Apple’s iPhone 16E is now available to preorder, starting at $599. The new phone comes out Friday, Feb. 28, and perhaps its biggest selling point is the sub-$600 starting price, which makes it $200 less than the iPhone 16. The iPhone 16E has many of the more expensive device’s best features, like an A18 chip, a 48-megapixel main camera, iOS 18, Apple Intelligence and access to Apple services like Facetime, iMessage and Emergency SOS via Satellite.
What more could you want, right?
Well, as with other affordable phones, compromises were made to get to that lower price. These omissions tell you a lot about what Apple values — like Apple Intelligence, for example. I’ve reviewed more budget phones than I can count, and the best ones always offer far more than just their low sticker price. It’s a pleasant surprise when a company like Motorola, OnePlus or Google nails the balance of what to keep and what to omit. So how did Apple do?
I’ll save my thoughts until I can test and review the iPhone 16E. For now, though, let’s take a look at the features you don’t get on the iPhone 16E.
Watch this: The iPhone 16E Has Arrived
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MagSafe and Qi2
MagSafe has become a popular aspect of being an iPhone owner, and it’s wild that the iPhone 16E doesn’t have it. MagSafe debuted in 2020 on the iPhone 12 and uses magnets inside the phone to help it wirelessly charge by ensuring it’s in the optimum position. The magnets have an added benefit because they let you attach magnetic accessories to your iPhone, like a wallet or battery pack, as well as secure your phone to mounts, like one in a car.
The iPhone 16’s MagSafe supports 25-watt wireless charging speeds. But the iPhone 16E only supports 7.5W wireless charging, the original Qi standard — not even Qi2 speeds of 15W.
Ultrawide, macro camera
The iPhone 16E has something of a rarity in 2025: a single rear camera. But as I’ve said before, in other stories and reviews, I’d rather have one really good camera than the two or three mediocre ones that can often be found on sub-$300 phones. The 16E’s main camera has a 48-megapixel sensor, which has enough resolution for sensor cropping to offer a 2x magnification — not quite the same as having a second camera, but close.
Sensor cropping can’t replace having a dedicated ultrawide camera, which on the iPhone 16 doubles as a macro camera, letting you focus on close-up subjects, like for food photos.
3 grams
The iPhone 16E weighs 167 grams, making it 3 grams lighter than the 170-gram iPhone 16. Hey, not all omissions are bad.
Dynamic Island
The C1 modem is Apple’s first in-house 5G modem.
In its launch video, Apple proudly pointed out that the iPhone 16E has an in-house designed 5G modem called C1. The new Apple modem forgoes the Qualcomm 5G modems used in other iPhone models. Designing its own modem allows Apple to tailor the device for its phones. The new modem helps extend the iPhone 16E’s battery life, which Apple says is longer than it is with other iPhone 16 models.
But the C1 modem has one wrinkle: It doesn’t support 5G mmWave (or ultra-wideband), which is the very fast flavor of 5G that you might experience in parts of some cities or at a stadium for an event.
Color options
Here’s the pop-up menu (top right) that appears as you’re using the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16.
Apple’s omission of the Camera Control button, which also triggers Visual Intelligence searches, makes sense, since the 16E has only a single camera. Those people who are likely to use a Camera Control button are probably going to get an iPhone 16 or 16 Pro, because those models have more cameras. Apple also smartly enabled the 16E’s Action button to start a Visual Intelligence search.
Ultra-wideband, Wi-Fi 7 and Thread
The iPhone 16E lacks Apple’s ultra-wideband chip, meaning you won’t be able to use the Precision Tracking feature in Find My for AirTags. The phone supports Wi-Fi 6 but not the newer 6E or 7 standards. Wi-Fi 6 speeds are good, but as more Wi-Fi 7 routers come out, the 16E won’t be able to take advantage of faster peak speeds. The 16E also lacks support for Thread radio and won’t be able to directly connect to some smart home devices with a built-in Thread border router.
Action, Cinematic and Spatial video modes
The iPhone 16E’s Camera app doesn’t have:
- Action mode for stabilizing video recordings with lots of camera shake
- Cinematic mode for recording videos with a faux shallow depth of field
- Spatial mode for recording “3D” videos for the Vision Pro, which needs two cameras
Other odds and ends
The iPhone 16E has Photographic Styles, but not the newer ones that debuted on the iPhone 16 series. The 16E can take Portrait mode photos, but it lacks the ability to change focus after the fact like on the iPhone 16. The 16E’s display is covered with Ceramic Shield, but not the newer, more durable version that’s on the iPhone 16.
Though this list of omissions is long, that doesn’t mean the iPhone 16E is a bad phone. I look forward to getting my hands on one and testing it soon.
Apple iPhone 16E Specs vs. iPhone 16, iPhone SE (2022), iPhone 15
