The best iPhones

Whether you want a battery that lasts for days or the very best deal, we’ve got some recommendations for an iPhone you’ll love.

New iPhones are here, but Apple Intelligence is MIA. The much-hyped AI features will start to ship with iOS 18.1 in October, and they’ll include things like notification summaries and generative AI-powered writing tools. It’s all pretty standard fare at this point, but more promising features will continue to roll out well into 2025 — at least, that’s what Apple says.

It all puts the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro in an unusual spot: even once 18.1 drops, Apple Intelligence will still be a work in progress. That adds another dimension to the perennial question: “Is this the year to upgrade?”

What I considered

Overall value

Battery life

Screen size

Despite all the fuss about AI, our usual advice about phone buying holds true: hang on to the one you got. If you’re not the type of person to get excited about a new camera button, updated photo processing options, or incremental performance upgrades, then there’s no reason to rush out and buy an iPhone 16.

But if you’re questioning whether it’s the year to replace your iPhone 11 or 12 (or maybe even older, in which case well done!), then I think the answer is an easy yes. There are real gains this year, especially in the basic iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, without even considering AI. And if Apple Intelligence turns out to be something special, well, you’ll be ready for it.

iPhone 16

$799

Apple’s baseline iPhone has a 6.1-inch screen, two rear cameras in a rearranged vertical layout, a customizable Action Button, and a new Camera Control button. It’s set to receive a score of AI software features as Apple rolls out Apple Intelligence.

Apple’s basic iPhone enjoyed a significant hardware boost this time around, playing an overdue game of catch-up to the Pro series. The iPhone 16 includes the Action Button from last year’s Pro models — handy if there’s an app in your life you want to access at the touch of a button — and the new Camera Control. So if buttons are anything to go by, this phone is two better than last year’s model.

There’s more going on under the hood, too. The A18 chipset is in the same generation as the processor on the Pro models, which hasn’t been the case for the past couple of years. That bodes well for the 16 series staying on the same update schedule. And there’s extra RAM in this year’s base model, which can only be a good thing.

The iPhone 16 became a much more interesting camera this time around, too. The Camera Control offers a quick way to launch the camera app and adjust settings like exposure compensation. But there’s also a new set of Photographic Style filters this time around, with options to adjust contrast, brightness, and undertones to dial in your preferred rendering of skin tones. You’ll get better low-light performance by stepping up to the 16 Pro models, and other cool tricks like 4K recording at 120 fps. But even without all that, it’s the most customizable camera Apple has offered yet.

Outside of camera performance, there are two major drawbacks to picking the regular 16 over a Pro model: no zoom lens, and no ProMotion screen. Only the Pro has a dedicated 5x lens, which is handy for creative framing. And the standard 60Hz screen on the iPhone 16 will likely only bother you if you’re used to a smoother 120Hz display, though it’s annoying on principle that Apple keeps this feature to its Pro phones when virtually every other high-end phone has one.

iPhone 16 Pro

iPhone 16 Plus

iPhone 14 (128GB)

$599

The iPhone 14 is equipped with Apple’s A15 Bionic CPU and a 6.1-inch display and is available with onboard storage ranging from 128GB to 512GB.

Technically, the iPhone 14 isn’t the cheapest new iPhone you can buy. That honor goes to 2022’s iPhone SE, which starts at $429. But the SE uses an older design that makes it feel like a different kind of iPhone entirely. In the meantime, the 2022 iPhone 14 has been marked down twice to $599, making it the best deal you can get on a new, modern iPhone.

The regular iPhone 14 didn’t come with a lot of upgrades; it felt more like an iPhone 13S. But it was in the first wave of iPhones to include Emergency SOS via satellite, which could be a literal lifesaver. And the 14 got some helpful camera improvements over the 13, including a larger main camera image sensor and better low-light image processing thanks to some processing pipeline updates.

On the other hand, the 14 was the last generation of iPhone to come without the Dynamic Island, which is the pill-shaped notch that houses time-sensitive updates and status indicators. You’ll still get that information as notifications, but it’s not quite as handy as having it available at a glance no matter what you’re doing on your phone.

Another thing to be aware of: iPhone 14 series owners have complained of premature battery rundown, with overall battery health falling much faster than it should. Most of the battery complaints I’ve seen center on the 14 Pro models; still, it’s something to keep an eye on. All that said, the 14 should receive software updates for another four years, and that’s a pretty good ROI considering its new price.

2022 iPhone SE (64GB)

What about the iPhone 15?