- Apple has launched the iPhone 16e, their next generation budget phone with a familiar design and high-end internals.
- It includes a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED panel, A18 processor, 8GB RAM, and a 48MP rear camera.
- The phone starts at $599 for a 128GB variant and is available in three colors.
Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook teased that they will be announcing a new member to the family. This was much anticipated to be the iPhone SE 4, but now Apple has gone a different route and calling it the iPhone 16e. With the official announcement now out, let’s discuss everything the iPhone 16e brings to the table, along with its price and availability.
iPhone 16e: Specifications
As is tradition with the SE devices, the latest iPhone 16e comes with a similar outer casing as the iPhone 14 series. Albeit, a few noticeable changes. To start with, it only sports a single camera lens with a massive bump. It will also include the USB-C port for charging, which came first with the iPhone 15. That said, the iPhone 16e borrows the customizable Action Button instead of the mute switch.
So there’s a lot of blend of the new and old here, which is good as it makes the phone future-proof. It’s the same story when we dive into internals, as it comes with the latest Apple A18 processor along with the new C1 modem. This is a 3nm CPU that’s also available in the iPhone 16, and it will come with at least 8GB RAM to support Apple Intelligence features. So you can play console-quality games without much sacrifice here.
Given the new aesthetics, the 16e gets an upgraded 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED panel. This also has Face ID support, but Apple has taken a step back and gone with the notch-style design instead of the latest Dynamic Island. The single rear shooter on the iPhone 16e is the same primary 48MP lens seen on the iPhone 16. The front has a 12MP selfie snapper that takes 4K 60FPS videos.
Price and Availability
The iPhone 16E is available in two different color options and will come out starting with a 128GB storage variant and going all the way up to 512GB. This seems reasonable given it is a midrange phone. The price of the iPhone 16e starts at $599 for the base variant. Apple says the pre-order will commence on February 21 at 5:00 a.m. PST and the phone should start shipping by February 28.
