iPhone 16 Pro vs Vivo X300 Ultra

iPhone 16 Pro

A 3,582mAh battery (~10% bigger than the 15 Pro) with solid all-day life for most — but ~2 hours less than the Pro Max, slow charging, and a vocal minority reporting poor longevity.

• A 3,582mAh battery — an almost 10% increase over the 15 Pro's capacity.
• It lasts a solid day but the smaller battery lasts ~2 hours less than the 16 Pro Max in a head-to-head.
• Charging hits 50% in 30 min, ~85% in an hour, and a full charge in ~1h38m — slow, with the last 15% taking ~40 min.
• Real-world use is roughly 5–6 hours of screen-on-time on a 95% charge limit.
• A vocal minority report poor battery lifespan — ~10% drop in under an hour of regular tasks and ~5h screen-on-time.

Vivo X300 Ultra

Vivo grew the silicon-carbon cell 10% to 6,600mAh while keeping the body the same size. Real-world endurance is strong — ~16h active-use score, ~7h heavy screen-on, 13–14 hour days with charge to spare — and 100W wired refills it in under an hour, with 40W wireless.

• Vivo increased the battery by 10% to 6,600mAh despite the phone being practically the same size on paper.
• In our battery test it earned an active-use score of almost 16 hours; 100W charging took it 0–66% in 30 minutes and a full charge in 46 minutes, plus 40W wireless. A charger is in the box except in Europe.
• On the China version I'm finishing entire 13–14 hour days with 25–30% left; the global version keeps the 6,600mAh cell so battery life should comfortably last 12–13 hours of heavy use.
• Getting nearly 7 hours of screen-on time with very heavy usage from the 6,600mAh silicon-carbon unit, with 100W wired and 40W wireless charging support.
• After a 4-hour heavy-usage simulation the phone still had ~45% battery left, which is solid by today's standards, and 100W wired charging takes about 45 minutes to full.

iPhone 16 Pro

At $999 (128GB) it's a great Pro that ages superbly, but the incremental nature and excellent base iPhone 16 complicate the value case.

• 'I love it, but I wouldn't buy it' — the regular iPhone 16 is so good it makes justifying the 16 Pro complicated.
• It's harder this year to justify the higher price of the Pro over the far-improved standard iPhone 16.
• It's a great flagship with excellent, fast cameras and editing tools.
• It's hard to find fault even as an Android enthusiast — value retention and ecosystem make it a compelling 2–3 year investment.
• It's the most incremental of incremental upgrades over the iPhone 15 Pro.
• If the iPhone 17 isn't a huge upgrade, picking up a cheaper iPhone 16 Pro one year later is a smart money-saving move.

Vivo X300 Ultra

This is a deliberately niche, camera-first flagship: roughly €1,175 in China for 512GB, around £1,399 globally for the phone, and close to €2,600 for the full kit. For the people it's aimed at it draws some of the strongest praise of any 2026 phone; for everyone else, a cheaper X300 Pro or the Oppo Find X9 Ultra may make more sense.

• Last year's X200 Ultra was, in my opinion, one of the best smartphones of 2025 — and this is the best smartphone I've ever used, with the best camera application I've ever used, provided with zero script from Vivo.
• The cameras are nothing short of amazing — this is the best Android camera phone, with image quality better than anything from Samsung.
• The versatility here is just ridiculous — more like a phone in a camera than the other way around, a camera system built from the sum of its many parts.
• If you accept the 35mm main, are willing to tolerate AI processing in some scenes, and don't mind the front-camera stabilisation limits, this Vivo is an excellent choice.