Apple iPhone 16e Assessment: Questionable Worth

The iPhone 16e is not for me. In the event you’re an avid tech fanatic and Apple fan, it is most likely not for you both. 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 properly these days. They need a brand new telephone, and it simply must be an iPhone.

Part of my mind will not cease excited 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 excessive contemplating the numerous wonderful competing telephones on this bracket. It additionally makes the iPhone lineup complicated—it is $170 greater than Apple’s earlier iPhone SE that is not out there.

I’ve spent a lot of my time this previous week utilizing the iPhone 16e and excited about its $599 MSRP, which naturally should imply that one thing is awry. This may increasingly not matter a lot to individuals within the US, who favor buying via carriers that subsidize the associated fee, although they’re nonetheless paying for a $600 (locked) telephone 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 Professional.

Cell Increase

The most effective iPhone 16e function? Battery life. Contemplating this can be a 6.1-inch iPhone, which traditionally carry out the bottom in battery checks, this can be a welcome shock. With common use over the previous week, I struggled to carry the telephone beneath 50 p.c. (It often hovered round 51 or 49 p.c by bedtime.) Sure, which means the iPhone 16e has higher battery life than the iPhone 16.

On one specific day once I used it for GPS navigation, music streaming, and movie 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 Professional Max and iPhone 16 Plus—however it’s sufficient to maintain that battery nervousness at bay if you’re out and about.

Apple claims this battery increase is partially due to the first-ever Apple-designed C1 modem contained in the telephone. Apple spent years constructing this connectivity chip to cut 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 may rely upon area. (I am in New York Metropolis.) I ran velocity checks by way of Ookla on varied telephones alongside the iPhone 16e and didn’t discover something out of the strange. That stated, keep in mind Antennagate? We’ll have to attend and see how the C1 modem performs within the palms of much more individuals internationally.