Apple quietly released its latest budget model, the $599 iPhone 16e, without much fanfare. There was no major event, either in-person or online, and no media frenzy surrounding the launch. Instead, CEO Tim Cook simply tweeted that new hardware was coming, followed by an official press release a few days later.

The iPhone 16e isn’t exactly groundbreaking. It’s a cautious, reliable device that draws heavily from previous iPhone models to keep costs low. It closely resembles the iPhone 13 and 14, with similar dimensions and a display notch. While it includes the iPhone 15’s Action button, it lacks the 16’s Camera Control feature.

From an innovation perspective, the most notable aspect of the iPhone 16e is its custom C1 modem. While modems typically don’t get much attention, this is significant because it’s the first modem Apple has designed.

Despite borrowing features from older models, there are elements of Apple’s current flagship that justify the new naming choice. The biggest reason to drop the iPhone SE label is the inclusion of the A18 chip, the same processor found in the iPhone 16.

This is important for two reasons. First, the iPhone 16e is $200 cheaper than the iPhone 16, making it the most affordable option with this chip. Second, it ensures the device will be supported for a longer period, especially with Apple’s generative AI platform, Apple Intelligence, which will continue to receive updates.

However, the key selling point here isn’t the silicon but the price. The iPhone 16e’s affordable pricing could help Apple regain market share in important regions like China and India. While a $200 price drop from the entry-level iPhone might not seem huge, it’s a significant difference, especially in developing markets where premium devices can be a tough sell.

Lowering the price doesn’t automatically guarantee a surge in new iPhone users. Apple is up against fierce competition from local Chinese manufacturers, and this is expected to intensify as trade tensions rise.

Markets like India present their own challenges, with both the iPhone 14 and 15 still available through retail channels for the foreseeable future. While the iPhone 14 has been discontinued in the U.S., making it harder to find new, the iPhone 15 is still officially on sale, starting at $699.

These factors muddy the iPhone 16e’s position in Apple’s lineup. While the $100 price difference between the 16e and the iPhone 15 is notable, it’s nothing compared to the larger price gaps that Android manufacturers often create between mid-range and flagship models. Affordable Android devices are in no short supply, so calling the iPhone 16e a “budget” phone is misleading, as Apple doesn’t exactly deal in budget phones.

The iPhone 16e also blurs the lines with its iPhone 14-inspired design. Unlike the previous SE model, which felt outdated upon release, the 16e feels modern. While it still has the display notch instead of the Dynamic Island from the iPhone 14 Pro, the design has remained relatively consistent over the past few years, making the 16e feel like a more contemporary iPhone.

That’s great news for most potential buyers, but it’s also the end of an era. Some will miss the Touch ID that the 16e ditches in favor of Face ID. The arrival of the 16e also marks the end of the “small” iPhone, as it’s now impossible to get a model with a screen under 6 inches, unlike the 4.7-inch display of the last SE.

The iPhone 15, iPhone 16e, and iPhone 16 all sport a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display. The screens are largely the same, but there are a few key differences. The 16e has a notch in the place of the Dynamic Island and tops out at 1,200 nits of brightness compared to the maximum 2,000 nits on the other models. The three handsets share nearly identical footprints and weights.

All three sport a USB-C port by law, though the 16e doesn’t feature the MagSafe connector on the rear. The handset does charge through the Qi standard, though its speeds top out at 7.5 watts, to the 15’s 15 watts and the 16’s 25 watts. The 16e sports the longest stated battery life of the three phones, at 26 hours to the 16’s 22 hours and the 15’s 20 hours. The new C1 modem played an important part in the 16e extended battery life, being both less power hunger than older silicon and smaller in a way that allowed the company to free up space for a larger battery than the iPhone 16.

Both the iPhone 16 and 16e sport the latest A18 chip with a six-core CPU and 16-core neural engine. The 16e takes a bit of a hit on the graphics processing side with a four-core GPU to the 16’s five cores. All three phones start at 128GB of storage, upgradable to both 256GB or 512GB. The 16 and 16e, meanwhile, sport 8GB of RAM to the 15’s 6GB. That little extra boost of RAM should help with some of that on-device Apple Intelligence processing.

Intelligent design

Apple Intelligence currently features text rewrite, summaries, and generative imagery, created through Image Playground. Is the ability to run Apple’s answer to Google Gemini enough reason to opt for the 16e over the less intelligent iPhone 15? The platform’s usefulness will, of course, vary dramatically between individuals in its current form. But these are very much early days.

Apple is committed to its generative AI offering, and it’s set to be the centerpiece of updates for years to come. I can’t promise any life-changing features on the horizon, but it’s entirely possible you’ll kick yourself in a year or two for deprioritizing the technology.

Visual Intelligence — Apple’s answer to Google Lens — is also available on the 16e, though the absence of the Camera Control feature means you’ll have to access it by means of the Action Button. More notable than the absence of Camera Control, however, is the presence of a single camera on the rear of the iPhone 16e.

Apple glossed over this fact during the announcement, instead highlighting what it calls a “2-in-1” camera system. Through the magic of computational photography, the iPhone 16e is a single-camera smartphone that “feels” like a two-camera system. This boils down to the 48-megapixel sensor with “integrated telephoto,” which means the image will give you a closer, 12-megapixel version of the image, without majorly sacrificing image quality for zoom.

You will inevitably lose versatility moving from two image sensors to one, even if said image sensor utilizes fancy fusion technology. For some users, this alone is enough to justify the added $100 to $200 to get the iPhone 15 or 16 instead. That said, the 16e is capable of getting some nice shots for a single-sensor handset and certainly marks a big leap over the last iPhone SE.

It comes down to the features you need

Every time the price drops by $100, you’re sacrificing something. That’s how profit margins work. Choosing the best “entry-level” iPhone in the current lineup is less straightforward than it might have been in the past. It comes down to what features you need and what you’re willing to do without.

The 16e is an exercise in feature prioritization. If you need the latest everything, eat the extra $200 and get the regular iPhone 16. If Apple Intelligence isn’t a priority, the iPhone 15 has you covered.

In the end, there’s surprisingly little daylight between the iPhone 16 and 16e. It prioritizes Apple Intelligence through the inclusion of the A18 and 8GB of RAM. The handset makes sacrifices in the name of affordability, like MagSafe, Dynamic Island, Camera Control, and the dual-camera system. If you can live without all those, by all means, save yourself the $200.