On Wednesday morning, Apple pulled the wraps off the iPhone 16e, now the cheapest model in the company’s current lineup. It essentially replaces the outdated 2022 iPhone SE as the “affordable” option, but it marks a shift away from the significant discount the older SE line was known for. The iPhone 16e starts at $599, narrowing the gap between it and the $799 iPhone 16 that came out last fall. It will be available for pre-order starting Friday, Feb. 21 with the street date following the next week on Friday, Feb. 28.
The iPhone 16e is also the first phone to feature Apple’s C1 cellular modem. Apple has had a lot of success with its in-house chips, such as the M1 and up in its computers and the A-series chips in its mobile devices. The cellular modem is a critical but oft-overlooked element in phones, and if Apple hasn’t stuck the landing on the C1, it could mean all sorts of connectivity issues. Hopefully Apple learned its lesson from the “Antennagate” scandal – when iPhone 4 struggled with cell signal strength because of the design and placement of the antennas – and ensured the iPhone 16e’s connectivity is up to snuff.
From the front, you’d be hard pressed to tell this phone apart from the iPhone 14. The specifications of the display are identical, offering a 6.1-inch OLED with a 2532×11170 resolution panel and 1,200-nit peak brightness. This isn’t as sharp or nearly as bright as the iPhone 16. The iPhone 16e does get the Action button and a USB-C port, though it misses out on the Camera Control.
Around the back, the iPhone 16e is more distinct from its iPhone kin, as it has just a single camera, much like the iPhone SE before it. It’s a 48MP sensor with a lot in common with the current iPhone 16’s main camera, but Apple reserves a few elements for the higher-tier phone, like sensor-shift stabilization, the latest version of Photographic styles, and the ability to adjust focus in portrait mode. Meanwhile, the selfie camera appears to be identical and brings Face ID to the iPhone 16e.
The phone is cased in aluminum, a glass back, and Apple’s Ceramic Shield on front. While Apple still suggests that this Ceramic Shield is “tougher than any smartphone glass” in its press release, it’s worth noting that Apple itself offers a newer blend of Ceramic Shield that claims to be “two times tougher than any smartphone glass.” That certainly raises some question about how tough the older Ceramic Shield on the iPhone 16e really is, especially when I saw plenty of wear and tear on the display when I reviewed the iPhone 16.
The internals of the phone are an interesting demonstration of product stratification. There was already a gap between the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro in that the Pro models got an A18 Pro chip with faster speeds and more GPU cores. While the iPhone 16e is packing an “A18” chip like the iPhone 16, it’s not quite the same. It has the same number of CPU cores, but it only gets a 4-core GPU, down from the iPhone 16’s 5-core GPU. Given the iPhone 16’s small performance deficit next to the iPhone 16 Pro, I’d expect the iPhone 16e to take yet another step down. Still, with the Neural Engine intact on the iPhone 16e, it will be able to tap into the various Apple Intelligence features, for whatever that’s worth.
Naturally, there is some compromise for the iPhone 16e – there had to be for it to land with a lower price than the other phones in Apple’s roster. All told, it doesn’t seem overly compromised, but it’s also not carrying as much of a discount as the early iPhone SE models did. Coming in at $599 may make it Apple’s cheapest phone, but Apple’s last budget model, the 2022 iPhone SE, launched with a $429 price tag while carrying the same chip as the then $799 iPhone 13. Its design was very dated at the time, but there was no ignoring the nearly 50% discount it provided. This time, Apple is at least basing the iPhone 16e on a design that’s just a couple years old, even if it’s gotten minor tweaks every year since 2018.
We’ll have to see how well the iPhone 16e actually performs. But with the Android market already offering some compelling iPhone alternatives around $600, like the OnePlus 13R, Apple may have a hard time courting buyers who aren’t already locked into the Apple ecosystem.
Mark Knapp is a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything electronics and gaming hardware. He has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry with bylines at PCMag, Reviewed, CNET, and more. Find Mark on Twitter @Techn0Mark or BlueSky at @Techn0Mark.
