The Apple iPhone 16 was officially announced earlier today at Apple’s “Glowtime” event. The full lineup consists of the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. With the latest and greatest iPhones starting at $799 for the iPhone 16 and $899 for the iPhone 16 Plus, you might be wondering if now is the time to upgrade.
The answer: It depends! Here are our recommendations based on the phone you currently have.
iPhone 15, iPhone 14, and iPhone 13 Users
If you have an iPhone 15 model—that is, last year’s generation—you’ll see some nice improvements in specs and camera capabilities for some parts of the lineup and new AI features out of the box. But the difference in day-to-day use is likely to be pretty minimal. The iPhone 15 series is still a very good set of phones, and even with a trade-in and the lack of price increase between generations, we don’t believe it’s worth upgrading … unless you really want to take advantage of Apple Intelligence features right away.
The iPhone 14 and iPhone 13 are more complicated comparisons. Both phones are two and three years old, respectively, so it’s not like they’re ancient, but there are a few quality-of-life things that you may like on the iPhone 16. The Pro and Pro Max come with an upgraded triple-lens camera system: a 48-megapixel primary sensor, a 12MP telephoto camera with 5x zoom, and a 48MP ultrawide camera. For anyone who loves an Instagram-worthy shot or plans to frame a larger, high-definition image, that’s a worthwhile upgrade.
iPhone 12 Users and Older
So who should upgrade? We heartily recommend it for owners of the iPhone 12 and older. While you’re still going to get the iOS 18 update, these phones are at least four years old, meaning you’re likely starting to see issues with battery life and sluggishness, depending on your usage. The iPhone 16 comes with larger batteries and improved power efficiency with its new chips. The jump from a six-core A14 Bionic processor (on the iPhone 12) to an A18 chip (on the iPhone 16) is a dramatic generational improvement. While the A18 chip still has a 6-core GPU, it has a 16-core neural engine which is capable of computing AI tasks onboard, making it distinctly more powerful.
It’s also worth noting that while the iPhone 12 does support MagSafe—giving you options to use a wide variety of cool accessories, battery packs, mounts, car chargers, and wallet cases—older models don’t, locking you out of a whole ecosystem of products. That alone makes the upgrade worthwhile.
