My new iPhone 16 Pro Max was just arrived earlier today. This new upgrade is set to replace my trusty 14 Pro Max, which had served me well for two years. Being a heavy user of iPhone camera, choosing Pro models have became a default choice. For screen size, I’ve been using 14 Pro Max, and XS Max before that, so this is a rather easy decision. I originally planned to use my iPhone 14 Pro Max for 3 years before upgrading. The decision to upgrade this year is more related to some personal plans that would greatly benefit from better camera instead of other hardware upgrades from the phone itself.

As I expected, the demand for the Pro Max model is quite high this year. A combination of improved battery life and the promise of better camera. To make things worse, my choice of colour (natural titanium) seems to be the most popular choice for the Pro models. I was ready on my computer a few minutes before pre-order time, finally managed to enter the pre-order page about 8 minutes past the time (I assume Apple put me in some sort of digital queue). I saw estimated delivery date of 20 September for a few seconds, and it was gone the moment I started choosing the colour and storage capacity. I considered to do store pick-up, which still offered 20 September pick-up, but I was surprised that I need to specify the exact time I will come to pick-up. Spending a few seconds to figure out my schedule on that day seemed to cause me to lose that 20 September slot. If I could not get it on first day, might as well wait patiently at home for delivery. So I did. The pre-order estimation was 25 to 30 September, and here I am today holding the phone on the tail end of that range.

In the box, we get the phone, 1m USB-C cable (with woven design) and a SIM card ejector. No wall charger and no Apple stickers this time. Since I plan to go to Apple Store to put on some screen protector, I will try to ask them for some stickers. I love the colour of natural titanium. It looks elegant and professional.

The transfer process is simpler than ever. Technically I can do the transfer process fully wireless (via cloud), but being an old fashioned person I am, I chose to do it through cabled connection to my Mac mini. I almost typed iTunes there, but then remembered that iPhone sync had moved to Finder for a few years (and I still call it iTunes sometimes).

After initial set-up and transfer, time to actually observe this new phone with its slightly-larger display. According to specifications from Apple, I got myself an upgrade from 6.7″ to 6.9″ thanks to smaller bezel. This change, looking small on paper, turns out to be quite noticeable during my first few hours of use. The display itself remains the same with ProMotion technology and adaptive refresh rates up to 120Hz. With pixel density staying at 460 ppi, my screen resolution increases from 2796-by-1290 to 2868-by-1320 pixels.

Dimension wise, iPhone 16 Pro Max has the same width as iPhone 14 Pro Max, slightly taller (163 mm from 160.7 mm) and slightly thicker (8.25 mm from 7.85 mm). I do not mind slightly thicker phone if it gets me more solid build, to be honest. The biggest win is that despite its slightly larger dimensions, my new 16 Pro Max is lighter than 14 Pro Max (227 gr vs 240 gr).

Battery is worth mentioning because iPhone 16 Pro Max promises 33 hours video playback, higher than 29 hours promise for iPhone 14 Pro Max. I do not think I will ever get more than a day for one full charge in my real life scenario though. Also, MagSafe wireless charging now supports up to 25W with 30W adapter or higher.

The upgraded camera now packs 48MP Fusion, 48MP Ultra Wide and 12MP Telephoto, promising 5x optical zoom. On top of these, the new camera system is said to be capable of 48MP macro photography, next-generation portraits with focus and depth control, and spatial photos and videos. For video recording, it now can do Dolby Vision up to 4K at 120 fps. How these are going to translate in real world usage… I will find out after using the camera for a bit longer.

For its brain, iPhone 16 Pro Max is powered by A18 Pro chip with 6-core CPU, 6-core GPU, and 16-core Neural Engine. The 8 GB RAM promises compatibility with the upcoming Apple Intelligence. I am not particularly excited about this one, given Siri had been under-performing for years, but I shall comment more when this feature actually becomes available later on.

Other changes compared to my iPhone 14 Pro Max include the disappearance of ring/silent switch replaced by Action button and the newly added Camera Control button. I was a bit excited with this one, given camera is one of my main use cases for my phone. So far it looks promising. Again I need to use this more to be able to make more meaningful observation.

The change from lightning connector to USB-C would have the most impact for my everyday life. I needed to swap several cables in several locations, including the cable in my car to use CarPlay. This would also require me to bring more cables for now because my iPad is still using lightning cable and I have no plan to upgrade it in the foreseeable future. I noted that the 10Gbit per second data transfer, but the cable we get in the iPhone box will not be able to deliver this maximum speed. If getting maximum data transfer speed is super important for you, consider getting a Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4 cable.

As expected, about every app I use regularly loads super fast and smooth. The difference is more noticeable in some games. Apple Intelligence is not even released yet, so I could not test it.

The camera app has a few icons I do not recognise, I suppose it will take a bit of time for me to get used to some of the new stuff. The camera control button seems to be super useful, allowing me to change zoom level and several other settings by a combination of swipe movement, soft press, and full press. The soft press has a bit of learning curve to do, but I think I can do it right most of the time. How useful (or time saving) this button is in real world situation, I shall test in the upcoming days and weeks.

All in all, this is a good upgrade for me coming from iPhone 14 Pro Max. Nothing breathtakingly spectacular, but it does not need to be. It is a solid phone with amazing capabilities, with the stability of iOS and the familiarity I have grown accustomed to over the last several years.