Apple iPhone 16

At Rs. 309,899 (the only store price we track), the Apple iPhone 16 is expensive for a phone with a 60Hz screen and a camera that barely changed from the iPhone 15. Its value comes from long iOS support, strong all-round performance and a refined, reliable experience rather than from new features.

Main advantages

• A18 chip and 8GB RAM, with headroom for years of iOS updates and Apple Intelligence
• Full-day battery life and 25W MagSafe wireless charging
• Excellent video, including 4K 60fps on both cameras and the Audio Mix voice tools
• New Action button and Camera Control, IP68 rating and a tougher front glass

Main compromises

• 60Hz display at a flagship price
• Main camera results almost identical to the iPhone 15
• No charger in the box and only 128GB on the base model
• Runs slightly warmer than the iPhone 15 under load

Compared with the alternatives: the Google Pixel 10 (Rs. 219,499) is cheaper and has a 120Hz screen and zoom camera, but tests show weaker battery life, throttling and slow charging. The iPhone 15 Pro Max (Rs. 481,499) adds ProMotion and a 5x telephoto at a far higher price.

Verdict: a good buy if you are coming from an iPhone 13 or older and want a dependable iPhone for several years. iPhone 15 owners should skip it, and buyers who care about screen smoothness or zoom should look at a Pro model.

The iPhone 16 has a 6.1 inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen at 1179 x 2556 resolution (about 460 ppi), with HDR10 and Dolby Vision. Colour reproduction, contrast and touch response are top-notch, and HDR video looks excellent.

Brightness: Apple rates it at 1000 nits typical and 2000 nits in high-brightness mode, and it is visibly brighter outdoors than the iPhone 15. It can also dim all the way down to one nit, which makes late-night scrolling much more comfortable.

Limitations:

• 60Hz refresh rate, with no adaptive switching. App launches, Dynamic Island animations and tab switching feel slightly laggy if you are coming from a 120Hz phone, and games are capped at low frame rates. People who have never used a high-refresh screen may not notice.
• PWM flicker is unchanged from the iPhone 15, so users sensitive to flicker may get eye strain or headaches.
• Bezels are a little thick and the panel is effectively the same as last year's.

The front uses the 2024 generation of Ceramic Shield, which Apple says is tougher. The improvement is mainly that cracks are less likely to spread, not better scratch resistance, so a screen protector is still a good idea.

The Apple A18 (3 nm) is a two-generation jump from the A16 in the iPhone 15, and it is paired with 8GB RAM, the same amount as the Pro models. In everyday use the speed difference is hard to feel straight out of the box, but benchmarks run roughly 10% to 30% faster depending on the task, and that extra power mainly helps with demanding work and future-proofing.

Gaming: the A18 gives access to console-class games. Assassin's Creed runs at a consistent 30 frames per second with impressive draw distances, though settings are pulled back heavily. In demanding titles like Genshin Impact it holds frame rates more steadily than the iPhone 15, while mid-tier games like PUBG feel similar on both because the 60Hz screen limits high-frame-rate play.

Heat: the stronger chip and compact body mean the iPhone 16 runs a couple of degrees warmer than the iPhone 15 under sustained load, despite a larger internal graphite sheet.

Versus the Pro: the A18 is only slightly behind the A18 Pro, with most of the gap in graphics performance, so non-Pro buyers give up very little speed.

The rear has a 48 MP main camera with sensor-shift OIS and a 12 MP ultrawide, plus a 12 MP front camera.

Main camera: photos are solid and very much in the iPhone style, but almost impossible to tell apart from the iPhone 15. The default look still brightens shadows and lowers contrast, especially with people in the frame. The new Camera Control lets you change exposure, zoom, photographic styles and tone; turning tone down brings back natural shadows. Night shots show a small improvement in colour and smoothness, and glare is handled a little better, but lens flare from point lights at night remains.

Ultrawide and macro: the ultrawide now has autofocus, so it can take proper macro shots, and its brighter aperture makes ultrawide photos slightly brighter and sharper than before.

Selfies: results look the same as the iPhone 15, apart from slightly better shadow processing.

Video: both cameras record up to 4K 60fps; the 4K 120fps mode is reserved for the Pro models. Useful additions include Audio Mix (isolate the person in frame or make speech sound studio-like after recording), pausing a recording, recording while music plays, full-resolution 4K quick-take video and spatial video in 1080p for headsets.

Camera Control drawbacks: the half-press is sensitive enough to cause accidental shots, the placement forces an awkward grip, and pressing it can add shake, so many people will simply use it as a shutter button.

The iPhone 16 has a 3561 mAh battery, slightly larger than the iPhone 15's, and with the efficient 3 nm A18 it comfortably lasts a full day of normal use. In side-by-side use it gave about 45 minutes more screen-on time than the iPhone 15, which often ran out by late evening, though other long-term use found battery life about the same as before. GSMArena's lab test also showed longer call, web browsing and video streaming times than the iPhone 15.

Wired charging: around 50% in 30 minutes with a fast USB-C charger. One comparison found wired speed unchanged from the iPhone 15, with a full charge taking about five minutes longer, while GSMArena measured a full charge in about 1 hour 42 minutes.

Wireless charging: the new MagSafe charger supports up to 25W, up from 15W, but it needs Apple's higher-power adapter to reach that speed. Qi2 is also supported.

Other points:

• No charger in the box, only a USB-C cable.
• The phone can share power with 4.5W reverse wired charging for earbuds or a watch.

The iPhone 16 launched with iOS 18 and our database lists support up to iOS 27. Apple does not publish a fixed number of update years, but its iPhones traditionally receive major updates for many years, and the 8GB RAM helps the A18 handle newer features.

Useful features:

• More customisation than ever: place and tint home screen icons freely, change lock screen shortcuts and lock individual apps
• The Action button can be mapped to the camera, flashlight, a shortcut or any app
• Apple Intelligence support, including writing tools, email and text summaries, smart replies and Clean Up for removing distractions from photos

Apple Intelligence limitations: the features were not available at launch, rolled out later and in stages by region, and early versions had clear limits: Clean Up results looked weaker than Google's equivalent, smart replies only handle certain question types, and rewritten text can lose your tone. Check which features are available in Pakistan before treating them as a buying reason.

iOS remains clean, with no ads or duplicate third-party apps, though newcomers from Android may find some restrictions.