The iPhone 17 won me over, but I’d still recommend the iPhone 16 to most people
The iPhone 17 won me over, but I’d still recommend the iPhone 16 to most people
Publish Date: 2026-04-26 18:33:00
Source Domain: www.digitaltrends.com
I was using the iPhone 17 when I picked up my iPhone 16 to look at an older video, and it led to an epiphany: nothing about the iPhone 16 felt any worse than its successor. It wasn’t any slower, the design didn’t feel dramatically different, and nothing about it screamed “old” or “outdated.” That feeling stuck with me for a few days.
Over the years, the smartphone industry has trained us to treat one year of upgrades (no matter how incremental) as something that should feel significant, but upon switching back to the iPhone 16 after using the iPhone 17 for over six months, I realized that wasn’t the case. We’re so stuck in finding the smallest changes in the spec sheet that we forget that a company’s product cycle isn’t a measure of obsolescence.
Shikhar Mehrotra / Digital Trends
A phone that doesn’t feel outdated next to its predecessor
The moment I picked up the iPhone 16 (which was resting without a case in my drawer), I couldn’t help but notice its cool aluminum frame and the matte glass back in the Teal finish, and it brought a smile to my face. The next moment, I took out my iPhone 17 and held it side-by-side.
If you leave out the larger form factor (due to a bigger screen) and the different finishes, the iPhone 16 shares all its design elements, including the Dynamic Island on the front, the vertical camera layout on the back, and the buttons (including the Action button and Camera Control), with the iPhone 17.
And that’s when it hit me: the iPhone 16 doesn’t feel all that old, even next to its successor.
Shikhar Mehrotra / Digital Trends
The chip gap isn’t as wide as the ProMotion display makes it feel
Over the next couple of days, I started using the phone as my daily driver, just to check whether there were any noticeable differences in the performance, and I came to a rather nuanced conclusion.
Had Apple equipped the iPhone 16 with a 120Hz ProMotion…
