The iPhone 16e is not for me. When you’re an avid tech fanatic and Apple fan, it is in all probability not for you either. It is for the particular person holding on to an iPhone 8 Plus or iPhone X, able to improve as a result of their greater than seven-year-old smartphone is not working too effectively these days. They need a brand new cellphone, and it simply must be an iPhone.
Part of my mind will not cease eager about whether or not this practically once-in-a-decade improve for these people would not be higher served if Apple had included its nice-to-have facilities, like MagSafe or the ultra-wideband chip for improved AirTags monitoring. Even missing these options, the value of the iPhone 16e feels $100 too high contemplating the numerous wonderful competing telephones on this bracket. It additionally makes the iPhone lineup complicated—it is $170 greater than Apple’s previous iPhone SE that is now not out there.
I’ve spent a lot of my time this previous week utilizing the iPhone 16e and eager about its $599 MSRP, which naturally should imply that one thing is awry. This may occasionally not matter a lot to individuals within the US, who favor buying by way of carriers that subsidize the price, although they’re nonetheless paying for a $600 (locked) cellphone unfold over a number of years. However when the used iPhone market is wholesome and thriving, it feels as if anybody contemplating an iPhone 16e will discover higher worth with an iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Pro.
Cell Enhance
One of the best iPhone 16e characteristic? Battery life. Contemplating this can be a 6.1-inch iPhone, which traditionally carry out the bottom in battery exams, this can be a welcome shock. With common use over the previous week, I struggled to deliver the cellphone beneath 50 p.c. (It often hovered round 51 or 49 p.c by bedtime.) Sure, meaning the iPhone 16e has higher battery life than the iPhone 16.
On one specific day after I used it for GPS navigation, music streaming, and film snapping, it was left with round 30 p.c earlier than mattress. And one other busy day, I hit practically 9 hours of screen-on time and had 15 p.c within the tank. That is wonderful. It is nonetheless not the perfect iPhone battery life within the lineup—that’d be the iPhone 16 Pro Max and iPhone 16 Plus—however it’s sufficient to maintain that battery nervousness at bay once you’re out and about.
Apple claims this battery enhance is partly due to the first-ever Apple-designed C1 modem contained in the cellphone. Apple spent years constructing this connectivity chip to scale back its reliance on companions like Qualcomm, and it appears to have paid off. I did not expertise any points with mobile connectivity over the previous week with the AT&T eSIM Apple supplied, although this additionally might rely upon area. (I am in New York Metropolis.) I ran velocity exams via Ookla on numerous telephones alongside the iPhone 16e and didn’t discover something out of the unusual. That stated, keep in mind Antennagate? We’ll have to attend and see how the C1 modem performs within the palms of way more individuals the world over.
