Apple iPhone 16E Review

Apple’s iPhone 16E was released a week ago as the company’s new entry-level iPhone. With a $599 starting price, however, Apple has pretty much abandoned the affordable phone market, and the iPhone 16E has now replaced the 3rd gen iPhone SE and the iPhone 14 on the lineup.

The iPhone 16E looks a lot like the iPhone 14, but it comes with a single rear camera and loses other features like MagSafe charging, 5G mmWave support, and an Ultra Wideband chip. However, it does support Apple Intelligence, which makes it more future-proof than the iPhone 15 and previous models.

For me, the iPhone 16E is replacing the 2nd-gen iPhone SE that I’ve been using for 3 years. This is my first experience with a “modern” iPhone with a borderless display, Face ID, and Apple’s new navigation gestures.

I was well aware that the old iPhone SE design with its 4.7-inch screen and Home button was outdated by today’s standard, but I think that phone was simple to use and good enough for most people. With its 6.1-inch display, I find the iPhone 16E harder to use with just one hand, but I got used to it after a week. My favorite feature, however, is probably the impressive battery life.

iPhone 16E design and specs

I won’t go into too much detail about the design of the iPhone 16E: This is pretty much an iPhone 14 on the front, with a notch to hide the Face ID sensor. There’s no Dynamic Island like on the regular iPhone 16, and Apple’s Super Retina XDR OLED display is protected by the same Ceramic Shield technology as the iPhone 14’s display.

On the left side, the iPhone 16E replaces the Ring/silent switch on the iPhone 14 with the new Action button. By default, pressing this button enables Silent mode, but you can configure it to launch the Camera, Flashlight, Magnifier, record a voice memo, or Visual Intelligence, Apple’s answer to Google Lens.

On the rear, the iPhone 16E comes with a single 48MP “Fusion” camera that can take pictures in 24MP and 48MP. There are just 1x and 2x zoom options, however, and no .5x option due to the absence of an Ultra-wide camera.

Under the hood, the iPhone 16E comes with the same A18 chip as the regular iPhone 16, with 6 CPU cores but just 4 GPU cores (compared to 5 on the iPhone 16). Apple also included 8GB of RAM to enable Apple Intelligence features, something the new entry-level iPad with its A16 chip doesn’t have.

One standout component on the iPhone 16E is the C1 chip, the first modem designed by Apple to replace a Qualcomm component. Apple said that the C1 is “the most power-efficient modem ever on an iPhone, delivering fast and reliable 5G cellular connectivity.” The company promises up to 26 hours of video playback and up to 90 hours of audio playback on the iPhone 16E.

In the EU, the iPhone 16E still comes with a nano-SIM tray, but the US version of the phone is eSIM only. I switched to eSIM when transferring my data from my previous iPhone and haven’t looked back. Just like other modern iPhones, the iPhone 16E can have two active eSIMs at once and store eight or more eSIMs.

One word about charging: The iPhone 16E uses a USB-C port for charging, just like all iPhones released since the iPhone 15. It also supports basic Qi wireless charging at 7.5W, just like the 2nd-gen and 3rd-gen iPhone SE. However, there’s no built-in magnets to support MagSafe accessories out of the box. You can fix that with a MagSafe-compatible case, but you’ll still be limited to Qi wireless charging speeds.

iPhone 16E missing features

On its website, Apple lets you pick up to 3 iPhones and see how they compare specs-wise, so I did that with the iPhone 14, iPhone 16E, and regular iPhone 16. As it turns out, the iPhone 16E is missing quite a lot of things compared to the iPhone 16E, though you won’t miss as much coming from an iPhone 14.

The list below isn’t exhaustive, but here are the main things the iPhone 16E misses compared to the iPhone 16:

• No Dynamic Island to replace the notch
• Display is limited to 1200 nits of peak brightness (HDR) compared to 2000 nits on the iPhone 16
• No latest generation Ceramic shield on the front
• Just 4 GPU cores on the A18 chip vs. 5 GPU cores on the iPhone 16
• No Camera Control button
• No 12MP Ultra-wide camera and .5x optical zoom
• No macro photography support
• No spatial photos and videos support
• No Cinematic mode for recording videos with shallow depth of field (also present on iPhone 14)
• No latest-gen Photographic Styles support
• Standard optical image stabilization vs. sensor-shift optical image stabilization on the iPhone 16
• No MagSafe support
• No mmWave 5G
• No Ultra wideband (UWB) chip and Thread networking technology

Using the iPhone 16E

Overall, I’ve had a very good experience using the iPhone 16E since last week. I’m especially impressed with the battery life: With moderate use, I only need to charge it every two days. With Apple’s 20W adapter that’s available to purchase separately, you can get up to 50% charge in just 30 minutes, which is nice. I only briefly tried wireless charging with an old Qi charger I had, but using a charging cable is much faster anyway.

I was also curious to see how Apple’s C1 modem would perform in the real world, but I’ve had no issues so far. Cellular reception is solid, I don’t have 5G with my current mobile plan, but I get over 100Mbps down/20Mbps up speeds with 4G in my town, which is more than enough for me. Apple is reportedly working on a “refreshed” C1 modem with faster 5G mmWave support for next year, and I’m looking forward to seeing Apple add its own cellular modems in iPads and Macs in the future.

I’m far from a professional photographer, but the single 48MP Fusion camera on the iPhone 16E is a clear improvement over the 12MP sensor on my previous iPhone SE. I’m not someone who likes to mess up with camera settings, I just need a reliable point-and-shoot camera and I haven’t been disappointed with the iPhone 16E camera so far.

The iPhone 16E camera also performs well in low-light conditions. If you’re used to having an additional wide-angle camera, however, the iPhone 16E is probably not for you.

Coming from an old iPhone SE with a Home button, I needed to learn the new navigation gestures Apple introduced on the iPhone X nearly ten years ago. In short, you swipe up from the bottom of the screen to leave an app, or you pause in the middle to see recent apps. This is inconsistent, but swiping from the left side of the screen works like pressing a back button, though this doesn’t work in all apps for some reason.

I had to Google it, but there’s also a handy “Reachability” gesture to reach items at the top of the screen more easily. On iPhones with a Home button, you had to double tap that button to lower the upper portion of the screen. On the iPhone 16E and other models without a Home button, however, you need to swipe down on the bottom edge of the screen to make it work. This Reachability feature was enabled by default on my iPhone, but you can find it by going to Settings > Accessibility > Touch.

I’m probably less enthusiastic about the transition from Touch ID to Face ID. In broad daylight, Face ID works seamlessly but I’ve been having trouble having the sensor recognize my face in the dark. Face ID uses infrared technology to recognize your face in total darkness, but in my own experience, it just rarely works in the dark.

Apple says Face ID “works best when the device is arm’s length or less from your face,” so maybe I’m just “holding it wrong” when I’m trying to unlock the iPhone 16E while lying in my bed. Anyway, I do miss Touch ID in these rare moments, but your experience may differ from mine.

As for Apple Intelligence, it isn’t available in France yet so I haven’t been able to try Vision Intelligence and other features. However, the upcoming iOS 18.4 update, which is coming in April, will finally enable Apple Intelligence features on iOS in the EU. The AI features are already available for Mac users in the EU who set up their device and Siri language to English, which I did, but I wasn’t impressed enough to keep using them.

Should you buy the iPhone SE?

At $599, the iPhone 16E isn’t as easy to recommend as the previous iPhone SE, which was priced at $429. For $170 more, however, you get a much nicer design with a bigger screen, a solid camera, Apple Intelligence, and better battery life than the regular iPhone 16. It’s just unfortunate that Apple cut some features like the Dynamic Island and MagSafe, which are now standard on recent iPhones.

In some ways, the iPhone 16E is similar to the iPhone XR, which was released as an affordable alternative to the iPhone XS and XS Max in 2018. The $749 iPhone XR was Apple’s best-selling iPhone in the US in 2018, and the most popular smartphone globally in 2019.

While the iPhone 16 is $200 more expensive than the iPhone 16E, last year’s iPhone 15 starts at $699, and it’s more versatile than the iPhone 16E despite its lack of support for Apple Intelligence. However, people who like “good-enough” technology like I do should be happy with the iPhone 16E.

It’s too early to tell if the iPhone 16E could become a new volume seller for Apple, but I think it does offer good value for the price. If you’re looking for a new iPhone with a good camera, excellent battery life, and performance that matches the more expensive iPhone 16, you can’t really go wrong with the iPhone 16E.