives are as thin as the borders around the larger screens: You only get 128GB of storage for a grand, plus drab color options and a new camera button that might get accidentally tapped.

The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max are excellent phones worthy of a spot in your pocket — if you can afford them.

How we test phones

Every phone tested by CNET’s reviews team was actually used in the real world. We test a phone’s features, play games and take photos. We examine the display to see if it’s bright, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and build to see how it is to hold and whether it has an IP-rating for water resistance. We push the processor’s performance to the extremes using standardized benchmark tools like GeekBench and 3DMark, along with our own anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution videos and playing graphically intense games at high refresh rates.

All the cameras are tested in a variety of conditions from bright sunlight to dark indoor scenes. We try out special features like night mode and portrait mode and compare our findings against similarly priced competing phones. We also check out the battery life by using it daily as well as running a series of battery drain tests.

We take into account additional features like support for 5G, satellite connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus support, fast charging speeds and foldable displays, among others that can be useful. We balance all of this against the price to give you the verdict on whether that phone, whatever price it is, actually represents good value. While these tests may not always be reflected in CNET’s initial review, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.