Review Apple iPhone 16 Plus: No need to go Pro

“It’s so much more than a button!” These words of the Apple product expert who demonstrated the new iPhone 16 Plus to me a couple of months ago still ring in my ears whenever I pick up the latest iteration of the company’s vaunted mobile phone.

I allude, of course, to the new Camera Control button on the latest iPhone 16. The conviction with which the people at Apple harped on this feature over all others — along with another, the Action button — made me think at the product demonstration that either this was a real Eureka moment for the boffins at Cupertino or that they were trying their best to cover up for not having much else extra in the latest iteration of the iPhone. In the event, it turned out that it was a bit of both.

The new buttons on the latest iPhone 16 — both the base variant and the Plus — are really things to write home about. Surprisingly, while all other manufacturers are minimising physical and tactile controls, such as buttons, on their phones, Apples went the other route and introduced more this year with not one, but two, new physical buttons: Action and Camera Control.

The Action button debuted on the 15 Pro models last year and finally reached the 16 and 16 Plus this time around. The button is an apt replacement for Apple’s ring/silent switch found on previous iPhone models and can be customised to enable several other functions. It is an extremely useful and practical tool to have and will save you the time to wake up the phone and dive into menus or even flip through the home screens to find and then activate the apps that you need to use most often and most quickly. Serial Apple users will know how useful it felt on the iPhone 15 Pro models, and Apple did a great favour to those with smaller pocketbooks by bringing it down to the base non-Pro model and the Plus in its their latest avatar.

The other button on the 16, the Camera Control, is as much of a revelation as Apple claims it to be, completely changing how you use the cameras on the latest generation iPhones.

For starters, most users would agree that it is always more convenient to have a dedicated button to launch an app compared to the more arduous steps of unlocking the device and waking up its screen and then spotting the right icon to launch something that you want to use right that instant. For an app like a camera on a phone like the iPhone this is indeed a welcome facility.

By reducing the steps to launch the camera, Apple has done us a favour, since moments in life worth capturing in pixels do not usually announce themselves with the intent of giving you time to prime and prepare.

But that button is way more than just a launcher for the camera, as the people at Apple (Applers?) persistently emphasised. However, a word of caution here: with the placement of this touch-sensitive button three-quarters of the way down the right edge of the phone, my fingers kept accidentally brushing against it in normal handling, repeatedly launching the camera, until I changed the launch sequence to double-click. If you’re as butterfingered as I am, you might need to activate the double-click launch too. But that’s nitpicking. Since we are about the camera, let’s deep dive into what is undoubtedly one of the major reasons, if not the biggest one, for why people buy iPhones – that snapper.

The iPhone 16 Plus comes with the same two-lens configuration as its predecessors, except now the arrangement of the twin lenses is not like its two immediate predecessors but has gone back to the vertical models of a previous iPhone model, with one lens stacked on top of another in the far upper left-hand corner on the device’s back.

Apart from this change in arrangement, it retains the 48-megapixel primary sensor of its predecessor, as well as the 12-megapixel resolution of the second ultrawide lens, but the latter is now upgraded with an f/2.2 aperture and supports autofocus. On the front selfie duties are discharged by the same 12-megapixel snapper as the previous 15 series.

But the novelty is the Camera Control, which makes it way easier to take photos by allowing you to scroll through zoom ratios, modes, shutter speeds, aperture, et al, at the press or caress of your fingertip. While at first it seemed like a fidgety idea, the learning curve was easy and fast, and with just the first few clicks, we took to it like Andre Cartier Bresson took to photography.

Of course, the iPhone 16 Plus does not guarantee photographic results a la Bresson, but it’s got enough tricks up its sleeve to up your photo game even if you have the fraction of the talent of the legendary French photographer. And, with the combination of its 6.7-inch screen size and the Camera Control button, the 16 Plus is actually even easier to handle than the 16 Pro Max - surprise, surprise - which is convenient.

And the results are comparable to its pricier sibling, too. Daylight shots are fantastically detailed, the images sharp with great dynamic range, while the colours are all natural though they remain vibrant, and in portrait mode the depth is accurate and the details well-captured.

If you would like to unleash more creativity on your images, Apple has you covered with new Photographic Styles — custom options that enable you to personalise both selfies and main images. Assisted by the new Camera Control pad, the optical zoom works flawlessly for the limited range it provides. The zooming capability is limited compared to the Pro version by the lack of a dedicated telephoto lens, but whatever built-in optical zoom the main lens does offer is pin sharp and fast to focus.

The second lens – the ultrawide – is versatile in capturing scenery and Apple has increased its capability by enabling it to capture up to 2.6 times more light. This makes the wide-angle shots come out very well, even in low-light situations and at night. The additions of autofocus to the wide angle makes it even easier to use while Macro shots also come out well with the new ultrawide setup. When it comes to video the camera upgrades make the Plus a video device with nothing to be desired; it can be your go-to device for almost all normal video needs.

Overall, the camera system on the iPhone 16 Plus is so capable that unless you’re a professional and in the business of shooting competition grade films and photos, there is no need to shell out the extra moolah for the Pro this time around.

While the new camera is enough for us to recommend the 16 Plus as the more sensible choice compared to even the Pro, there are also other major pluses. The A18 chip powered and 8GB RAM-equipped 16 Plus also boasts battery performance that beat the Pro Max in our tests, especially when it came to screen time, providing two whole days of normal use that included ample video and gaming time, frequent use of the camera and running all the normal apps that one can be expected to these days. And, best of all, it charges back to 50 percent in only 35 minutes.

The 6.7-inch OLED is also a great screen with 2,000 nits of peak brightness. It’s not just bright though, but also crisp and vibrant with its 1290x2796 pixels. The refresh rate is only 60Hz, however, and so if you’re used to 100Hz screens, you may initially feel some lag. But the picture quality will soon make up for it.

With its all-round excellence, and especially that camera with the new Camera Control button, the iPhone 16 Plus is the iphone to get out of the bunch, in our estimation. For its asking price of Dh3,799 it saves you around Dh1,400 and obviates the need to go Pro.

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