Motoring10.03.2025

Used cars you can buy for the price of an iPhone 16 Pro Max

By Myles Illidge

Although they are generally very high-mileage older vehicles, numerous second-hand vehicles are listed on prominent South African car classifieds platforms that you can buy for less than the R42,999 price tag on the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 1TB.

Apple launched the latest line of iPhones, the iPhone 16 lineup, at its “Glowtime” event on Monday, 9 September 2024.

The most noticeable change over the previous iPhone generation is the inclusion of a dedicated camera control button featured on all four iPhone 16 models.

The iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus pack Apple’s in-house A18 SoC, while the Pro variations get the more powerful A18 Pro.

The Pro chip features a 16-core neural engine capable of 35 trillion operations per second, a 6-core GPU, and a 6-core CPU.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the latest iPhones were designed with Apple Intelligence front-and-centre, which is possible mainly due to the new in-house chips.

“It puts powerful generative models right at the core of your iPhone,” said Cook.

Notable Apple Intelligence features include text and image generation, writing tools, and a wide range of new Siri capabilities.

Regarding the display, the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max has a 6.9-inch 2,868 x 1,320-pixel OLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and 2,000 nits at peak brightness.

The iPhone 16 Pro Max’s A18 Pro chip is paired with 8GB of RAM, and the smartphone is available with 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of internal storage.

The iStore’s price for the 1TB model is R42,999.

Regarding photographic capabilities, the iPhone 16 Pro Max has a triple rear camera setup, comprising Apple’s 48MP fusion camera, a 48MP wide-angle shooter, and a 12MP 5x telephoto sensor.

According to Apple, the Pro and Pro Max’s camera setups enable them to record 4K video at 120 frames per second.

Used cars cheaper than a 1TB iPhone 16 Pro Max

MyBroadband scoured car classified websites AutoTrader and Cars.co.za to find used vehicles that can be bought for less than R42,999 — the official price for the 1TB iPhone 16 Pro Max model in South Africa.

While we found numerous options, we limited our list to 10 pre-owned vehicles by weeding out some of the worse-for-wear options and those with mileage higher than 200,000km.

The most affordable vehicle we found that met our criteria is a 2003 Fiat Uno 1.1 3-door, which costs R29,900 and has just over 142,000km on the clock.

Next is a 2010 Renault Logan 1.6 with R154,000km on the clock for R29,950, followed by a 2009 Chevy Spark LS, with just under 110,000km on the clock and racing stripes, for R29,995.

Other notable options include a very clean-looking Ford Fiesta Flair 1.4 3-door from 2000 with 161,454km for R30,000 and a 1997 Mercedes-Benz C200 automatic with 196,000km of mileage for R39,950.

The lowest-mileage vehicle we found was also the most expensive to make the list. It is a 2001 Fiat Uno Mia 1.1 5-door with just under 95,000km on the clock for R41,900.

Below are 10 pre-owned vehicles you can buy for less than an Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max 1TB.