iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15: All the biggest upgrades

If you’ve resisted the temptation to upgrade to the iPhone 15, and have been holding off for the brand-new iPhone 16, you may be wondering if your patience will be rewarded.

While it stands to reason that every year’s iPhone is an improvement over the last, some new generations have considerably more incremental upgrades than others. Is this one of those years? At first glance, it seems like it may not, thanks to the iPhone 16 gaining increased RAM, Action and Camera Control buttons, plus access to Apple Intelligence when it launches.

You can read up on everything the new phone has to offer in our iPhone 16 review. But if you just need the highlights, here's everything you know about the iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15, including all the biggest upgrades on offer this year.

iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15: Specs

iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15: Price and availability

The standard iPhone’s price has remained static at $799 since 2020’s iPhone 12 (albeit with the cheaper $699 5.4-inch iPhone mini being phased out in favor of the $899 6.7-inch Plus). That hasn't changed this year, and the 128GB iPhone 16 will cost you the same $799 as ever — with the price rising for 256GB and 512GB storage options.

All iPhone 16 phones are due to be released on September 20, whereas the iPhone 15 is already readily available. To top it off the phone has enjoyed a small price cut. The iPhone 15 did start at $799 when it first launched, but since the iPhone 16 has landed that price has dropped to $699 for a 128GB model.

iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15: Design and display

There are no significant changes to the iPhone 16's display. It has the same 6.1-inch OLED display and disappointingly is locked at a 60Hz refresh rate for another year. Both phones also have the same brightness levels, 1,600 nits of peak brightness and 2,000 outdoors, alongside the Dynamic Island cutout.

The design of the phone itself has undergone some changes, though. The most notable is the inclusion of the Action button, which replaces the physical mute switch on the top left side of the phone. This programmable switch can be used to switch the ringer on and off, but it can also be set to do other things — like activate shortcuts or switch on the flashlight.

We also have a new vertical camera layout on the back, which has been built to facilitate spatial audio recording, and the Camera Control button on the bottom right side of the phone. This button opens the camera, activates the shutter, as well as being able to control various on-screen features and menus. Apple promises it'll also be a conduit to Visual Intelligence when that is released.

Both phones use a USB-C port for data and charging, though the technical details remain unchanged compared to last year. 

Colors have changed considerably on iPhone 16 as well, with much more vivid options. They include Black, White, Ultramarine (blue), Teal and Pink. Meanwhile, the iPhone 15 comes in Blue, Pink, Yellow, Green and Black. Aside from black, which is identical, all these colors look a little washed out compared to the current models.

One interesting point about the iPhone 16 series is that Apple has made it much easier to repair at home. The new design allows users to pass a small electric charge through the device which will debond the battery, making it easier to remove. This is a big deal for the future as it will make repairing the phone at home much easier, which in turn will save you more money.

iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15: Performance

Since the iPhone 14, Apple has given the Pro models a faster processor, with the entry-level iPhones sporting year-old chips. They’re still some of the fastest phones around, just not as fast as the Pro models.

That hasn't changed with the iPhone 16. But rather than sticking last year's A17 Pro into the phone, Apple has opted for an A18 chipset. It's not quite as powerful as the A18 Pro you'll find in the iPhone 16 Pro, but it is considerably faster than the A16 Bionic powering the iPhone 15.

As you can see, the A18 chip absolutely destroys the A16 Bionic in single and multi-core testing — with respective scores of 3,301 and 8,033. It's no surprise, considering the A16 Bionic is now two years older and was built on the larger 4nm process. The A18 is newer and 3nm, which means the chip is smaller and offers improvements to performance and energy efficiency. 

Apple claimed that the A18 CPU is 30% faster than the A16, which seems to match the Geekbench figures. That gives us confidence in Apple's claims that the GPU is 40% faster and 35% more efficient.

All of this means you can play AAA games on the iPhone 16, something that was previously only available on the iPhone 15 Pro. This includes hardware-accelerated ray tracking as well.

The iPhone 16 also features an additional 2GB of RAM, bringing the total up to 8GB, which will enable Apple Intelligence (when it launches). Plus Wi-Fi 7 support for those of you with access to the next-gen wireless routers.

iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15: Cameras

As for the cameras, there haven't really been any significant hardware changes to speak of. Both phones come with a 48MP main camera lens paired with a 12MP ultrawide camera — plus a 12MP selfie camera at the front of the phone.

That said Apple has made some changes to the main camera and rebranded it the 48MP "Fusion camera". However, the main feature supposedly enabled by the Fusion camera is a 2x telephoto zoom effect — which is also available on the iPhone 15.

Of course that doesn't matter much if the software changes the final result. So we'll have to do some comparisons of the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16's photos before we can make a solid judgement on whether the new model is an upgrade or not.

iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15: Software

It’s no secret that the iPhone 16 will arrive with iOS 18, which has now officially been released to the public. The bulk of the software will be exactly the same, but the iPhone 16 will have access to the full suite of Apple Intelligence features — including the Visual Intelligence AI vision.

There are a lot of great new features in Apple Intelligence, but the on-device AI does need 8GB of RAM to run properly. That means the iPhone 15 is incapable of running any kind of Apple Intelligence features. They include a smarter version of Siri, AI summaries in a bunch of different apps, AI image generation, native support for ChatGPT and more. 

That gives the iPhone 16 a clear advantage once iOS 18.1 actually launches. We don't know when that will be, but the public beta will arrive sometime in October.

iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15: Battery

Apple has made grand promises about the iPhone 16's battery life. The idea is that a larger battery and extra energy efficiency will keep the phone away from a charger for considerably longer. But does it succeed on that front? Absolutely.

We still don't know how big the iPhone 16's battery is, in terms of milliamp hours. However, our testing shows a considerable improvement in the overall battery life regardless. 

The iPhone 16 managed to last 12 hours and 43 minutes during the testing, which involved continuous web browsing on a mobile connection and a screen brightness of 150 nits. Under the same conditions, the iPhone 15 only lasted 11 hours and 5 minutes which, while better than average, is still quite far behind its successor.

Our testing also showed that rumors of 45W charging on iPhone 16 may have been exaggerated. In fact, we didn't clock speeds above 20W, which is what the iPhone 15 is capable of. That means the recharge time is only slightly different, with the iPhone 16 regaining 57% of its power in 30 minutes — compared to the iPhone 15's 53%.

However, there is a current issue being reported for the iPhone 16 series that sees the battery drain a lot faster while running iOS 18. According to comments on Reddit, the battery is draining on the newer iPhones to a concerning degree.

iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15: Outlook

While the changes coming to the iPhone 16 aren’t going to be revolutionary (with the possible exception of AI integration), it looks like a solid set of upgrades for the iPhone 16. Especially if you hate using the touchscreen to control your phone cameras

The fact that Apple has kept the price static for the fourth year in a row means that the iPhone 16 is in a very strong position. Reports claim that demand for the phone is softer compared to the previous year, but that may change in the coming months and weeks — especially once Apple Intelligence becomes available to the public