- A refurbished iPhone 16 Pro costs from $654.08 in our iPhone 16 Pro collection. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 from Apple.
- That’s a difference of about $545 which is significant. Obviously, if you go higher with storage the price will go up but $545 for a 256GB iPhone 16 Pro is incredible value for money.
- To the untrained eye, both phones look more or less identical from the front and back too.
- That $545 could go towards a case, AirPods, a new MacBook, or just stay in your bank account. Either way, the savings are real, tangible and could get you out of a 24 month subsidized plan.
The iPhone 18 Pro is the better phone. But that’s always the case with new models. The real question is this: is it THAT much better than an iPhone 16 Pro which, if we’re being honest, is still a lot more phone than most people need.
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For everyday jobs like browsing, email, maps, social media, video and taking the odd photo, a refurbished iPhone 16 Pro is still massively over-specced and over-powered. It’s a freakin’ beast and most users never even touch half of its performance capabilities.
The iPhone 18 Pro brings real upgrades, especially to battery life, the cameras and outdoor screen brightness. But for many people, those improvements won’t be worth paying almost twice as much.
The price difference
The iPhone 18 Pro costs more for good reasons, but you’re paying a lot for improvements most people won’t notice every time they pick up their phone. If that’s you, or you’re using an older iPhone model (iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 13) and you’re thinking about an upgrade, think about this:
- Base model iPhones miss out on certain Pro features, and the new base model iPhone 18 isn’t landing until 2027.
- New Pro models inside the iPhone 18 range cost more than ever.
- A refurbished iPhone 16 Pro is not an old model, it runs Apple Intelligence, but is priced less than an entry-level iPhone 17.
If the idea of paying $1000+ for a phone disgusts you, skip the BS and use depreciation to your advantage and opt for a slightly older Pro Max model.
What feels the same in everyday use?
Both phones have a 6.3-inch OLED display with Apple’s 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate. Scrolling through Instagram, switching between apps, watching YouTube or reading a long page should feel smooth on either phone.
The iPhone 18 Pro’s display is brighter outdoors, which helps when you’re using it in direct sun.
That’s a real improvement if you spend a lot of time outside and are using an older iPhone 11 or iPhone 12 model. At home, on the train or in the office, the iPhone 16 Pro’s screen is already sharp, smooth and bright enough for most people.
The processor gap is similar. The 18 Pro’s A20 Pro is newer and faster than the 16 Pro’s A18 Pro, of course, and that matters for demanding tasks such as exporting large video projects, running graphics-heavy games for long sessions, or using new features built around the latest hardware.
But it ONLY matters if you’re actually doing this. If you’re not, it’s like paying for a super-car and then only driving 30mph everywhere. You’re just paying for stuff that you’ll never use.
If only using it to open Gmail, check the weather, use Google Maps, scroll TikTok or reply to messages, these jobs already run quickly on the 16 Pro. A benchmark score can show that the A20 Pro is faster, but it doesn’t mean your everyday apps suddenly feel twice as quick.
The 16 Pro also supports Apple Intelligence. You don’t need to buy the 18 Pro just to use Apple’s current AI features.
You don’t have to pay $1,000+ for a new phone. Buying refurbished saves you, on average, 40% to 50%.
Which means you skip the inflationary price hikes, side-step the 2026 memory cost crisis, and still get the flagship performance and specs you want.
Recommended Options For 2026Where the iPhone 18 Pro is genuinely better
Battery life
Apple rates the iPhone 18 Pro for up to 34 hours of video playback, compared with up to 27 hours for the iPhone 16 Pro. That’s a sizeable gap on paper, and the 18 Pro should suit heavier users who regularly run low by the end of the day.
Those figures come from Apple’s controlled tests, though. Your actual battery life depends on signal strength, screen brightness, apps and how much video or gaming you do. A refurbished 16 Pro’s battery condition matters too, all the options inside our database are vetted and confirmed with either 90% or higher.
Cameras
Both have a 48MP main camera and a 48MP ultra-wide camera. The 16 Pro also has a dedicated 12MP telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom. That’s still a strong setup for everyday photos, portraits, holidays and video.
The 18 Pro upgrades the camera system, including a 48MP telephoto camera and a variable-aperture main camera. It also has a higher-resolution 18MP front camera, compared with 12MP on the 16 Pro. Those changes are useful if you take lots of selfies, shoot in tricky light, crop photos heavily or want more control over your camera.
If most of your photos are family snaps, pets, food, scenery and the occasional night out, the 16 Pro can still do the job very well. In fact, it is still utterly superb in 2026, more than most people will ever need. The 18 Pro gives keen photographers more to work with, but it won’t make every casual photo look dramatically better.
A longer update runway
The iPhone 18 Pro is two generations newer, so it should receive major iOS updates for longer. Apple doesn’t publish a fixed end-of-support date for each iPhone, so nobody can give you an exact number of years.
If you keep phones for a long time, that extra runway is worth considering. The 16 Pro is still a recent flagship with current software support, though, and it isn’t at the point where you need to replace it because it has fallen behind.
Which one should you buy?
The iPhone 18 Pro makes sense if you need the best battery life, want the latest camera hardware, often use your phone outdoors, or plan to keep it for as many years as possible.
For everyone else, the refurbished iPhone 16 Pro is the smarter buy. It has a high-quality 120Hz screen, fast performance, a versatile camera system and Apple Intelligence support. It handles the everyday stuff without fuss, and the money you save is hard to ignore.
The refurbished iPhone 16 Pro costs from $654.08 in our collection which makes it about half the cost of a new iPhone 18 Pro.
That’s a massive saving.
You could literally buy a refurbished MacBook M1 with the savings and have two useful tools rather than just one.
If you’re deciding between it and the latest model, use our Phone Finder to find a match for your budget, or put both phones into our refurbished phone comparison tool. You can also browse all our refurbished phone collections for current listings.
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Sources
- Apple iPhone 16 Pro technical specifications
- Apple iPhone 18 Pro technical specifications
- Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro announcement
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