Apple ’s iPhone 16e is a strange duck . When one baby-sit down and considers the specs , it ’s heavy to figure out where it truly fits into Apple ’s card .

It ’s plain from the name that Apple want you to see it as the unexampled junior member of the iPhone 16 lineup . That ’s certainly reasonable , and it ’s arguably about prison term that the iPhone category produce a third grade . After all , Apple ’s principal rivals like Google and Samsung have had their A - serial and FE - series sound for years .

Still , Apple has done a ill service to its iPhone buff by create a fairly Frankensteinian cross of the traditional iPhone SE , the iPhone 14 , and the iPhone 16 . There are some whole step forward here , but there are also some significant footfall backward .

There ’s probably only one area where the iPhone 16e truly bear out . If you ’re a sports fan of AI — or at least Apple ’s take on it — then the iPhone 16e is now the most affordable style to get accession to Apple Intelligence . With how much Apple has been hype its new AI platform , it ’s probably not surprising that it made this the precedence for the iPhone 16e . It ’s the one vantage the fresh model has over anything else in its price range and perhaps the only thing that make the iPhone 16e particular .

I probably should n’t have been too surprised that this would be the focus . After all , Apple begin hyping Apple Intelligence for the iPhone 16 lineup calendar week before it arrived . The iPhone 16 launched with the AI - wasteland iOS 18.0 release ; the first Apple Intelligence features came in late October with iOS 18.1 , but it was n’t until December ’s iOS 18.2 dismissal that we father most of the set . We ’re also still waitress for the next phase — a smart Siri — which may not come until iOS 18.5 .

Apple Intelligence and not much else

If selling an affordable iPhone with Apple Intelligence was Apple ’s primary finish , the company for certain hit the marking . However , it also compromised hard to get there . The iPhone 16e disport the display from the 2022 iPhone 14 , including the nick , while lacking MagSafe charging , an extremist wideband chip , mmWave 5 G financial support , and sporting a single photographic camera . While that photographic camera has improved importantly — it ’s the same 48 - megapixel ( MP ) Fusion camera used in the iPhone 16 — it ’s still only a unmarried lensand has also cut out featureslike sensing element - shift visual effigy stabilization .

Many of these limit also existed in Apple ’s iPhone SE batting order , which in some ways is still the phantasmal predecessor to the iPhone 16e . However , these thing were tolerable in a $ 429 iPhone ; they ’re much harder to suffer at $ 599 , peculiarly when there was an iPhone 14 in that price slot only two day ago .

go out apart the most obvious pluses and subtraction , like the more potent A18 poker chip and more modified camera system , the iPhone 16e overlook many subtle thing that have been standard iPhone features for so long that we ’ve come to take them for yield .

Chief among these is MagSafe , which has been usable on nearly every iPhone released since recent 2020 . Yes , the 2022 iPhone SE 3 omitted it , but that was forgivable in an old iPhone 8 - esque intention that was still a hangover from the pre - MagSafe days ( the 2022 iPhone SE was little more than a spec bump to bring it into the 5 G epoch ) . It ’s a much starker deletion on a mod iPhone that fit the blueprint of every other iPhone , all of which are MagSafe - open .

A hidden drawback

While the lack of MagSafe is annoying , there ’s another even older feature that Apple has take to entrust out of the iPhone 16e : ultra wideband .

Apple added a U1 Ultra Wideband chip to the iPhone 11 in 2019 and brought it to the Apple Watch Series 6 the undermentioned year . In 2023 , it upgraded to a second generation of the chip , conversationally promise “ U2 ” by some psychoanalyst — a name Apple avoided for reasons that should be obvious . That ’s the chip now observe in all iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models , and it ’s also flourish to the Apple Watch Series 9 , Series 10 , and Ultra 2 .

Granted , ultra wideband is n’t something everyone uses daily , but it offers enough that you may be using it without even recognize it . Here are just a few of the thing that are powered by Apple ’s ultra wideband ( UWB ) chips :

The lack of a UWB cow dung in the iPhone 16e mean it will have little to no support for any of the above Apple features . NameDrop and AirDrop will still work , but not as effectively ; keys will only be operable via NFC , requiring you to tap your lock to open it , and AirTags will only be able to play a phone to help oneself you track them down .

The iPhone 16e isn’t an ideal device for families

The iPhone 16e may be part of the iPhone 16 family , but it wo n’t be part of my family . That ’s because most of the above features are too valuable to give up .

Until recently , my teenage daughter had an iPhone 15 Pro . The precision find lineament has proven invaluable when we ’ve been out together , saving the hassle of coordinating meeting up via a serial publication of text or phone birdcall . It head off confusing chats like,“I’m over near the mannequin” … “Which mannequin” … “the one with the apparel on . ”Instead , I can just collide with the Find push , my daughter grants the request , and I use the length and heading to take the air forthwith to her location ( and frailty - versa if she ’s trying to calculate out where I am ) .

Sadly , my daughter recently had her iPhone stolen , so she ’s had to devolve back to an old iPhone 11 Pro Max . However , that 2019 fashion model still has the U1 bit that allows for the efficacious use of AirDrop in a gang and lease her on the dot track down her AirTags . Ditto for my married woman , who expend an iPhone 14 Pro and also habitually misplaces her iPhone around the house , making the Apple Watch - based determination feature article indispensable .

you’re able to also play that a Home Key lock will be in my future tense once the UWB - equipped ace hit the market . I ’ve been using an August Pro for years , which supports Bluetooth - based propinquity unlocking . It shape about 98 % of the time but go bad often enough to be annoying . household Key with UWB will almost for sure solve that trouble , as the poor and more precise cooking stove of ultra wideband makes it far more reliable than the Bluetooth / GPS combo that August relies on to do its affair ( the GPS aspect is to check you ’ve left your neck of the woods and come back so your threshold does n’t inadvertently make up one’s mind to unlock before you pull out of your driveway ) .

When the iPhone 16e first came along , I briefly thought it could be an affordable refilling for my girl ’s stolen iPhone 15 Pro . However , I realise that it was n’t going to cut it as soon as I looked at the specs . I ’d be better off buying her an iPhone 15 for $ 100 more since that would have the a la mode UWB Saratoga chip , plus a two-fold - camera organization and 15W MagSafe charge support .

The iPhone 16e may be a very low-priced direction to get admission to Apple Intelligence in raw dollars , but you ’re ante up that cost in many other ways by the features you ’re give up to get Apple ’s latest AI Bell and whistles . I think Apple has determine the wrong priorities here , focusing far too heavily on Apple Intelligence in defiance of the other thing that make the iPhone neat .

Time will secern if the rest of the market agree , but the iPhone 16e is n’t a machine I ’ll be purchasing for anyone in my kinsfolk or even urge to anyone in my round . The iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 deliver far more value for their $ 100 and $ 200 price gibbosity .