If ever there was an iPhone that is misunderstood, then it’s the iPhone 16e

The iPhone 16e must be one of the most misunderstood devices that Apple currently sells. The haters, and there are still plenty, would have you believe that the iPhone 16e is nothing more than a parts bin for second-hand bits.

In reality, though, the 16e is a great phone that shares more features than you might think with its bigger, more expensive brothers.

So let’s take a few minutes to look at what great value you get with the iPhone 16e and how it fits so perfectly into any Apple workflow and ecosystem…and all that without breaking the bank!

iPhone 16e – what’s it about?

The iPhone 16e is a little under one year old and remains the cheapest way to buy a new iPhone, which in turn will start to unlock the Apple ecosystem for you.

We’d never expect Apple to be the cheapest phones out there, and I know many people will say that the iPhone 16e is £100 too expensive. But, before jumping on that bandwagon, just consider that you’ll be getting an iPhone with the same build quality as any other iPhone and with years of software support.

And an important and often overlooked point is that if you should have any issues or just need help with your 16e, you can walk into a physical high street store and talk to a real person to help to sort things out with you.

What other brand offers you that?

Although I don’t use my iPhone 16e daily, the moment I do pick it up and start to use it again, it reminds me of why I like it so much. It’s functional, lightweight, and it’s fast too.

It has the A18 chip powering it, which was first used in the iPhone 16 & 16 Plus, and it’s Apple Intelligence ready, which is at long last starting to be useful.

If the rumours are correct, then this year could see the full rebirth of Siri as a fully conversation-based chatbot. And when that does get launched, you’ll be able to use it on your iPhone 16e equally as well as you could on any other iPhone.

And with iOS26 the general look of using an iPhone was revitalised and freshened up. It’s proven to be a good OS, and although some people were not that keen on change in general & Liquid Glass in particular when it first came out, I think most of us agree now that iOS 26 was a decent upgrade.

Copycat

I mentioned a little earlier that the 16e shares more similarities than you might at first think with any of the more expensive iPhones that you could buy.

The display, for instance, is a Super Retina XDR, True Tone display with P3 wide-colour. The camera has a 48MP sensor, and it offers the same IP68 water & dust resistance as all the other iPhones.

You get all the same raft of SOS safety features too, such as Emergency SOS via Satellite, Crash Detection and Roadside Assistance. You’ll also have the same 6-core CPU and 16-core Neural engines that you’ll find on other iPhones.

The iPhone 16e also has the Action Button, Face ID and FindMy, although not with precision finding as it doesn’t have the U1 chip in it.

Why buy the iPhone 16e?

Hopefully, you can start to see that the 16e is no cheap, hand-me-down parts bin.

If you choose to buy one, it’s not as if you’re buying a poor relation. The 16e is a great, honest phone in its own right.

That build quality I mentioned shines through when you look at how well my display has lasted up. I’ve taken it on road trips and used it quite heavily at times over the past year, and there is barely a mark on it – front or back. I never use cases or screen protectors as I want to be able to report back to you how well these things behave natively.

Whatever Apple has done recently to improve its Ceramic Shield technology, it’s working!

Another valid reason for choosing a 16e over any of the other new iPhones, other than the cost saving, is that not everyone wants to pay for features and toys that they’ll hardly ever use. The iPhone 16e will perform for you as a daily, in many ways, every bit as well as 17 Pro or Pro Max, but without the bulk.

As I’m writing this story, I was running through in my head what I actually do with my iPhone on a daily or weekly basis.

I use CarPlay, Apple Maps, play podcasts & music, check emails, watch content, use Apple Pay and set Reminders. So when you look at that list, there is nothing that the iPhone 16e couldn’t handle equally as well as my iPhone Air or 17 Pro Max.

And one thing the 16e does far better than my iPhone 17 Pro Max is last the day! The battery on the 16e is amazing and by a long way the best battery life I’ve ever experienced on an iPhone.

Apple is rapidly getting to the point where it is responsible for everything that goes inside its phones. When the 16e was launched, it was the first iPhone to have an Apple modem inside. I have a sneaky feeling that the combination of the A18 Apple silicon chip and the C1 modem is in no small part the reason why the battery life took such a huge step forward.

The camera question

The camera is always something that gets brought up whenever I chat about the iPhone 16e.

For my money, the 2-in-1 48MP camera, which comes with a 2x telephoto lens as part of the system, does the job well enough. You get reasonable stabilisation, the Photonic Engine, and can record 4K video. And if you’re feeling brave and reckless, then you can even shoot with a 10x digital zoom as well.

I stand by my point that the functionality of the cameras on any phone is often overestimated. Most of the time, we aren’t trying to take award-winning images with our phones.

Instead, we’re trying to create memories and capture the moment, and the camera on the iPhone 16e will do that just fine. If you’re generally happy with how Apple processes their phone photos, then I promise you that you won’t be unhappy with the results that you’ll get from the 16e.

The lack of extra features is almost its secret USP. There are so few decisions to make with the 16e that it gets back to the days of point and shoot.

Again, I come back to my point that the iPhone16e is an honest phone that will do an honest job.

The ecosystem

Some of the changes that came with iOS 26 make the 16e a bit better to use too.

Pinned albums in Apple Music, for example, I love, and I think the algorithm in Apple Music is improving, as well. After a morning of playing music from my library, the suggestions that Apple Music makes are getting better and better. Obviously, the Music app on the 16e functions the same as any other iPhone.

The 16e will work with your HomePods just the same as any other iPhone, and you’ll be able to AirDrop, use the new Siri and Visual Intelligence just the same as well. And if you work on an iPad and are used to saving documents and files to your downloads folder, then you’ll be able to pick up where you left off on your iPhone 16e without missing a beat.

My wish list

There are some features that I’d love to see come to the 17e, which is due for release within the next couple of weeks.

Whilst I fully understand that the e Series of phones are built to a budget, I wonder if this time around we may see a trickle down of a couple of features I’d love to see on the next iteration.

I miss MagSafe charging, and that would be my number one on my wish list of new features that I’d love to see come to the 17e.

The other two features would be the Dynamic Island and a wide-angle lens. I’m a recent convert to the idea of wide-angle shooting, but these days I love it. So if there were any chance of a second camera lens on the 17e, my wish would be for a wide-angle one.

If those small points can be addressed, the reasons to buy the 17e would become even more compelling.

The iPhone 13 mini is always spoken of in revered tones, and to my mind, the 16e harks back to much of what everyone loved about that phone. It’s small, simple, free of bloat, with a battery that will last you more than a day.

As much as I love my iPhone 16e, though, and even though there are some great deals to be had on them, now isn’t the time to buy one.

It seems almost a certainty that we’re about to get the 17e very soon, so just hold fire to see what Apple brings to the latest version of the e-Series phone. If there are no meaningful improvements, then possibly look at getting a bargain on a refurbished 16e at that point.

The iPhone 16e was misunderstood by many, but don’t be put off by prejudice. Try it out for yourself and then tell me that the iPhone 16e isn’t a winner.