iPhone 16 Pro Max vs iPhone 16 Pro: is there any difference now?

Intro

The Apple Glowtime event graced us with the reveal of a new quartet of iPhones — the iPhone 16 series is now live, and it comes with many upgrades across the board! Well, the non-Pro models and the small Pro got most of them, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max seems to have slowed down its pace to let the others catch up.
What we mean is that the iPhone 16 Pro now has the same camera module, processor, and overall build as the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Upon first look, it seems like the only difference here is size. But can there be something more hiding underneath?

Well, pre-orders will begin on the 13th, and the new iPhones will ship on the 20th. But, according to what we know thus far, here are the differences between the iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPhone 16 Pro!

iPhone 16 Pro Max vs iPhone 16 Pro differences explained:

Table of Contents:

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Design and Display Quality

Little brother, big brother
iPhones typically look pretty similar — a Pro Max is a slightly enlarged Pro, and same holds true for the iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPhone 16 Pro. And it’s the second gen of titanium-coated iPhones, now with a new color added. Again, no discrapancy here — both Pros get the Desert Titanium shade.

The bezels around the screens have also shrunk furhter, making them the thinnest borders around iPhone displays yet. Uniform across the entire display, of course. This will allow the screens to grow a bit, with the bodies of the phones staying the same-ish size. The iPhone 16 Pro Max now has a 6.9-inch display, the iPhone 16 Pro — 6.3 inches.

The panels are OLED as before, and have a 120 Hz max refresh rate with the same ProMotion branding. They are Super Retina XDR displays, otherwise known as “these go to 2,000 nits peak brightness”, which has been surpassed by Android phones since, but make no mistake — it’s plenty enough for HDR content, even in daylight. The minimum has now fallen to 1 nit, which will make iPhones slightly more comfortable to use at bedtime.

There’s a new Camera Control button, which will be able to invoke the camera app whenever you want. Different from the Action Button from last year, this one has a capacitive pad on top and it can register half-pressure as well as full press (upon which, it clicks in). You can slide across the button to control various camera settings on the fly — exposure, focus, bokeh, or scroll through Photographic Styles (the new age version of filters). One press takes a picture, press and hold to record video.

The titanium finish now comes in four colors — Titanium Black, Titanium White, Natural Titanium, and the brand-new Desert Titanium.

Performance and Software

Pocket power
The new iPhones have new chips — Apple A18 in the regular models, Apple A18 Pro in the Pro models. Both iterations have 6-core CPUs with two performance and four efficiency cores. The regular has a 5-core, the Pro has a 6-core GPU, same as last year’s Apple A17 Pro.

Apple also took a little bit to talk about improved cooling and sustained performance, which would be a nice upgrade, as last year’s models suffered some throttling issues. We’ll see what we get when we run them through the benchmarks!

But all the staples are here — hardware accelerated ray tracing, energy efficiency, power, and NPU cores for the AI tasks. Plus 8 GB RAM on all iPhones to ensure the Apple Intelligence runs smoothly.

We’ve already seen a glimpse of said AI at this year’s WWDC — iOS 18 is coming with image generation, text editing, transcripts, and all the tricks we’ve seen from other AI platforms, all gathered in one operating system. And since it’s meant to interact with everything else that’s stored on your phone, you can just ask the iPhone to “generate a sketch of my mom”, then simply proceed with “remind me to send it to her on her birthday”, for example.

And yes, Siri is getting smarter — much, much smarter, with the power of AI. It also has a direct line to ChatGPT — if your query requires some of the 4o power, you will be asked if you want the prompt to be relayed. If you have a premium ChatGPT account, you can link it to your iCloud to keep using all your benefits.

These AI features will begin trickling to compatible iPhones (iPhone 15 Pro series, all iPhone 16 series) next month in the States. By end of the year in other countries, though getting to the EU might be tough due to specific regulations.

Camera

Ultra-wide upgrade possible

In the past, when a Pro Max phone had something unique on its camera, the next year’s Pro would also receive it. History repeats itself, as the iPhone 16 Pro gets the 5x tetraprism lens that was exclusive to the 15 Pro Max. So, we are back to having identical camera modules.

A new upgrade here is the brand-new 48 MP sensor under the ultra-wide lenses. Same resolution as on the main camera, so you will be able to take some extra-sharp landscape and macro shots with this one. It will bin pixels and take 12 MP snaps by default, but you do have access to the full-res mode, just like with the main camera.

There’s also the new Camera Contorl Button, that we should talk about. It is present on all new iPhone 16 models, not just the Pro flavors. It can be pressed down, but also registers half-presses to change settings, and swipes to adjust the chosen setting.

There’s a new pro Audio Editing mode, which allows you to change captured audio post-recording. Employing AI and the iPhone 16 Pro‘s excellent microphones — you’d be able to isolate voices or change the way audio is mastered at a tap. We will experiment with this further as it sounds very interesting and almost impossible.

The bottom line is, the camera experience on both the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max is the same.

Battery Life and Charging

Biggest battery in an iPhone yet…

iPhones typically don’t have the massive batteries you can find in Android flagships. But iOS is quite efficient at preserving battery life — apps get frozen in the background, when you are in standby mode, you barely lose percentages. The iPhone 15 Pro Max is often touted to last two days with casual use.

For the 16 Pro series, Apple did touch upon their upgraded capacities and great battery life, but Cupertino doesn’t share geeky specs like actual numbers for its iPhones. We’ll have to wait for actual teardowns. As far as we know, thanks to leaks, the iPhone 16 Pro Max has about 4,700 mAh in its trunk — the biggest battery on an iPhone thus far. The smaller iPhone 16 Pro is said to have around 3,600 mAh — still bigger than last year’s iPhone 15 Pro, if not an impressive number.

The rumors about fast charging weren’t exactly true. Wired charging via the USB Type-C ports will still be capped at 20 W. It’s MagSafe pucks that can now provide up to 25 W wireless charging, as opposed to 15 W before.

Specs Comparison

Which one should you buy?

So, our expectations were justified — 2020 is “catch up year” for the iPhone 16 Pro. What we mean is — these are essentially the same phone, in two different sizes. You won’t be making compromises if you get the smaller one, you won’t gain much by getting the big one. Yes, the base storage tiers differ — 128 GB and 256 GB — but make no mistake, you are paying for that difference with the iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Reasons to get each model? The iPhone 16 Pro is more compact — easier to handle with one hand, which is weird to say about a 6.3-inch phone, but it’s true considering the alternatives. It’s also “cheaper”, starting at $999 for the 128 GB model. Though, anyone looking to record 4K clips with the new cameras will probably not be looking for a 128 GB model.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max will be better for media binging or gaming — obviously, with the bigger 6.9-inch screen. But it will also have a longer-lasting battery, since it’s a bigger cell.

Yup, that’s what it boils down to. So, which one is for you?

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