Summary
- The iPhone 16e is priced at $599, and offers a minimalist design and single camera.
- The display features a reliable 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR panel with a familiar notch design, lacking the Dynamic Island.
- Stellar performance and improved battery life thanks to the A18 chip & Apple C1 modem make the 16e feel like a modern yet flawed device.
The iPhone 16e enters Apple’s lineup as the most affordable new iPhone, yet it exists in a peculiar position as neither a true budget device nor a fully-featured flagship. That makes the iPhone 16e one of Apple’s weirdest iPhones to date, as it tries to balance being both accessible and premium.
iPhone 16e
The iPhone 16e is Apple’s most affordable new iPhone, positioned between budget and flagship territory. It offers a minimalist design with some premium touches and ultimately aims to balance accessibility and high-end appeal. However, its place in the lineup feels ambiguous, making it one of Apple’s most unusual releases.
- Great minimal design
- Excellent battery life in a smaller iPhone
- A18 and C1 chip let this iPhone keep up with its more expensive siblings
- Outdated display with a notch
- No MagSafe
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Price and Availability
The iPhone 16e is available starting at $599 with 128GB and can be configured up to 512GB. The device comes in two finishes: white and black, and you can pick one up at most major retailers and carriers, including Amazon and Best Buy, and directly through the Apple Store.
A Minimalist’s Dream iPhone Design
The iPhone 16e adopts the flat-edge design language of Apple’s recent aesthetic direction for the iPhone, and I honestly think this is my favorite iPhone design in a while. It features an aluminum enclosure that is quite lightweight without feeling cheap, and it’s got a slight curvature along the edges like the iPhone 15 series, so the device doesn’t feel uncomfortable or sharp in the hand.
The biggest visual draw of the 16e’s back is the single camera; it’s definitely weird to see a modern iPhone without at least two cameras, but it looks very clean. The camera bump is the smallest camera bump on an iPhone I’ve seen since at least the iPhone 12 series, which means it won’t rock as aggressively on a table or accumulate dust like a magnet as the current iPhones do.
Available in just two colorways: black and white, the iPhone 16e definitely lacks the personality of Apple’s more vibrant 16 and 16 Pro. The matte textured finish on the back provides decent grip, and is something that makes this phone feel great to hold.
That said, what’s immediately apparent is what’s missing rather than what’s present. The lack of a Dynamic Island is the most visually distinctive difference from higher-tier iPhones, with the 16e retaining the now-dated notch design. This means no at-a-glance information or Live Activities that have become standard features on the previous two years of iPhones.
The addition of the Action Button can provide customizable functionality which can be useful, but in the case of the 16e, it is ideally set to trigger Apple’s Visual Intelligence camera lookup feature without navigating through the software, as this iPhone doesn’t get the Camera Control button like its more expensive siblings.
Perhaps the most notable absence is MagSafe compatibility. While the 16e supports standard Qi wireless charging, the lack of the magnetic attachment system feels like an artificial limitation, especially for those who may have integrated MagSafe accessories into their ecosystem.
Overall, the design of the iPhone 16e feels weirdly predictable and surprising at the same time. I really found this iPhone to be charming in how it presents itself among its higher-end siblings, but some of the choices Apple has made to add modern features but omit staples feel very apparent, more so than it ever did with the iPhone SE series of phones, which were clearly parts-bin style budget iPhones.
A Familiar Notched Display
When it comes to the display, the 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display on the iPhone 16e delivers the reliable experience we’ve come to expect from Apple’s OLED panels. Colors are accurate, though they can feel slightly muted compared to Pro models, but content consumption remains excellent across various lighting conditions.
The panel achieves 800 nits of typical brightness, pushing to 1200 nits for HDR content, but isn’t as bright as the current iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, which get up to 1,000 nits of brightness and push 2,000 nits for HDR.
The notch feels particularly outdated after several generations of the Dynamic Island on other models. Even beyond the aesthetics, the Dynamic Island has become a staple of the iPhone user experience and to omit it here feels restrictive even though the likelihood of someone switching from a Dynamic Island iPhone to the 16e is slim.
However, the 60Hz refresh rate of this phone in 2025 is increasingly difficult to justify, especially as dynamic refresh rates have become commonplace across Android devices at similar and lower price points. In contrast, the iPhone 16e’s static refresh rate creates a perceptible compromise in smoothness when scrolling through content or switching between apps.
Again, for people upgrading from older iPhones, whom Apple is targeting this phone for, this won’t register as a downgrade, but it’s impossible not to notice if you’ve experienced the fluidity of higher refresh rates.
The Return of the Single Camera
The 48MP Fusion camera is likely the most significant upgrade for users coming from older iPhone models. Apple’s computational photography continues to deliver reliable results across lighting conditions, and the quad-pixel binning produces detailed 24MP images by default with the option to capture full 48MP shots when needed. The camera system can balance exposure in challenging lighting fairly well and produces natural-looking photos that retain detail in both shadows and highlights.
The optical-quality 2x zoom leverages the middle portion of the sensor to deliver what Apple markets as “two cameras in one.” Much like the regular iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, this implementation doesn’t replace the dedicated telephoto lens you’ll find on the Pro iPhones, which can optically zoom in 5x.
It’s worth noting that this 48MP sensor is not the same one as the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro phones, as it’s a smaller overall sensor, and when you push it to its extremes, you’ll start to see the limitations of the smaller size, especially in low-light conditions.
That said, what I love about this single-camera system is the way it handles pictures, because it finally matches the aggressiveness of Apple’s computational processing. Having used the iPhone 16 Plus and iPhone 16 Pro for several months back-to-back, while the camera produces great photos, the processing always felt like it was overcompensating for detail and sharpness when it didn’t need to.
In the case of the iPhone 16 Plus, I used Photographic Styles and Lightroom to dial back some of the over-processing, and with the 16 Pro, turned on ProRAW Max to get rid of it altogether. With the iPhone 16e, the “worse” sensor benefits heavily from the device’s processing, and it delivers images I really like, straight out of the camera.
The most glaring absence of the iPhone 16e’s camera system is the ultra wide lens, which has become standard across most smartphones above $500. Without it, you lose the ability to capture expansive landscapes, architectural shots, or large group photos without significant distance, not to mention the lack of macro photography capabilities that arrived in the base iPhone 16 series for the first time.
I don’t necessarily think the removal of the ultra wide camera is bad from a photography standpoint, especially because it’s my least-used lens on my 16 Pro. But, because Apple is targeting this for an audience that may be of an older demographic, the macro photography mode enabled by the ultra wide camera would’ve been useful for things like reading labels, which is something I’ve seen many of my family members do over the years.
In terms of video, that remains a core iPhone strength, with the 16e being able to record 4K at 60 frames per second in Dolby Vision. Something coming from the flagship iPhones is the introduction of audio mix, which can let you dial up or tweak the sound of specific people or things within your frame, which still remains one of the most versatile tools within the Photos app.
Stellar Performance with Even Better Battery Life
The A18 chip powering the iPhone 16e delivers performance that feels indistinguishable from other current-generation iPhones for everyday tasks. Apps launch promptly, multitasking is fluid, and even demanding games run without frame drops. The 6-core CPU and 4-core GPU maintain the responsive experience you’d expect out of any flagship iPhone, and Apple claims performance improvements for the 16e are up to 80 percent over the iPhone 11’s A13 Bionic.
More significant than this phone’s raw performance is its power efficiency. Apple’s silicon allows the A18 to deliver impressive battery life that exceeds previous 6.1-inch iPhones. Throughout testing, the device consistently lasted through a full day of mixed usage, including social media, photography, streaming video, and occasional gaming.
I am especially surprised by the fact this 6.1-inch iPhone nearly matches the battery life of the iPhone 16 Plus, which I thought was already stellar. For a smaller iPhone to finally keep up for a full day of usage is something I’ve wanted for years, and I hope this trickles up to this year’s flagship iPhones as well.
Apple’s first in-house modem, the C1, is largely the factor leading to this better power efficiency. For Apple’s first attempt, it’s really well done, as I experienced no perceptible difference compared to my Qualcomm-equipped iPhone 16 Plus, which I switched from. Cellular connectivity was quite fast and stable, giving me 153 Mbps download and 61.8 Mbps upload speeds, which is consistent with my 16 Plus’ 157 Mbps download and 58 Mbps upload speeds from the same location. It’s worth noting these aren’t extensive tests, and I’m situated in a major metropolitan city, so your mileage may vary depending on your carrier and service.
Apple Intelligence is technically present on the iPhone 16e, though my experience hasn’t really changed since I used it back in September; the writing tools, image generation capabilities, and marginal Siri improvements are nice-to-have, but rarely feel essential to this phone’s overall usability. The potential remains largely theoretical until more substantial updates arrive later this year.
USB-C charging replaces Lightning, bringing the iPhone 16e in line with the rest of Apple’s current devices and broader industry standards. Fast charging support allows the battery to reach 50 percent in approximately 30 minutes with a compatible 20W adapter, though no charger is included in the box.
Should You Buy the iPhone 16e?
The iPhone 16e exists in a curious position within Apple’s product strategy. At $599, it’s positioned as the most affordable entry point into the current iPhone ecosystem, yet it strategically omits features that have become standard even on mid-range Android devices. For users upgrading from iPhone 11 or older models, the improvements in camera quality, performance, and battery life will be meaningful and can justify the investment.
However, the value proposition becomes questionable when compared to alternatives. The standard iPhone 16 at $799 adds the Dynamic Island, ultra wide camera, and MagSafe compatibility, which are features that significantly enhance the user experience for $200 more. Alternatively, last year’s iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Pro can often be found at similar or lower prices to the 16e while offering several features absent from it.
The iPhone 16e embodies the fundamental tensions in Apple’s ecosystem approach. It delivers the essential iPhone experience while deliberately withholding features to maintain differentiation between models. The result is a capable device that nonetheless feels unnecessarily constrained by strategic decisions rather than technical limitations.
It took a long time for me to understand the iPhone 16e, but the more I use it, the more I realize this iPhone is the logical equivalent to an outlet-branded product; it’s premium, but flawed in a calculated way, so it’s never exactly the same as getting the full experience.
This doesn’t make it a bad product, it’s just different. It’s for those who don’t care about all the bells and whistles of the more expensive flagships, but want the essence of a newer iPhone. I largely see this phone appeal to people who are on carrier contract plans or those who haven’t upgraded their iPhone in a while; this iPhone is their cheapest entry into Apple’s latest generation, and to that end, the iPhone 16e serves its purpose well, even if it isn’t the best value iPhone anymore.
iPhone 16e
The iPhone 16e is Apple’s most affordable new iPhone, positioned between budget and flagship territory. It offers a minimalist design with premium touches, aiming to balance accessibility and high-end appeal. However, its place in the lineup feels ambiguous, making it one of Apple’s most unusual releases.
