Apple iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15: Major differences that you should know before buying 

iPhone 16 vs iPhone 15

Apple unveiled its new iPhone 16 lineup with many important changes, new features and improvements over the iPhone 15 series. Like every year, the iPhone 16 is likely to be buyers go to choice for the new iPhone 16 lineup and if you are planning to buy one and confused whether you should buy the new iPhone 16 or go with the iPhone 15, especially after the price cut.  

To help you make an informed decision, we’ve compared both the phones in detail.  

New camera design 

Apple iPhone 16 retains the same design language as the iPhone 15. The overall silhouette remains unchanged. However, the iPhone 16 comes with a redesigned camera housing. The phone ditches the diagonal camera placement in favour of vertical setup like the iPhone X and iPhone XS.  

New colours  

Apple has also announced the iPhone 16 is a new colour option compared to the iPhone 15. This year, Apple has introduced Pink, Teal and Ultramarine colour options for the iPhone 16.  

Apple Intelligence 

Perhaps the biggest difference between the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 is in terms of AI capabilities. The iPhone 16 supports Apple Intelligence and will include almost all the features Apple announced at the WWDC 24 keynote. However, the iPhone 15 will never get the Apple Intelligence features. 

Processor 

Apple iPhone 15 is powered by A16 chip which is a two-year-old chipset. Compared to that the iPhone 16 comes with the latest A18 Bionic chip which offers better NPU performance, CPU and GPU performance. Also, the performance boost is significantly more compared to the A16 Bionic chip. 

New buttons – Action and Camera  

Apple iPhone 16 comes with a new Action button as well as a newly introduced Camera capture button which includes multiple camera functionalities like capturing a picture or recording a video, changing modes, zooming in or out and several other camera functionalities. On the other hand, the iPhone 15 has old-generation hardware which feels outdated compared to the iPhone 16.  

 Camera 

On paper, both iPhone 16 and iPhone 15 come with the same dual camera setup. However, Apple has updated the sensor on iPhone 16 to 48MP Fusion main camera. In addition to this, the iPhone 16 also supports 3D Spatial Video recording format which iPhone 15 misses out on.  

Apart from these, the ultra-wide sensor on iPhone 16 now supports Macro mode.  

Battery life 

Although Apple hasn’t specified if it has improved the battery size on the iPhone 16. But it does claim that the iPhone 16 will deliver 2 hours more usage compared to the iPhone 15. Now, the real-world test is yet to be done, but with improved chips and better performance, it is possible that the iPhone 16 could deliver better battery life over the iPhone 15.  

Charging  

Both iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 support 20W wired charging. However, the iPhone 16 supports 25W Magsafe charging while the iPhone 15 supports 15W wireless charging.  

Specs comparison