Summary
- The iPhone 16e has been announced with a February 28 release date.
- The budget-friendly device will start at $599, a 40% price increase compared to the third-gen iPhone SE (2022).
- The iPhone 16e is said to boast the best battery life out of any 6.1-inch smartphone ever made, and marks Apple’s first budget phone equipped with an OLED screen and a USB-C port.
Apple has officially announced the iPhone 16e. The newest budget-friendly iPhone model is scheduled to debut in late February 2025 and will introduce a price hike, but also some novel features and improvements compared to its predecessor.
Since 2016, Apple has been offering price-conscious smartphones in the form of the iPhone SE lineup. The second and third generations of the iPhone SE debuted in 2020 and 2022, respectively.
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On February 19, Apple announced the fourth iteration of its budget-friendly smartphone, which is dropping the SE branding and will instead be called the iPhone 16e. The new name is an accurate indicator of what’s under the hood, as the newly unveiled device utilizes the Apple A18, a 3nm system-on-chip that also powers the iPhone 16. The only difference between the two is that the iPhone 16e chipset features a quad-core GPU, whereas its iPhone 16 counterpart has five cores dedicated to graphics processing. Otherwise, both have a hexa-core CPU with two high-performance cores clocked at up to 4.04 GHz and four 2.20-GHz cores designed for everyday tasks and idling.
iPhone 16e Is 40% More Expensive Than the 3rd-Gen iPhone SE
The iPhone 16e will start at $599, a 40% increase compared to the third-generation iPhone SE. Apple is trying to justify the price hike by pointing to a number of significant improvements relative to its 2022 device. These include a larger, 6.1-inch screen, which is now of the OLED variety—something that’s bound to help with battery efficiency, much like the phone’s new custom C1 5G chip. A USB-C port is also part of the package, marking another first for Apple’s budget-friendly smartphone line.
iPhone 16e Specifications, Pricing, and Availability Details
- Screen: 6.1-inch OLED display (1,170 x 2,532 resolution, 60 Hz refresh rate)
- Dimensions: 146.7 x 71.5 x 7.8 mm
- Materials: aluminum with ceramic shield
- System-on-chip: Apple A18 with hexa-core CPU (2×4.04 GHz + 4×2.20 GHz and quad-core GPU
- RAM: 8 GB
- Storage: 128 / 256 / 512 GB
- Cameras: 48-MP rear camera, 12-MP front camera
- Color: Black / White
- Battery: rated for 26 hours of video playback, exact capacity to be confirmed
- Features: USB-C port, Face ID, Qi wireless charging
- Price: $599 (128GB) / $699 (256GB) / $899 (512GB)
- Release date: February 28, 2025
Apple claims that the iPhone 16e boasts the best battery life out of any 6.1-inch phone ever made, including the iPhone 16. The upcoming device is rated for 26 hours of video playback, a 4-hour (18%) improvement over the iPhone 16. Its exact battery capacity has yet to be disclosed, but it’s plausibly in the ballpark of the iPhone 16’s 3,561 mAh battery. The smartphone is missing the 12-megapixel ultra-wide rear camera of the iPhone 16, but retains its main 48-megapixel sensor paired with an f/1.6 aperture lens.
The iPhone 16e will hit the store shelves on February 28, and will be available for pre-orders via Apple and wireless carriers starting on February 21. The 256- and 512-GB variants of the device will be priced at $699 and $899, respectively.
