iPhone 16e review: The most expensive cheap iPhone yet

The iPhone 16e rethinks—and prices up—the basic iPhone.

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[SirPerro]

Honestly, kudos to Apple for being able to keep prices like this at a time where there's a plethora of 100-200€ Android phones with a lot more punch their price tag implies.

My son just got a Motorola which cost like 108€, with the latest android version and 3 years of updates, and other than the camera being bad in low light, the thing just works super fine with every single app, including games.

Spending 6 times that is very difficult to justify, specially considering how frequently phones are changed and how fragile those things are.

I myself got a Pixel a-series and I can't imagine needing a faster phone in any way. I know there's a lot of psychology around "need" but honestly, I simply don't understand the appeal of high end phones (If one is not a professional. I understand there's certain jobs that require a high end iPhone/iPad, but those are not the norm)

 

[g.silver]

I wouldn't get this regardless, as my current phone is fine until it breaks, but having used it for a while, not having magsafe is an absolute deal breaker. I really can't go back to not having a mounted GPS in my car, and, lacking one built-in, I rely on my phone.

 

[Ocean Xavier]

I am not as disappointed as others in this offering. It's the phone I would recommend to most of my family members. If you're coming from an iPhone 13 or under, this is easily the best pick for a non-power user.

The gripes about Magsafe seem a bit overblown? I don't know any casual user who uses their phone without a case, and the case gets you the Magsafe magnet alignment for accessories. Sure, you won't get the top speed wireless charging, but I wonder whether that's actually a dealbreaker for this phone's intended audience.

You get the latest-generation SoC, the new action button, a great camera, 8GB RAM (vs 6 on an iPhone 15/14, or 4GB on older models), USB-C, and the great battery life, for a few hundred dollars less than alternative modern offerings. And if Apple Intelligence ever becomes useful, this is the cheapest phone with support for it.

With the Pro models you get a slightly larger screen with double the refresh rate, the always-on display, the Pro chip, faster wired transfer speeds over USB, ProRAW, better mics, the top-end cameras. Whether any of this is worth a few hundred bucks is for each person to decide; but if anything, it's the base iPhone 16 model that I feel is made less compelling now.

If you're not the type of user who values those features you can only get with the Pro, the 16e seems like the best alternative.

 

[Secondfloor]

Enjoy your anti-democratic, neo-fascist, ultra-capitalist shit show as long as you like. Let's hope your oligarchs take real good care of your interests (ROFL).

Meanwhile I'll wake up in a world of universal healthcare, universal education, and world-class purchase power (PPP doesn't even take those huge benefits into account and we're still in top-10 worldwide). And I'll do so without wading on top of homeless people, addicts, and the fear of being shot simply for going to school or out shopping.

Other that, yeah. We're all doing terrible over here, really.

Don’t forget to take your Russian language lessons.

 

[mariupolo]

I am not as disappointed as others in this offering. It's the phone I would recommend to most of my family members. If you're coming from an iPhone 13 or under, this is easily the best pick for a non-power user.

The gripes about Magsafe seem a bit overblown? I don't know any casual user who uses their phone without a case, and the case gets you the Magsafe magnet alignment for accessories. Sure, you won't get the top speed wireless charging, but I wonder whether that's actually a dealbreaker for this phone's intended audience.

You get the latest-generation SoC, the new action button, a great camera, 8GB RAM (vs 6 on an iPhone 15/14, or 4GB on older models), USB-C, and the great battery life, for a few hundred dollars less than alternative modern offerings. And if Apple Intelligence ever becomes useful, this is the cheapest phone with support for it.

With the Pro models you get a slightly larger screen with double the refresh rate, the always-on display, the Pro chip, faster wired transfer speeds over USB, ProRAW, better mics, the top-end cameras. Whether any of this is worth a few hundred bucks is for each person to decide; but if anything, it's the base iPhone 16 model that I feel is made less compelling now.

If you're not the type of user who values those features you can only get with the Pro, the 16e seems like the best alternative.

It's not a bad phone, but it is disappointing for the price. I come from a 12 and I'd be losing MagSafe (which I do use case-less), the wide camera (which I use occasionally) and the colour other than black or white. I'd be gaining some RAM, the newest chip, satellite internet capability, and a better camera, but for 700 euros it's just not very compelling. I'll just keep the 12 longer and buy something which has at least feature parity with the 12 in the future.

And if you don't have an older iPhone to keep, you're probably an Android user, and you can get what Apple considers premium/pro features (ultra-wide and zoom cameras, 120 Hz displays, 15 W wireless charging, USB3+ wired speeds) or ignores (faster wired charging) for a fraction of the price without having to switch platforms.

If you're committed to iOS and want a new-model iPhone now, it's a solid offering, but "if you already decided you want to buy from this product line regardless of competition or missing features, the cheapest model will do" is faint praise.

 

[ant1pathy]

Apologies if it's been mentioned already, I ran out of steam on page 3 of the comments:

I heard something about MagSafe that gave me a little "hmm, I wonder...". That people with pacemakers are contraindicated for having magnets near it, so a MagSafe phone in a chest pocket is no good. Dropping MagSafe gives Apple one phone in the lineup without it as an option for the (very small) demographic that has that firm health-related requirement.

 

[antibolo]

Don’t forget to take your Russian language lessons.

Oh the irony of an American saying this now...

Not that you understand what irony is, I assume.

 

[Colonel Quackers]

How about an opinion from one who uses devices with both technologies on a daily basis. The iPad Mini I’m typing this on is equipped with TouchID/Home Button. Both of my senior parents still use TouchID SE phones. I’m “using” those regularly.

There are times to prefer one technology over the other but, in general, I find moving between them to be seamless. In practice, the phone is unlocked just as quickly either way. The stories of contortion to unlock a phone on the desk, for example, are exaggerated and contrived in my experience. You don’t think about it. It just happens. The other old chestnut is “what about a face mask in winter?” My response there, as a native and returned Minnestota resident, is that I am certainly donning gloves before a face mask.

I’ll add that my mother has reached an age/condition where TouchID isn’t always reliable and that is a source of frustration for her. I’m looking to move her to a FaceID phone sometime this year.

If there was a genuine adjustment period for me it was brief and painless. I have no recollection of it. IMO, it’s a nothing burger outside of forum debates.

Thank you for this info

Reading about the experience of someone who uses both the ‘new’ and ‘old’ stuff is great. I feel much less worried or apprehensive about moving on to the newer designs now.

I will try and get the iPhone 16E as soon as it is available here. Again: Thank you!

 

[DrewW]

I think Tim Cook and Zuckerman had the same thought process: To someone with the brain power of Trump, a whole million is surely a much larger number than a mere quarter of a billion. And for a mere million two companies are safe from revenge actions by Trump.

I see the logic, but it fails. Trump has a terrorist mentality. Giving him a mil is only telling him you will give him money. There is no deal. Darth Vader quote here.

On a pragmatic level, any investment in Trump is a bad investment. The man is a walking negative ROI. He loses money in everything except grift and golf course management.

The start of Trump’s second term has delivered a stunning reversal for many of those billionaires sitting behind Trump in the Capitol Rotunda, with five having lost a combined $209 billion in wealth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

 

[debsguy]

Same here, also no camera bump and/or notch...

This case is a perfect and elegant fit for the 2022 SE, by the way: https://www.amazon.com/Spigen-Extre...lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&smid=A2SFKRF5TPZMT5&th=1

 

[SplatMan_DK]

Don’t forget to take your Russian language lessons.

Trump has that covered for me, but thanks.

I might pick up Ukrainian though...

 

[evan_s]

My thoughts on the 16e
Magsafe- No big deal. Get a Magsafe case for it and you can still use the accessories like the magnetic car mounts etc. The only thing you'd be missing is the faster wireless charging speed and if you need faster charging there's always the option for a cable which will be even faster than magsafe. The case for my 16e hasn't arrived yet but my wife has been doing that with her magsafeless iPhone 11 for a while and it works fine.

Battery life- It's already an easily noticeable improvement over my 12 mini. The 12 mini wasn't the best at release and it's battery is down to the low 80's at this point so even worse but the 16e is a massive improvement. It came at ~80% and I did the new phone setup last night, 30-45 minutes of restoring an iCloud back up and a fair bit of messing around opening apps to make sure they are logged in etc last night and it's still at 50% this morning without having been charged. I'm fairly certain my 12 mini would have been dead before I was done doing the same stuff last night.

Dynamic Island- I just got this on my work 15 a couple days ago so I haven't really gotten used to it or even really noticed when it actually gets used. So far I don't care about the lack of it but that may change as I get more experience.

Size wise it's too early to tell. It's not too much bigger than my work Xs so I expect to be fine but the mini was nice and compact.

Updated thoughts after 2 weeks with the phone.

MageSafe case came in and works fine for my MagSafe car dash mount. Don't regularly use wireless charging so as expected no complaints here.

Battery life continues to impress - I've had a couple cases where I charged it up to 90% before bed time (WTF does this require a newer phone to be able to set this) and in the morning it's still at 88 or 89%. It's 10 AM the next morning and the phone's still at 88%. Granted that is with minimal usage this morning but that's still impressive in my book and much better than my Mini. I know comparing a couple years old phone with a worn battery to a new one with a new battery isn't really fair but it really is a major difference.

Dynamic Island is still a shrug. I don't really care either way.

Size wise it's still fine. Having both phones in my pocket is a little more noticeable right now but I'm pretty sure I'll adjust and not even notice it anymore.

The one minus I forgot to mention and I don't see in the article summary is the lack of UWB for the precise location finding with an Air Tag. The Find Nearby just doesn't show up and instead offers directions in Maps to it's rough GPS location. You can still make it play a sound but this makes the Air Tags a bit less useful. I assume this will be fixed before the Apple Modem makes it to the better models.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/109021