iPhone 16 Plus vs iPhone 14 Plus: Is it time to upgrade?

Apple revived the Plus model back in 2022 with the iPhone 14 Plus, and it seems that the company is sticking with it. Now, as the official announcement of the iPhone 16 series is behind us, it's time to see what the new iPhone 16 Plus brings to the table and what kind of evolution we have witnessed in the past couple of years when it comes to the iPhone Plus.

The iPhone Plus formula seems to have remained unchanged. For all fans of large iPhones who don't want to pay an extra premium for the Pro Max model, the iPhone Plus is a great choice. How does the new iPhone 16 Plus improve on that? Is it enough of an upgrade over the original Plus to make people switch and buy the new model? Today, in this detailed comparison, we will try to find out.

This is the iPhone 14 Plus versus the iPhone 16 Plus. Who will win this battle? Read on to find out!

When we compared the iPhone 15 Plus with the iPhone 14 Plus, the differences were minuscule, and the same applies to the iPhone 15 Plus vs the iPhone 16 Plus comparison. But what about the original Plus and the new model? Have enough changes piled up during the past two years to make a huge visual difference? No, we don't think so.

There are two big design differences between the iPhone 14 Plus and the iPhone 16 Plus. The first one is the notch. The new iPhone 16 Plus follows with the Dynamic Island philosophy, offering a pill-shaped cutout on its screen with some added functionality, while the original iPhone 14 Plus has the old notch.

The other big difference is the design of the camera. The iPhone 16 Plus comes with a redesigned vertical main camera, similar to the one on the iPhone X, just a bit beefier. The iPhone 14 Plus has the usual squarish camera bump design with diagonal placement for the main and ultrawide cameras.

There is no difference in build materials between these two. We're talking about the usual glass-aluminum sandwich, but there's a difference when it comes to buttons. The new model features an Action Button, and a capacitive Camera Control button as well, while the iPhone 14 Plus comes with conventional volume and power buttons, plus the mute switch.

Regarding the available colors, you can check out the colors for the iPhone 16 Plus below, as well as all the available iPhone 14 hues.

iPhone 16 Plus available colors:

• Ultramarine
• Teal
• Pink
• White
• Black

iPhone 14 Plus available colors:

• Midnight
• Purple
• Starlight
• Blue
• Red
• Yellow

Not much has changed regarding the display, sadly. The iPhone 14 Plus sports a 6.69-inch OLED screen with a 60Hz refresh rate, and while this slow refresh rate was somewhat acceptable back in 2022, it's not the case anymore.

Nevertheless, Apple seems to be stuck in the past because the iPhone 16 Plus sports the exact same display with the exact same refresh rate, only a bit brighter. The iPhone 14 Plus is rated at 1,200 nits of peak brightness, while the new model bumps this number to 2,000, at least on paper. Time for some benchmarks.

Display Measurements:

Looking at our display measurements above, it looks like Apple has managed to bring down the minimum brightness to the advertised 1 nit. However, the new iPhone 16 Plus is only marginally brighter than the iPhone 14 Plus, which is a surprise. The other parameters look almost identical between the two models, and we can't help but wonder if it's the same panel on both models.

Obviously, the notch remains on the iPhone 14 Plus, and for some people it's an eyesore, while others don't even notice it. The new iPhone 16 Plus comes with a pill-shaped cutout and Dynamic Island features attached to it.

The iPhone 16 Plus features the new A18 chip, made with 3nm technology for better power efficiency and unprecedented power, of course. This new model has more RAM to handle the advanced on-device AI that Apple might bring with the iPhone 16 series.

That said, the iPhone 14 Plus, with its A15 chip and 6GB of RAM, is still a great option for everyday use. When we factor in the ecosystem and the way Apple optimizes its App Store and apps to run across different iPhone generations, there's no major difference in real-life performance. The new chip really shines in benchmarks, as you can see from the graph below, and if you want raw power, the iPhone 16 Plus is the way to go.

Performance Benchmarks:

Where things could get interesting is the software. AI is the big thing in software right now, and Apple’s got some cool new features coming with iOS 18 on the iPhone 16 series later this year. The company announced a bunch of stuff at WWDC '24, including Apple Intelligence, which adds some neat editing tools right in the Photos app. Plus, you can now lock apps with Face ID and hide them in a special folder for extra privacy.

Also read: iPhone 16 AI features: Here is what to look forward to

Software updates are important too. Pixel and Galaxy phones already offer seven years of updates, which puts some pressure on Apple.

Apple finally upgraded the main camera sensor across the iPhone 15 range, and this is transferred to the iPhone 16 Plus pixel for pixel. The 48MP main camera is not an upgrade per se, when we compare it to the previous generation, but when we go farther back in time and plug the iPhone 14 Plus into the equation, it's indeed an upgrade.

The original iPhone 14 Plus features a 12 MP main camera with sensor shift stabilization but no clever hi-resolution tricks. The iPhone 16 Plus, on the other hand, could produce high-resolution 24 MP images from its main sensor, and also snap macro images from close distance.

The ultrawide camera seems to be identical on both models, with the tweaked aperture on the newer model. The iPhone 16 Plus sports a faster f/2.2 aperture on its ultrawide camera. We have to snap some samples to be able to tell if there are big real-life differences between the two phones in image quality, but we don't expect that, to be honest.

The cameras are positioned differently on the new model, and it's not for aesthetic reasons alone. The iPhone 16 Plus can record spatial video in landscape mode, which is meant to be viewed on the Apple Vision Pro headset. The iPhone 14 Plus can't do this with its diagonally positioned cameras on the back.

What could be a big hardware difference and a possible advantage for the iPhone 16 Plus is the new Camera Control button that can be found on all iPhone 16 models. It's a pressure sensitive button that allows users to get the same double-action as a real camera, with some added swipe functionality that controls different setting inside the camera app.

PhoneArena Camera Score:

Main Camera

There's not a huge difference when it comes to image quality in broad daylight. Both phones take decent photos with good level of detail and dynamic range. What sticks out is the tonality of the iPhone 16 Plus sample, the image looks much warmer in comparison to the one taken with the iPhone 14. The latter also looks a bit too sharp and probably brighter as well, but the main differences are in white balance.



In low-light conditions the iPhone 16 Plus does a better job in preserving details without aggressively applying HDR algorithms. The iPhone 14 Plus also does a good job but there's some loss of detail (take a look a the small letters), and the rosery also looks a bit over sharpened.

Zoom Quality

There's no dedicated telephoto camera on either of these phones, so they rely on crops from the main sensor and digital zoom. The differences we observed in the previous section are carried over here as well. The iPhone 16 Plus produces warmer and somewhat softer zoom images, especially compared to the ones taken with the iPhone 14 Plus. The latter is very aggressive with the sharpening again, and also loses some details in the process (take a look at the fine cursive on the poster).

Ultra-wide Camera

The ultrawide camera on the iPhone 16 Plus has more pixels and better resolution than the one on the older model, and it shows in the samples. It's easy to see the lack of detail (look at the small cloud in the upper left corner) in the iPhone 14 Plus image. 

Selfies

The front camera on the iPhone 16 Plus also seems better in comparison to the sensor inside the iPhone 14 Plus. When it comes to exposure, dynamic range and detail, the new model performs objectively better (check out the skies behind Vic, the iPhone 14 Plus image is overexposed, there's less detail in the trees and the trail from the plane is nowhere to be found as well).

The exact capacity of the iPhone 16 Plus battery was a bit of a mystery at first, as Apple didn't announce any numbers during the “It’s Glowtime” event. However, teardowns revealed that there's a substantial upgrade in capacity compared to the previous models. The iPhone 16 Plus comes with a 4,674 mAh cell onboard, while the iPhone 14 Plus features a 4,325 mAh battery.

Battery Life Comparison:

Looking at our battery tests above, it looks like the 300mAh bump up in capacity actually translates in longer battery life. The iPhone 16 Plus beats its granddaddy in all areas but video streaming, where there's a half an hour advantage for the iPhone 14 Plus. The offset in the two other categories though is much much bigger, so in the end the iPhone 16 Plus gets a much better battery rating overall.

Another difference, of course, is the USB-C port on the new iPhone 16 Plus model. The iPhone 14 Plus sports the old Lightning port, but contrary to what most people would expect, the charging speeds aren't that different. On paper, the iPhone 16 Plus could be pumped up with 26W of wired power, while the iPhone 14 Plus is listed with 20W wired charging support and this manifests in the charging test as a 45-minute difference in the 0-100% charging time.

Here's a quick specs comparison. You can check out our full iPhone 16 Plus vs iPhone 14 Plus comparison on PhoneArena.

The iPhone 16 Plus might not look like a radical upgrade, but when we compare it to the the original iPhone 14 Plus, which restarted the model, the changes start to look substantial. We have the Dynamic Island, the USB-C port, a brighter display, more RAM, and a faster chipset.

Let's not forget the new buttons and the  new AI features that Apple is bringing in the coming months. So, if you're coming from the iPhone 14 Plus, it might be time to upgrade. Is there a reason to go and grab the iPhone 14 Plus? Probably not. If you're just getting into the Apple ecosystem, you like big phones but don't want to cough up a lot of money on the Pro Max model, the iPhone 16 Plus could be a perfect match for you.