The iPhone 16 Plus is essentially the vanilla iPhone 16, but for people who prefer a bigger screen and a more reliable battery life. It’s the perfect variant that sits between the base and pro models. This has been Apple’s tradition since introducing the Plus variant with the iPhone 14 series. That said, they are upping the ante this year but only to an extent.
iPhone 16 Plus
Rs 89,900
What Is Good?
- Vibrant colour options
- Premium look, feel, and build quality
- Action button is useful
- Excellent display quality, speakers
- A18 Bionic is good for gaming and performance
- More than reliable battery life
- Good camera performance
What Is Bad?
- Still stuck on 60Hz refresh rate, no AOD
- Camera Control is inconsistent
- Slow charging speeds
- No dedicated telephoto camera
The iPhone 16 Plus tries to clear the blurred line between the Pro and base models with the new A18 Bionic chip, a new Camera Control button and the Action Button, which was previously exclusive to the Pro variants. Besides all this, Apple finally hopped onto the AI bandwagon with its Apple Intelligence, and the iPhone 16 Plus also benefits from it. It’s not all roses though, the phone still skips out on some essentials.
Pricing and Availability in India
The iPhone 16 Plus is available in three storage variants. The phone retails at the same price the iPhone 15 Plus was available.
| Variants | Price in India |
| 128GB | Rs 89,900 |
| 256GB | Rs 99,900 |
| 512GB (Our Unit) | Rs 119,900 |
Design and Build Quality
The iPhone 16 Plus has not undergone any drastic changes from its predecessor. It comes with a few minor tweaks that give it a more premium appeal. What’s majorly different here is the vibrant and eye-catching colour choices that Apple has ignored for so long. This is a major departure from the iPhone 15 Plus (Review) which was launched with muted colours. Apple seems to understand the way the current market is moving and is slowly adapting to the current trends. It is available in five different colours, all of which look stunning.
| Design | Specifications |
| Colour Options | Black, White, Pink, Teal, and Ultramarine |
| Dimensions (HxDxW) | 160.9mm x 7.80mm x 77.8mm |
| Weight | 199 grams |
| IP Rating | IP68 |
| Build Materials | Stainless steel frames, Ceramic Shield display protection |
While I have the White colourway, my eyes and heart lie with the Ultramarine hue, which stands out brilliantly. The frosted glass back panel and aluminium frames are still coated in a matte finish, making it easy to grip. The chamfered edges are ergonomically sane, so using the phone for longer hours won’t be an issue.
The only visual difference on the back is the camera alignment. There’s been quite a twist, veering right only to circle back to where it all began. This approach is a harkback to the iPhone X but with a touch of modernity. And, that comes with the raised housing. The dimensions of the phone are similar to last year but it drops a negligible two grams from its weight. It’s still not a one-handed phone due to its large screen, but reachability is not a major issue. The iPhone 16 Plus gets an IP68 rating for dust and water protection, so you should be good around swimming pools.
The iPhone 16 Plus Gets New Buttons — What Do They Do?
The iPhone 16 Plus replaces the mute switch with the Action button, previously exclusive to the Pro models. It’s great to see this button trickle down to the base variants, as the customisation options are expansive. We have a full list of things one can do with it, you should check it out here.
The power button on the right frame now has a buddy, the Camera Control button. It gives you a quick entry into the camera app, making it easier to capture photos. You also get customisation options that let you open the camera from the Instagram app and more. But, it’s not just a shortcut for the camera app. Two light taps on it let you switch between cameras, modes, tweak the exposure, and more. All of these can be done with a simple glide across it thanks to the Sapphire Crystal.
It’s mainly targeted towards professionals who use their iPhones a lot for photography. The idea behind the button is excellent, but the real-life execution of it is a bit inconsistent in its current stage. The swipes did not register most of the time, causing me to do it frustratingly or eventually give up. Moreover, it is made to replicate a camera shutter button, so it’s ideal for people who take photos in landscape mode. And for that, it works brilliantly. With the era of Instagram stories, reels and YouTube shorts in full gear, I mostly took photos and videos in portrait mode. Due to the wide structure of the phone, reaching the Camera Control button with my thumb was awkward.
Display and Audio
The 6.7-inch Super Retina XDR display on the iPhone 16 Plus remains the same as the iPhone 15 Plus. It still gets the Dynamic Island that trickled down to the base variants last year. The display has great viewing angles with good clarity when consuming content or just browsing.
| Display | Specifications |
| Type | Super Retina XDR OLED display |
| Size | 6.7-inch |
| Resolution | 1290 x 2796 pixels |
| Refresh Rate | 60Hz |
| Maximum brightness | Claimed: 2000 nits, Tested: 1997 nits |
| Minimum brightness | 72 nits |
| Others Features | Dynamic Island, HDR, Wide colour (P3), Fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating |
Movies such as Central Intelligence, The Batman and Madgaon Express appeared stunning with vibrant colours and amazing details. Eerie shows such as Severance and Baby Reindeer also benefitted from the display on the iPhone 16 Plus with deep blacks portrayed perfectly.
The brightness numbers don’t change here, but it’s something that didn’t necessarily need an uplift. The display gets bright enough under glaring sunlight. The only gripe I have with this almost-perfect display is the 60Hz refresh rate. A faster refresh rate has been long due on the base iPhones, and considering the near-pro status that Apple wants these phones to achieve, this year could have been the perfect time to upgrade. Besides, the iPhone 16 Plus also skips out on AOD (Always on Display).
Just like the display, there are no advancements to the speaker quality, but they anyway sound great with a sane amount of depth and good clarity.
Performance and Software
The A18 Bionic in the iPhone 16 Plus is powerful — it’s one of the best chips Apple has to offer under the Rs 1 lakh price range. The company claims 30% and 40% faster CPU and GPU performance over the iPhone 15 Plus, respectively. The gap widens when you compare the raw performance with the iPhone 14 Plus. The A18 is also custom-built for Apple Intelligence; one of the reasons to skip the A17 Bionic on the base models.
| Hardware | Specifications |
| Processor | A18 Bionic (3nm) |
| RAM/ROM variants | 8GB RAM, 128GB/256GB/512GB ROM |
| Geekbench 6 Benchmark Scores | 3100- Single-Core, 7611– Multi-Core |
| Software version | iOS 18.1 |
I don’t really have to tell you that the iPhone 16 Plus is blazing fast in daily life usage. Be it switching between work apps or editing and exporting short videos on Vita, the phone easily manages all this. Scrolling mindlessly on Instagram and then switching to an hour-long session of BGMI did not fire up the innards of the phone.
Heavier games like Assasin’s Creed Mirage, Resident Evil 4, and Diablo Immortal run brilliantly on the device. The base iPhones now have support for Ray tracing. In most cases, the above-mentioned games run at around 30fps, but the fact that you can play games of such high fidelity on a smartphone is still baffling to me.
The thermal management has been done neatly, with the frames of the phone running comparatively cool even after 30 minutes of continuous gameplay.
A Quick Look at Apple Intelligence
Around the end of our review, the iOS 18.1 update was rolled out which carried Apple Intelligence. It’s not fully unlocked with a few more additional features yet to roll out. I haven’t used it to its full extent to form a proper opinion considering the short time.
The Writing Tool feature works splendidly and has helped me proofread multiple emails before sending them. The tone of the message can also be tweaked with the use of this feature, but as of now, it does not work on WhatsApp. Besides this, notification summaries are quite helpful, especially for someone like me who is a part of multiple football groups that have different conversations going on. That said, in its current form, it’s chaotic. In one instance, it mixed two different tweets from X which had absolutely no relevance.
Type to Siri is now possible by double tapping the bottom of the screen, and the questions can be more conversational now. It’s still a hit or miss in most situations, but I want to come back to this after a few weeks to see how things turn out.
Cameras
The rear cameras from the iPhone 15 Plus are still here. The ultra-wide camera gets a wider aperture and support for autofocus, so you can also use it as a macro lens to take close-up shots.
| Cameras | Specifications |
| Primary camera | 48-megapixel, 26 mm, f/1.6 aperture |
| Ultrawide angle camera | 12-megapixel, 13 mm, f/2.2 aperture and 120° field of view |
| Selfie camera | 12-megapixel camera, f/1.9 aperture |
| Video recording | Up to 4K Dolby Vision at 60 fps |
The primary camera takes amazing shots in daylight. The photos have good detail and a balance of colour tones. The dynamic range is also well-balanced with the post-processing of the image extracting a fair amount of details from the shadows. The exposure and white balance of the photos are also maintained neatly. Night mode also kicks in for low-light captures, this allows the cameras to take in more light. I’ve often found myself defaulting to the iPhone 16 Plus for clicking photos during an outing at night. Images have good details and almost no noise around the corners.
The ultra-wide shooter can take in more light due to the change in aperture. It’s also fun to take macro photos using the same, giving you extreme closeup captures of flowers or even insects. Overall, it’s a camera that you can rely on for all your social media shenanigans. The photo rendering is also much quicker, which is impressive. Selfies are the same as last year, images have good details and balanced skin tones. You also get Spatial Photo and Video recording for playback on the Vision Pro.
If you prefer more granular control over the colour science of the images, you can mess around with Photographic Styles in the camera app. These are essentially suped-up versions of filters that can make your image look better depending on the frame you imagine. These can be accessed using the Camera Control button as well.
Battery and Charging
The iPhone 16 Plus’ main USP is its big battery. The phone can easily last for two days with moderate usage which usually consists of doom-scrolling through X and Instagram Reels. More importantly, the iPhone 16 Plus gave me a consistent screen-on time of around nine hours throughout my usage period of a month. Even if you manage to charge the phone to about 50 per cent, it should easily last you till bedtime.
| Battery | Specifications |
| Capacity | 4,440mAh (as per CPU-X app) |
| Charging Time | Around 2 hours |
| Charger in the box? | No |
| Other | MagSafe wireless charging up to 25W, Qi wireless charging up to 7.5W, Qi2 wireless charging up to 15W, and reverse wired charging. |
That’s how much I usually charge it, considering the slow speeds. It can charge to 50 per cent in about 30 minutes using a 125W PD charger.
It takes in initial bursts of around 30-35W speeds, but as it reaches higher battery percentages this trickles down to 18W and lower. What’s concerning is that these initial bursts cause the phone to heat up.
Verdict
The iPhone 16 Plus has upped the ante for the base models. It bridges the gap between the Pro and vanilla variants with the inclusion of two physical buttons that would have traditionally been exclusive to the 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max.
It’s still very disappointing to see Apple skipping out on essentials such as a higher refresh rate panel on the base variants. Considering the amount of upgrades the phone gets, a 120Hz display would have been the icing on the cake.
The camera performance is still great and now comes with minor tweaks that favour it further. The A18 Bionic chip introduces the base models to AAA games that support Ray tracing, and this is a commendable feat in the larger picture. Battery life remains its major plus point, and reliability was never a doubt. It’s too early to comment on Apple Intelligence, but it looks promising for productivity tasks.
So, should you get the iPhone 16 Plus? If you prefer a big phone and don’t want to shell out a fortune for the Pro Max, this should fit you and your wallet well. If you are on the iPhone 15 series, an upgrade to this model won’t bring in major differences. But yes, if you have the iPhone 14 or older models, you will benefit from a lot of things — especially, the USB-C port.
