So A lot Extra Bang for Your Buck

Not sufficient. That was the final consensus when Apple launched the $600 iPhone 16e a 12 months in the past. Quick ahead to in the present day, and the new iPhone 17e is a much better worth for a similar worth.

Apple might have added MagSafe to the iPhone 17e and referred to as it a day, but it surely determined to double the beginning storage (256GB), throw in an A19 chip that’s virtually as highly effective because the one within the $800 iPhone 17, embrace a quicker C1X for 5G connectivity, and provides the glass display Ceramic Protect 2 to extend scratch resistance.

When you’re pondering, “That’s it?” then the iPhone 17e might be not for you. The iPhone 17e is what you get in the event you’re on a tighter funds and also you merely don’t want all of the bells and whistles within the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro.

Clear and easy design

On the floor, the iPhone 17e appears and feels precisely just like the iPhone 16e. Every little thing from the aluminum body to the one rear digicam to the frosted glass again is identical. Ditto for the display dimension (6.1-inch) and sort (OLED, Tremendous Retina XDR) and refresh price (60Hz). The iPhone 17e additionally retains the customizable Motion button and the notch within the show (no Dynamic Island once more). There was an attractive simplicity within the iPhone 16e and I’m actually glad that Apple didn’t mess with it for the iPhone 17e.

I’m additionally comfortable to see that Apple added a “Rose Pink” colour along with impartial white and black.

See iPhone 17e at Apple

I can already hear the geeks complaining about how the 60Hz refresh price is a dealbreaker and what number of Android telephones in the identical worth vary have 120Hz or quicker shows. However I’ll be sincere, after settling in with the iPhone 17e as my principal telephone for almost per week, I didn’t even miss the 120Hz “ProMotion” on my private iPhone 16 Pro. My mind and eyes simply obtained used to 60Hz once more when it recalibrated to being my new regular.

The stereo audio system with Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos help additionally sound nice. You don’t notice how vital having stereo audio system is till you lose the function, like on the iPhone Air, which solely has a tinny mono speaker.

MagSafe magic

Essentially the most notable function addition is MagSafe—for each wi-fi charging and attaching magnetic equipment. Since its introduction in 2020 on the iPhone 12 series, MagSafe has been indispensable for good wi-fi charging alignment and handy for attaching a magnetic pockets or an adjunct similar to a tripod. Not together with it on the iPhone 16e felt like Apple had gone too far in slicing options.

With MagSafe, I used to be in a position to drop the iPhone 17e on my Belkin 2-in-1 MagSafe and AirPods dock stand each night time to juice it up by morning. No waking as much as an uncharged iPhone as a result of the iPhone wasn’t aligned accurately with the wi-fi charging pad’s coils.

MagSafe charging is life-changing as a man with two cats that like to chunk at each dangling cable they’ll sink their fangs into. The iPhone 17e fees at as much as 15W with both an official MagSafe or Qi2 wi-fi charger. The one catch is that you simply’ll want to make use of a 20W or higher-power charger, which isn’t included within the field. Happily, you’ll find many respected quick chargers from manufacturers like Anker or Ugreen for affordable lately.

It’s additionally actually helpful that I can slap on a magnetic card case to the again of the iPhone 17e after I don’t really feel like carrying my entire pockets. For creators, MagSafe shall be helpful for attaching the iPhone 17e to tripods, like this neck-worn one that I typically use for recording gadget POV pictures.

Prime efficiency

There’s little to say about efficiency on the iPhone 17e—it’s actually quick. Which isn’t any shock for the reason that A19 is without doubt one of the quickest telephone chips on the market. Simply to offer you a body of reference for the A19 chip’s CPU energy, I ran Geekbench 6 on the iPhone 17e and in contrast the outcomes to the identical ones from the Tensor G4 chip within the $500 Google Pixel 10a. The iPhone 17e scored 3,271 on the single-core check in comparison with the Pixel 10a, which scored a measly 1,516, making the iPhone 17e 115% quicker. The efficiency hole is even wider for multi-core: the iPhone 17e scored 8,404 and the Pixel 10a scored 2,197, which works out to the iPhone 17e being about 282% quicker.

iOS 26 is buttery easy, and regardless of my fixed frustration with Liquid Glass rendering app icons, textual content, and menu bars an optical or legible mess, the software program is snappy. I can’t say I observed any main drops in efficiency for typical telephone issues like looking the net, watching movies, scrolling via social media apps, and sending messages.

Even with one fewer GPU core (4 as a substitute of 5 in comparison with the A19 chip within the iPhone 17), my go-to 3D cellular sport, Asphalt Legends, held up like a champ. The iPhone 17e did get just a little toasty after I booted up 3D video games or edited massive, 4K video clips collectively in CapCut, however that’s to be anticipated when throwing GPU-heavy duties at it.

Apple touts quicker pace for utilizing Apple Intelligence options, like “Clear Up,” which removes distracting folks or objects in a photograph, but it surely’s not quicker AI processing that I would like, however higher high quality processing. In comparison with the generative AI picture restore instruments on different telephones and apps, Clear Up nonetheless appears the worst.

And though I didn’t take any technical assessments to measure the 5G connection from the C1X modem, I can say that mobile connectivity was secure and robust on T-Cell in my week of utilizing the iPhone 17e in New York Metropolis’s Queens and Manhattan boroughs.

Stable cameras

The iPhone 17e’s cameras are proper in step with what I anticipated. That’s, the 48-megapixel “Fusion” digicam and the 12-megapixel front-facing digicam each take handsome pictures. The Fusion digicam is just a little deceiving at first look. It’s truly type of like having two digicam lenses: an optical huge and a 2x telephoto with “optical-quality” zoom.

The picture high quality that you simply get pales compared to the cameras on the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Professional, but it surely’s serviceable. I want the autofocus was quicker on the iPhone 17e; I took extra blurry pictures than I’d have preferred when capturing my cats or automobiles. I personally just like the nearer focusing distance for taking close-up pictures on the iPhone 17e versus the opposite iPhone 17 gadgets, however that’s simply me. You’ll get higher low-light pictures and movies on Apple’s costlier iPhones.

The place may you see digicam enhancements on the iPhone 17e? Apple says Portrait pictures may have higher separation between the foreground and background, particularly across the edges of hair. In observe, I discovered little or no distinction in Portrait mode picture high quality between an iPhone 17e and iPhone 16. You possibly can see a comparability under between the iPhone 17e (left) and the iPhone 16e (proper).

Whereas the Fusion digicam is strong in the event you’re capturing largely open air, I do miss a number of options from the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Professional, like Twin Seize for recording from the entrance and rear cameras concurrently, Motion mode for super-stabilized video, and the next-gen Pictures Kinds that allow you to higher dial in a particular picture look.

Similar worth, extra worth

If I have been handing out an award for “most improved telephone,” the iPhone 17e could be a high contender. It’s like Apple truly listened to the complaints in regards to the iPhone 16e and went down the guidelines to tick all of them.

In comparison with the iPhone 16e, the iPhone 17e is simply such a greater worth. It’ll be nice for youngsters who don’t want the most recent and best, anybody who’s upgrading from an iPhone on its final legs, or seniors. Hear, the aged need in on iMessage, FaceTime, and AirDrop as a lot as everybody else, they usually don’t take care of fancy options like further digicam lenses or a Dynamic Island.

I hesitated to advocate the iPhone 16e to many individuals final 12 months. It had too many compromises for a $600 telephone. I’ve no hesitation recommending the iPhone 17e. In these regarding occasions when the price of the whole lot is skyrocketing and it seems like your greenback will get you a lot lower than earlier than, it’s good to see Apple maintain pricing the identical for the E-series whereas including extra options.

See iPhone 17e at Apple