Sometimes, less can be more

Apple can sometimes never get it right, and the iPhone 16e proves my point!

For all the clamour for Apple to release cheaper iPhones, when they do, they’re told it’s not good enough, lacks too many features and is pointless. But how about viewing the other side of that same coin, and maybe Apple has actually given us a phone that embraces the moment perfectly. Rather than lacking features, it has enough features and importantly, it has the ones you need and will use most.

Apple is a premium brand, and as with all premium brands, people are willing to pay a little more for that experience. Look, whether premium brands are a genuine fact or merely created by myth and good marketing, I’m probably not qualified to say, but we all know it’s a thing!

When you buy into the Apple way of life, you’re not only getting the Mac, iPhone or Apple Watch you’ve just bought, but you’re also getting 24/7 support, physical high street shops to help you sort out any issues, and industry-leading levels of device support. All of those points are true yet almost invisible, but it’s those very points that make Apple premium and desirable.

The iPhone 16e was a bit of a punt for them, but you know what, I think they’ve pretty much got it spot on.

Let me make the defence of the iPhone 16e!

The iPhone 16e is perfectly priced

The price, let’s chat about that first?

The common line that has been all too often trotted out is that it’s £100 too expensive. First of all, if you are getting the 16e on a carrier deal, the price is largely irrelevant, and there are already some stunning carrier deals on the 16e to be had.

If you’re buying the phone over two years through Apple, the iPhone 16e will cost you £25 a month – which again looks like pretty good value to me. And if you’re one of the few who are buying the iPhone 16e outright, then a £100 saving upfront will be of very little consequence over the four, five or more years you’ll likely be using it for.

The price ties neatly into what I started this piece by saying – that sometimes, no matter how Apple plays it, they can’t get it right.

Let’s say that by only using an LCD display on the phone rather than an OLED display that they could have shaved £100 from the price. My take is that you’d sure as hell notice the poorer display every time you pick the phone up over the fairly small saving you could have made.

Display stuff

Mentioning the display brings me neatly around to a few other points I wanted to chat about regarding the panel on the 16e.

Yup, Apple only gave us a 60Hz refresh rate display in the phone – but does that really make it bad or old technology though?

No, not so much.

Firstly, quicker refresh rates continue to be a pretty subjective thing anyway. For some people, a 120Hz display is a clear to them as the nose on their face, but to others, me included, it’s not as apparent and matters little.

Quicker refresh rates are more important on larger displays anyway, and I’d also argue that the folks this phone was aimed at either won’t notice the lack of a 120Hz refresh display or give a hoot about it.

Don’t try to make the iPhone 16e into something that it’s not.

Ah, but I can hear the pushback from the haters saying, “But all Android phones, even cheaper ones, have 120Hz displays”. Possibly that’s true, but we are talking about two very different platforms. iOS and Android are wildly opposed in how they’re optimised and how they behave.

Because Apple can control virtually every aspect of their hardware and software – a luxury that Android can’t possibly have – they can develop apps and the functionality of those apps to behave perfectly on any Apple display. Apple’s operating system is optimised to run smoothly and look good even if the device only has a 60Hz panel.

Another feature the iPhone 16e lacks, if you listen to some, is an Always On Display (AOD). Honestly, it doesn’t matter half as much as you’d be led to believe – one quick tap and the 16e springs to life anyway. And, think back to when AOD came to iPhones a few years ago – loads of people didn’t like it and disabled it, and also blamed it for adversely affecting battery life.

About that battery…

The iPhone 16e only has a 4,005mAh battery. To give that number some context, my 16 Pro Max has a 4,685mAh battery, but in daily use, the 16e smokes my Pro Max.

The battery in the 16e seems to go on and on, which I reckon is down to a few factors. Possibly the lack of AOD helps a bit, but so does the fact that this phone has the A18 chip and Apple’s own C1 modem.

The 16e is the cheapest way for you to get your hands on an A18 chip. Apple claims the new A18 chip is up to 30% faster in CPU performance compared to iPhone 15 with the A16 Bionic chip and 50% faster compared to the iPhone 14 with the A15 Bionic chip. Also, it can deliver the same CPU performance of the A16 Bionic chip while consuming 30% less power.

So, for those of you out there saying shouldn’t I get a 15 Pro instead of the 16e, just bear that last paragraph in mind. Newer, later, better and faster wins the day in my book. If you do buy the iPhone 16e, you’ll get better performance, better efficiency, and even longer software support.

So, does it still sound like a bad phone to you now? And there’s more.

Camera time

Yes, the 16e only has a single camera, but does that matter?

Most of us tend to use very few of the camera features that are on our phones as it is. With the 16e, you’re getting a flagship camera with some great features, but at a lower price. iPhone 16e has a 2-in-1 camera system with a 48-megapixel Fusion camera, which’ll give you great photo quality.

And the rub is that because there are fewer features to get lost behind, there’s a very good chance that you might end up using more of the features on the iPhone 16e. In other words, perversely making it better value for money.

Most people I watch don’t even tap the screen to focus before shooting, so what are the chances they’d ever use a wide-angle lens? While the iPhone 16e doesn’t have a dedicated telephoto camera, the camera offers 2x optical-quality zoom, and Apple says a 10x digital zoom.

I’ve used the camera and video, and all I can tell you is that it will give you very typical Apple results – and that’s a good thing. Simple to use, hard to get it wrong, and enough camera features to get the job done.

If you know that you shoot a lot of action footage, then the lack of sensor-shift optical image stabilisation might factor in – but if you are that person, I’m guessing you’d buy a camera that’s more suited to your requirements. The 16e is not meant to be a GoPro!

Horses for courses and all that…

The other losses

There’s no MagSafe – big deal, you can easily buy a MagSafe case, or rings to get the job done. And, don’t forget, even though there is no MagSafe, you can still charge the 16e wirelessly.

No Dynamic Island – so what? I use mine rarely. I may use it for Apple Music or Podcasts, but the time I use it most is for Car Parks. The lack of Dynamic Island almost suits the stripped-back nature of this phone, and if you wear an Apple Watch, then you’ll get all the notifications you’ll ever need from that anyway.

The lack of Ultra Wide Band is admittedly a bit of a pain – that said, and I’m not meaning to jinx myself, I’ve never used Precision Find My. Again, coming back to who this phone is for, I think it would be a wasted feature that would never get used, so why bother putting it on there in the first place?

The sweet spot

In many ways, the iPhone 16e is the perfect iPhone.

For £600, you are getting the full iPhone experience and all that the Apple ecosystem brings with it, but without the fluff and bloat of other phones. What Apple managed to achieve with the iPhone 16e is a stripped-back, bare-bones iPhone that delivers in all the key areas but without any unnecessary gimmicks that will seldom be used.

I’ve heard of some Android users trying the 16e out of curiosity and loving the experience because it does away with the need to understand iOS inside out to get the most out of it.

And there are plenty of people who have traded up to the iPhone 16e from their 7-year-old XR and have been delighted with it. And even for those users who have been clinging to the precious iPhone 13 mini, fairing small, simple iPhones were a thing of the past; now they have a new glimmer of hope.

Let’s not look to overcomplicate a phone that was never intended to be what it’s not.

The iPhone 16e’s strengths lie in its simplicity. Its simplicity is its strength not its weakness.

Use and enjoy.