iPhone 16 Pro Max vs iPhone 16 Pro: is there any difference now?
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Intro
The Apple Glowtime event in September had the iPhone 16 series as the main star. The new handsets came with some improvements and facelifts, but generally garnered a lukewarm first reaction from the community.
And Apple pulled out the heavy guns for this one — no exclusive additions. The Camera Control button is available across the entire line, same for the Action Button and Photographis Styles. The small iPhone 16 Pro got the 5x tetraprism lens, so its differences to the Pro Max are... minimal.
The good news is that the new Camera Control button is not a Pro exclusive but present on all iPhone 16 phones. The other bit of good news is that the iPhone 16 Pro Max doesn't have something exclusive to it — the smaller iPhone 16 Pro caught up, and they are back to being very much "the same phone, but different size".
Now, if you are all down for a bigger screen and bigger battery, you probably have your mind set already — nothing like the 6.9-inch Pro Max, right? But, you may be wondering if you are better off saving those $200 and get the 16 Pro instead. Well, let's explore the differences of iPhone 16 Pro vs iPhone 16 Pro Max:
iPhone 16 Pro Max vs iPhone 16 Pro differences explained:
| iPhone 16 Pro Max | iPhone 16 Pro |
|---|---|
| Bigger and heavier: 163 x 77.6 x 8.25 mm 227 g | More compact, with a 6.3-inch screen 149.6 x 71.5 x 8.25 mm 199 g |
| Bigger 6.9-inch screen with slimmer borders | Bigger 6.3-inch screen with slimmer borders |
| Apple A18 Pro | Apple A18 Pro |
| 120 Hz ProMotion display | 120 Hz ProMotion display |
| Starts from 256 GB for $1,199 | Starts from 128 GB for $999 |
| New Camera Control Button and Action Button | New Camera Control Button and Action Button |
| 4,685 mAh battery | 3,582 mAh battery |
| Triple camera with 5x tetraprism lens | Triple camera with 5x tetraprism lens |
| New 48 MP ultra-wide camera | New 48 MP ultra-wide camera |
Table of Contents:
Also read:
- Apple iPhone 16 Pro review
- iPhone 16 Pro Max review
- The best iPhone to buy: our verdict
- OnePlus 13 vs iPhone 16 Pro Max: David vs Goliath
Design and Display Quality
Little brother, big brother
Mini-Me? (Image credit - PhoneArena)
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 refined process and new color added. Again, no discrepancy here — both Pros get the Desert Titanium paintjob.
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 allows 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 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 allows 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.
These panels are protected by a next-gen Ceramic Shield glass on the front. That's Apple's tempered glass solution, which made headlines with how shatter-resistant it is. Hopefully, the new iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max are also more resistant to random scratches. We'll have observations on that after a few months have passed.
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 is a mechanical button that also has a capacitive pad on top and it can register half-pressure, swipes, 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.
- Also read: iPhone 16 colors: all the rumored shades
The difference in screen size between the Pro Max and the Pro (Image credit - PhoneArena)
OK, so Apple states 2,000 nit peak brightness — this measures only a part of the screen for a fraction of time. Our benchmark measures sustained fullscreen brightness, which is why you see numbers slightly north of 1,000 nits. That's still plenty enough for you to enjoy your content even out in the daylight. Not near what some Android flagships can do nowadays, but it's fine. A big upgrade this year is that the iPhones can now hit 1 nit or lower for minimum brightness. This will make them much more comfortable to use by the bedside or inside a dark bar.
As you can see, there are slight differences in color accuracy — most OLED panels do come out slightly different. But, in general in real life, these look lovely. Especially if you use True Tone to have the iPhones automatically adjust color warmth.
Performance and Software
Pocket power
A18 Pro, doubled up! (Image credit - PhoneArena)
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 20% increase in sustained performance, which would be a nice upgrade, as last year's models suffered some throttling issues. Well, let's check with the benchmarks, shall we?
And here, we see how the roominess inside the iPhone 16 Pro Max allows for better thermals — the 16 Pro throttles down quite a lot during the 3DMark Wildlife test (that's a benchmark that has been specifically designed to bog down and overload the smartphone). That's just a point to consider if you are a poweruser that intends to do a lot — a lot — on their new iPhone. Especially gaming.
But since it's the same processor in both, you have the staples of modern-age top tier silicon — hardware accelerated ray tracing, energy efficiency, power, and NPU cores for the AI tasks. Plus 8 GB RAM on all new iPhones to ensure the Apple Intelligence runs smoothly.
The iPhone 16 series now also come with Wi-Fi 7 — the newest and fastest protocol and hardware, which allows you to connect to your (compatible) router over multiple bands for a noticeable increase in transfer speeds and stability.
We've already seen a glimpse of said AI at this year's WWDC — iOS 18 will be receiving 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.
This October, we got the first AI drop with iOS 18.1. Mostly concerned with text features — notification summaries, phone call summaries, rephrasing within emails, texts, notes. You can now also get super-specific with your Photos search, looking for people in specific settings and doing specific actions. In December, we should get iOS 18.2 with Visual Intelligence and ChatGPT integration, plust the Image Playground app which bakes in image generation throughout your iOS apps — generate a unique picture straight into a chat message or email, or open the app to do it separately.
Then, in March, iOS 18.3 will update Siri and possibily add the contextual awareness that we saw demonstrated at WWDC. And yes, Siri is getting smarter — much, much smarter, with the power of AI.
The direct line to ChatGPT works in a quick button press — if your query requires some of the 4o power, you will be asked if you want the prompt to be relayed. You can fill out your ChatGPT log-in details within the iOS app, so if you are paying for premium, you will have unlimited 4o queries.
EU users can't enjoy any of the iOS 18.1 AI features right now due to regulations. When they will be avialable on the Old World is yet unknown.
Camera
Ultra-wide upgrade possible
Corporate says these are the same picture (Image credit - PhoneArena)
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.
And we do mean identical — both Pro iPhones get the 48 MP ultra-wide camera upgrade, they have the 48 MP main camera, and the 12 MP 5x zoom camera. The selfie cameras are, as before, 12 MP.
PhoneArena Camera Score:
In reality, there are miniscule differences in performance compared to last year's iPhone 15 Pro Max. The improvements come from the software upgrades, which Apple seems to be keeping exclusive to the iPhone 16 series and, presumably, future models as well.
We saw the score, here are some samples:
iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max camera samples:
Apple has upgraded the Photographic Styles editing menu, now allowing you to dive deeper and set the saturation on individual colors, to further develop your own... well, style of expression. When first introduced, these were presented as a way for you to control how the camera post-processes photos. Add more contrast, edit color temperature, that type of thing. Now, they are a bit more elaborate and you can even go into your Photos gallery and edit the Photographic Style retroactively.
At this point, you may be asking yourself "So, aren't they just filters", and so are we. But it's worth noting that you can't add or edit Photographic Styles on photos taken with iPhones older than the 16, so it's probably a part of the image meta that the iPhone records at the time of taking the photo.
There's also the new Camera Control 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.
Apple upgraded the slow-mo capabilities of the new Pro iPhones. You can record 4K videos at 120 FPS now. So, for regular 30 FPS or cinematic 24 FPS projects, that means you can slow footage down to 20% playback speed.
There's a new pro Audio Mix 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.
This is all supported by a "Studio-quality 4-mic array" — don't ask which studio and what type of quality — and next-level wind noise cancelation.
The bottom line is, the camera experience on both the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max is the same.
- Also read: iPhone 16 camera: All the upgrades
Battery Life and Charging
Biggest battery in an iPhone yet...
Ah, sweet USB C (Image credit - PhoneArena)
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, and thanks to teardowns, we now know the exact capacities. The iPhone 16 Pro Max has a 4,685 mAh cell, and the iPhone 16 Pro has a smaller one, at 3,582 mAh.
That is, indeed, a massive difference, so let's take a look at the benchmarks -
PhoneArena Battery and Charging Test Results:
That is a massive difference — you get around 20-30% more juice out of the iPhone 16 Pro Max. But it also makes sense, as it has 1,000 mAh on top of the smaller one.
Charging is, unfortunately, not very fast. With 20 W wired charging, it'll take you and hour and fourty minutes or a bit more to get from 0% to 100% with either of these phones. If you only have 30 minutes to charge up — that'll get you a good 57-58%, which should be plenty to last you through the day.
The wireless charging, on the other hand, has been upgraded. MagSafe can now work at up to 25 W, so it charges your iPhone 16 Pro or Pro Max at about the same speed as the wired connection.
There are some rumors on the Internet that the new Pro iPhones support up to 40 W power draw from their ports. But that's not exactly for charging — we are also in the process of figuring it out. But, basically, it goes like this — if you are playing a game or running a benchmark or heavy app on the phone while it's plugged in, then it will draw more power from the charger. However, if you are simply plugged in and it's idling, it'll simply draw 20 W.
Also read:
- iPhone 16 Battery and charging: Here's what to expect
- Also read: iPhone 16: deals to anticipate
Specs Comparison
For the most part, it looks like the new Pro siblings will be quite similar on the inside. Our full iPhone 16 Pro vs iPhone 16 Pro Max specs table supports that information. Here are the core specs:
| Specs | iPhone 16 Pro Max | iPhone 16 Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Dimensions | 6.42 x 3.06 x 0.32 in (163 x 77.6 x 8.25 mm) | 5.89 x 2.81 x 0.32 in (149.6 x 71.5 x 8.25 mm) |
| Screen | 6.9-inch ProMotion OLED 120 Hz | 6.3-inch ProMotion OLED 120 Hz |
| Processor | Apple A18 Pro | Apple A18 Pro |
| RAM, Storage and Price | 8 GB / 256 GB / $1,199 | 8 GB / 128 GB / $999 |
| Cameras | 48 MP main 48 MP ultra-wide 12 MP 5x telephoto 12 MP front | 48 MP main 48 MP ultra-wide 12 MP 5x telephoto 12 MP front |
| Battery Size | 4,685 mAh | 3,582 mAh |
| Charging Speeds | 20 W wired 25 W wireless MagSafe | 20 W wired 25 W wireless MagSafe |
- You can also use PhoneArena's tool to compare iPhone models.
Which one should you buy?
Go big or go home? For $200, it might be home! (Image credit - PhoneArena)
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.
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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