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Wow, it was almost a month ago now Hawk and I made the decision to upgrade our phones. We've actually had the phones in our hands and been using them for a few weeks. How's it going? Although the transition process was ridiculously difficult our new phones are easily a win— and a very inexpensive win— over the phones we replaced.
My new phone is the iPhone 16 Pro with 256GB of storage.
Yes, mine's actually the color in the product photo above. It's called Natural Titanium. Prior to this I've always chosen black iPhones. There's nothing wrong with black. I almost picked it again for this phone. I just felt like I'd give another color a try. Plus, I knew that since I'd wrap a thin case around it the color of the phone's metal back and sides wouldn't matter a lot.
Anyway, color is not what makes this phone better or worse than the older phone it replaced.
My previous phone was an iPhone SE 3rd generation. I'd had it for 2.5 years. The SE 3 is an interesting hybrid of old and new technology. It has the size and form factor of an iPhone 8— which is many years old at this point. That means, among other things, it had top and bottom bezels on the screen and a "belly button" with a fingerprint scanner. It also had older camera technology— though not as old as the iPhone 8. Despite the parts of the SE 3 that were old, the processor was current as of 2.5 years ago, Apple's A15 chipset.
Here are 5 things that have struck me about the practical differences switching to the 16 Pro:
❖ Size was one of my first concerns about the iPhone 16 Pro. The 16 Pro definitely looks much larger because its screen is so much bigger: 6.3" diagonal vs. 4.7". But a lot of that expanded screen size comes from the edge-to-edge design. The 16 Pro has no top and bottom bezels around the screen like the SE 3 does. The upshot is that the 16 Pro is not quite 10% larger in each dimension than the SE 3. For example, the length increases from 5.45" to just 5.89". That keeps it within the realm of fitting in a pants pocket.
❖ Meanwhile the screen is noticeably larger. That jump from 4.7" to 6.3 is huge. I rarely thought, "Oh, this screen is so small," while using my SE 3 for a few years, but after a few days of using the 16 Pro I picked up the SE 3 again and was amazed at how small and quaint it looks. It felt like using a toy instead of a tool. On screen size, there's no going back.
❖ The camera's way better. In the past I've never put much value on having the best camera possible in a mobile phone. I've always had a dedicated interchangeable-lens camera for situations where I really care about image quality. My iPhone camera was always there for "happy snaps". That dichotomy made sense when dedicated camera were better than mobile phone cameras in most situations. Over the years, though, mobile phone cameras have improved much more rapidly than dedicated stills camera. They're now "good enough" for a lot of things. One attraction of switching to the 16 Pro is its 3-lens setup. In addition to a normal, somewhat-wide angle lens, it has a super-wide angle and a moderate telephoto. It also has a better imager than the old SE 3. One test was when I snapped some impromptu hawk pictures at Byxbee Park a few weeks ago. The results were night-and-day better than what I could have gotten from my SE 3. Would my dedicated camera have done even better? Absolutely. But I would have had to lug around a dedicated camera and probably 2 lenses to get those pics, versus having the phone-camera already in my pants pocket.
❖ I'm noticing I can go longer between recharging the battery. My SE 3 wasn't old enough that its battery was degrading significantly, and I was generally still satisfied with how long I could go between charges. The new 16 Pro definitely lasts longer. My seat-of-the-pants estimate is that, with my normal pattern of use, I can go about twice as long between charges right now. That's close to in line with the technical specs: the SE 3 has a battery capacity of about 2,000 mAh; the 16 Pro about 3,600 mAh.
❖ The 16 Pro switches to a USB-C connector. This is driven by an EU regulation and provokes a cable challenge for all of us who've owned iPhones for several years with Apple's proprietary Lightning connector. I still remember when Apple changed iPhone connectors back in 2013. We had a bunch of the older 30-pin connectors and had to replace them or buy adapters. Thus we knew what we were in for here. At least this time around the change is to a general standard. Lots of devices use USB-C. Now our iPhones no longer require a special cable. Though we are still having to replace things like the connector cables in our cars. Since it's a move from proprietary to an industry standard, I'm happy to lean into it.
My new phone is the iPhone 16 Pro with 256GB of storage.
Yes, mine's actually the color in the product photo above. It's called Natural Titanium. Prior to this I've always chosen black iPhones. There's nothing wrong with black. I almost picked it again for this phone. I just felt like I'd give another color a try. Plus, I knew that since I'd wrap a thin case around it the color of the phone's metal back and sides wouldn't matter a lot.
Anyway, color is not what makes this phone better or worse than the older phone it replaced.
My previous phone was an iPhone SE 3rd generation. I'd had it for 2.5 years. The SE 3 is an interesting hybrid of old and new technology. It has the size and form factor of an iPhone 8— which is many years old at this point. That means, among other things, it had top and bottom bezels on the screen and a "belly button" with a fingerprint scanner. It also had older camera technology— though not as old as the iPhone 8. Despite the parts of the SE 3 that were old, the processor was current as of 2.5 years ago, Apple's A15 chipset.
Here are 5 things that have struck me about the practical differences switching to the 16 Pro:
❖ Size was one of my first concerns about the iPhone 16 Pro. The 16 Pro definitely looks much larger because its screen is so much bigger: 6.3" diagonal vs. 4.7". But a lot of that expanded screen size comes from the edge-to-edge design. The 16 Pro has no top and bottom bezels around the screen like the SE 3 does. The upshot is that the 16 Pro is not quite 10% larger in each dimension than the SE 3. For example, the length increases from 5.45" to just 5.89". That keeps it within the realm of fitting in a pants pocket.
❖ Meanwhile the screen is noticeably larger. That jump from 4.7" to 6.3 is huge. I rarely thought, "Oh, this screen is so small," while using my SE 3 for a few years, but after a few days of using the 16 Pro I picked up the SE 3 again and was amazed at how small and quaint it looks. It felt like using a toy instead of a tool. On screen size, there's no going back.
❖ The camera's way better. In the past I've never put much value on having the best camera possible in a mobile phone. I've always had a dedicated interchangeable-lens camera for situations where I really care about image quality. My iPhone camera was always there for "happy snaps". That dichotomy made sense when dedicated camera were better than mobile phone cameras in most situations. Over the years, though, mobile phone cameras have improved much more rapidly than dedicated stills camera. They're now "good enough" for a lot of things. One attraction of switching to the 16 Pro is its 3-lens setup. In addition to a normal, somewhat-wide angle lens, it has a super-wide angle and a moderate telephoto. It also has a better imager than the old SE 3. One test was when I snapped some impromptu hawk pictures at Byxbee Park a few weeks ago. The results were night-and-day better than what I could have gotten from my SE 3. Would my dedicated camera have done even better? Absolutely. But I would have had to lug around a dedicated camera and probably 2 lenses to get those pics, versus having the phone-camera already in my pants pocket.
❖ I'm noticing I can go longer between recharging the battery. My SE 3 wasn't old enough that its battery was degrading significantly, and I was generally still satisfied with how long I could go between charges. The new 16 Pro definitely lasts longer. My seat-of-the-pants estimate is that, with my normal pattern of use, I can go about twice as long between charges right now. That's close to in line with the technical specs: the SE 3 has a battery capacity of about 2,000 mAh; the 16 Pro about 3,600 mAh.
❖ The 16 Pro switches to a USB-C connector. This is driven by an EU regulation and provokes a cable challenge for all of us who've owned iPhones for several years with Apple's proprietary Lightning connector. I still remember when Apple changed iPhone connectors back in 2013. We had a bunch of the older 30-pin connectors and had to replace them or buy adapters. Thus we knew what we were in for here. At least this time around the change is to a general standard. Lots of devices use USB-C. Now our iPhones no longer require a special cable. Though we are still having to replace things like the connector cables in our cars. Since it's a move from proprietary to an industry standard, I'm happy to lean into it.
