iPhone 16 Pro Max review: No country for bold Innovation!

So, I have been daily driving the new iPhone 16 Pro Max for a little over 10 days now! And for the first time after so many years, I really really feel iPhones are getting a little boring!  I have used so many phones from Chinese brands in 2024, they are the ones that I genuinely think are getting so much better every year, whereas with Apple we are only seeing minimal upgrades year over year! My sister is using the iPhone 13 Pro Max and one of my best friends has the 14 Pro Max, and they don't see the appeal of this new iPhone! And maybe this is why the new iPhones' pre-order numbers are lower this year!  

iPhone 16 Pro Max Specifications

• Colors: Black Titanium, White Titanium, Natural Titanium, Desert Titanium
• Dimensions: 8.25mm thickness
• Weight: 225 grams
• Display: 6.9-inch LTPO Super Retina XDR OLED, 120Hz ProMotion, 1328 x 2878 pixels,
• Chipset: Apple A18 Pro
• Storage: 256GB (base), up to 1TB
• Main Camera: 48MP Sony sensor with stacked design and Digital Gain Control
• Telephoto Zoom Lens: 12MP 5x optical zoom,
• Ultrawide Camera: 48MP, improved low-light performance
• Battery: 4676mAh, MagSafe wireless charging up to 25W with 30W adapter or higher
• Connectivity: 5G, WiFi 7, USB Type-C, NFC, GPS, satellite connectivity

iPhone 16 Pro Max Review

Design 

First of all, the biggest letdown of this year’s iPhone 16 Pro Max has to be this camera button. There was so much hype about it around the launch, and I was looking forward to using it with a positive mindset, but after nearly 2 weeks, I just have nothing good to say about it! First of all, the placement is super weird, especially for someone with small hands like me! I think they should have kept it above here – that way it could have been somewhat useful while clicking photos in portrait orientation.  And these camera button shortcuts, like light press and swipe to change color tone, zoom, aperture, etc, which are supposed to make things easier have actually been super hard to get used to for me! I just can do so more easily from the screen itself!  And even when I am using this thing while taking selfies for example, I end up getting blurry, not-so-sharp photos because when you press the button like this, the camera shakes a bit.  Likewise, I have also found myself accidentally pressing the button opening the camera at times, so I ended up setting it to double-click to open the camera, and that fixed it for me.  Maybe with Apple Intelligence coming soon, this button will be somewhat useful, but as i speak, a lot of Apple Intelligence features are just not available yet! Almost all the AI features Apple talked about during the launch event, is only coming later next year, and here in Asia, there is no specific date on when it's launching as well.  Anyway, another thing that Apple could have done slightly better is with color options! Maybe, they should have provided new choices like they did with the regular iPhone 16 and 16 Plus. The only new color this year is the Desert Titanium, while the rest are the same as the 15 Pro Max.  I do understand the muted colours on iPhone’s Pro series – It looks classier, but maybe different colors would have differentiated it from older models! 

Display

Anyway, apart from the letdowns I mentioned, there are still a few good upgrades this time! One thing I instantly noticed is how good this display is! It's now bigger at 6.9 inches and is perhaps one of the best displays I have interacted with this year alongside the S24 Ultra!  The bezels are now super slim, actually slimmer than the S24 Ultra and the overall quality of this display is top-class. It has nice accurate colours, a super responsive touch, and watching Dolby Vision content on Netflix on it has been a delight, especially with the nice and loud speakers it has.   It’s also significantly brighter than the S24 Ultra, and the iPhone 16 Pro Max can get super dim too at just 1 nit. So, I was able to use it comfortably during bedtime.  I was expecting the PWM sensitivity, the rate at which these OLED screens refresh, to be higher this time around, but, it still maxes out at 480Hz, so if your eyes are sensitive to screen flickers and you are someone who uses their phone at high brightness, you might end of getting slight headache.   Regardless, I thought the 16 Pro Max was going to be a bit bulky since it has a bigger display and bigger battery, but to my surprise, it doesn't feel that way! In fact, it’s more ergonomic than the 15 Pro Max because the weight is now evenly distributed.  It is also more robust this time, as it comes with the latest-generation Ceramic Shield, which is supposedly 50% tougher than last year. And this year, it has survived Jerry Rig’s Bend test as well! If you remember, last year’s 15 Pro Max failed that test!  

Battery 

Another area where I am thoroughly impressed is with the battery life! Every year, the best battery on an iPhone used to be on the Plus models, because of their relatively weaker chipset and the 60Hz refresh rate, but this year the best battery on an iPhone is on the Pro Max lineup!  And in my real-world usage, I am getting at least 8 hours of screen on time and up to 11 hours of screen on time. This SOT is when I am mostly testing its cameras, playing games, or running benchmarks, so you can expect this number to get even better if you just do light work such as watch movies or use social media.  So yes, this is easily the best battery backup smartphone that I have used this year, but I think other Chinese phones later this year will match iPhone’s endurance because what Chinese brands are doing lately is they are using the new Silicon Carbon batteries on their phones which is more efficient and can fit in high capacity cells on a slimmer form factor.  We have seen it in action with the Honor Magic 6 Pro last year, which was the battery champ in our tests, and recently, the Redmi Note 14 Pro+ has this huge 6200mAh Si-Ca batteries. So, we are definitely going to see bigger, slimmer, and more efficient batteries on flagship Chinese phones soon!  Anyway, I was expecting Charging to be slightly faster this time around! The rumour was we might be getting a new 45W fast charging, but 16 Pro Max still maxes out at like 29 Watts.  So, like in previous years, you can go from 0 to around 55% battery in about 30 mins, 80% in 1 hour, and almost 2 hours for a full refill. You might get slightly faster charging results using a 65W PD charger. However, for the first time, all the ‌iPhone 16‌ models now support 25W fast charging over ‌MagSafe‌, which is good news. 

Performance

Ok, let me talk about the performance! And here, the new A18 Pro chipset is anywhere between 15 to 30% better than last year’s A17 Pro – in both CPU and GPU. But in real-world usage, you will not notice even a slight difference Vs the previous year’s iPhones.  Infact, even the 3-year-old iPhone 13 Pro Max feels snappy in 2024! So, what's actually improved here is the stability and sustained performance.  For eg, I ran a wildlife extreme stress test which outputs extreme CPU and GPU loading for 20 straight loops, and as you can see, the stability here is much better than last year’s iPhone and even the S24 Ultra.  Apple is using a larger graphite sheet this time, which is still not as good as Vapor Chamber cooling we see on Android phones, but seems like the larger graphite sheet is doing a fantastic job.  For eg, when I am playing PuBG mobile for 20-30 minutes, the 15 Pro Max dims the display to prevent the phone from overheating, whereas, in 16 Pro Max, the display doesn't dim at all, even after 45 mins of continuous gameplay. The temperatures are also like 3 to 4% lower Versus the 15 Pro Max. And it cools faster too.  Similarly, I am also getting better 1% low fps numbers on the iPhone 16 Pro Max in all of the demanding games I have tested. So, without a doubt, this is the best gaming phone right now!  So, no matter how many Android brands sponsor the PuBG tournament, all the Pro-gamers are still going for that reliability of the 16 Pro Max! It’s sad but true!

Camera

However, despite the big improvements in the battery and performance, the Camera aspect is something you won't be getting much of an improvement in.  It does have a new 48MP ultra-wide camera which clicks marginally better photos and macros compared to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and then we get a 4K 120fps support which is fun to use to click some awesome slo-mo videos. The new photographic style is a nice feature too, but the default natural mode just worked fine for me. I did try a few of the styles, but later it became a hassle changing it to a new style every time while I was clicking other people’s photos who prefer a different color tone!    So all this means -- the iPhone 16 Pro Max is not the best camera phone of 2024!  I think for portraits, I am more interested in the upcoming VIVO X200 Pro because last year’s X100 clicked the best portraits from its telephoto camera.  I am also looking forward to the Xiaomi 15 Ultra, because the 14 Utra’s camera was just outstanding, especially that 3X lens.  With the 16 Pro Max, you are going to get the same natural, warm, a bit contrasty images, with nice details and all, but it doesn't necessarily win in any aspect. Yes, the 48MP ultrawide camera is an upgrade – it is brighter and has slightly better details, and the 5X zoom lens clicks decent portraits, but that about it. It's the most incremental of incremental upgrades over the iPhone 15 Pro! Maybe, the iPhone could have included a higher megapixel Telephoto lens this time around, but that's only rumored to feature in next year’s 17 Pro Max.  BTW, I am coming up with an in-depth camera comparison with the S24 Ultra and Pixel 9 Pro XL, where you will fully understand where the iPhone 16 Pro wins and loses. In any case, the one area where the iPhone 16 Pro Max is still the king is while shooting videos – any day of the week, no doubt!  It produces crisp video, with little things like slightly better details, exposure and highlights in challenging conditions so much better than the Pixel or Samsung. So, no matter how good the S24 Ultra’s or Pixel 9 Pro’s videography aspect has improved, the iPhone 16 Pro Max still nails this category.  Plus, if you are a content creator like me, or you aspire to become one, you will love No. 1 how good its Cinematic Videos are, it's just much more consistent. No. 2 you can shoot videos in Pro-Res and edit in post for more vibrant & colorful videos and No. 3 if you go live on Tiktok or Instagram, the output is just amazing and is of higher quality than any other Android phone!  

iPhone 16 Pro Max Pros and Cons 

Pros

• Excellent display quality
• Impressive battery life
• Powerful A18 Pro chipset
• Durable Ceramic Shield
• Exceptional video recording

Cons

• Useless camera button
• Minimal camera upgrades
• Missing AI features at launch
• Limited charging speed

iPhone 16 Pro Max Review: Conclusion

Overall, even as an iPhone fan girl myself, I believe this year’s iPhone 16 Pro Max is one of the most unfinished products Apple has ever released in a long long time. The Camera button is a joke, the most hyped AI feature is only going to be available next year – that too only in select regions, but the bigger letdown here is, that lack of meaningful upgrades in the cameras, I think it's nothing exceptional. Chinese brands are doing better innovation in cameras!   So, yeah, like I said earlier. This year’s iPhone is the most incremental of incremental upgrades! Apple should have rather called this phone the “15s Pro Max” if i am being honest.  But of course, this thing is going to sell well cause there are millions of iPhone 11 and 12 series users out there waiting to upgrade. For them, upgrading to this newer model does make sense. But if I were you, I would definitely wait coz I think Apple will learn from this and next year they will bring a much-needed upgrade in cameras, AI features going to be more refined, this foolish camera button might disappear for good, and much more! 

• Meanwhile, watch our review of the iPhone 16 Pro Max