It's been several months since Apple released the mid-tier iPhone 16e to replace the iPhone SE, so we thought we'd revisit it for a longer-term review.
With a starting price of $599, the iPhone 16e isn't a low-cost smartphone, but it is Apple's most affordable iPhone option. The iPhone 16e has some of the same technology that's in Apple's flagship iPhone 16 models, so the price isn't bad for what it offers. You can often find deals that lower the price a little.
It has the same A18 chip that's in the iPhone 16, but with a 4-core GPU instead of a 5-core GPU. It's as blazing fast for day-to-day performance, and the only place you might notice that missing GPU core is playing system intensive games. It has the same amount of RAM and supports Apple Intelligence.
You're limited to a single-lens camera, but it's Apple's 48-megapixel Fusion lens. You don't get ultra wide or 5x telephoto images, but it does support standard 26mm images and also 12-megapixel 2x telephoto images.
At 6.1 inches, the iPhone 16e is the same size as the iPhone 16, but it's a little lighter in weight because of the single-lens camera. It doesn't have 120Hz ProMotion or a Dynamic Island. Those features are nice to have, but not essential. Another feature that you might miss more with the iPhone 16e is MagSafe. It's not clear why Apple didn't include MagSafe, but it's limited to slower Qi-based charging.
The iPhone 16e is the first iPhone to use Apple's 5G C1 modem rather than a Qualcomm modem, and in our testing, it works just as well as Qualcomm hardware. Performance can be even better than Qualcomm in some areas with low connectivity. Battery life is better than the iPhone 16, thanks to efficiencies introduced by the C1 modem.
There are some features you miss out on choosing the iPhone 16e over the iPhone 16, but it's $200 less and has a whole lot to offer.
