The iPhone 16e Does Almost Everything You Want an iPhone to Do

Like most high-end smartphones—and certainly any new iPhone—the 16e has a display that looks great, earning it the highest score on display quality from our testers. It has a 6.1-inch OLED screen with a max brightness of 1,200 nits, which is significantly bigger and brighter than the 4.7-inch LCD display on the iPhone SE. To expand the screen, Apple ditched the Home button on the SE, replacing Touch ID with Face ID instead. The hardware for that is housed in a black notch at the top of the screen. With Face ID—the facial recognition technology Apple introduced with the iPhone X—you can easily unlock your phone, log in to apps, and even approve purchases.

This notched design means you don’t get the popular Dynamic Island feature, the pill-shaped black bar at the top of newer models that can display real-time updates from certain apps, like the ETA of your Uber, countdowns on a timer, or live scores from sports games. The Dynamic Island is a fan-favorite for a reason—it’s pretty handy—but not something you’ll miss if you’re not already used to it.

The 16e has a 60-hertz refresh rate—the same as the iPhone 16, but not as fast as the 120Hz refresh rate on the Pro models or, frankly, a number of other high-end smartphones. I doubt most people would notice the difference, though, at least when using the phone for basics like scrolling social media or texting. In our display quality testing, the iPhone 16e scores just a fraction of a point lower than the premium iPhone 16 Pro models.

As far as overall proportions, the iPhone 16e feels just right to me, someone who prefers a small and light phone. It’s easy to hold with one hand, so much so that I’d be tempted to forgo a bulky case. And it weighs just 5.9 ounces, making it a hair lighter than the iPhone 16, though not as light as the 5.1-ounce iPhone SE.

When taking the iPhone 16e out of its box, the clean lines and matte white finish reminded me a bit of unboxing my first-ever iPod. (The 16e comes in matte black, too.) The sleek design also reminds me why so many of us are willing to pay a premium for Apple products: They look really good.

Unlike the rest of the iPhone 16 line, the 16e has just one 48-megapixel rear camera and a 12-megapixel selfie camera. (Photos taken with the rear camera actually save as 24-megapixel images by default using a process called pixel binning to combine pixels and increase light capture.) There’s no additional ultrawide or dedicated telephoto camera, as with Apple’s flagship models. But does that matter for most of us?

Probably not. In our labs, the iPhone 16e produced very good still images and videos with its rear camera system and selfie camera. It’s not as versatile or impressive as the Pro models, our testers found—and it doesn’t crack the top 10 list for best overall camera performance—but it’s certainly good enough for most casual photography.

I shuttled the iPhone 16e around my neighborhood for a casual photo shoot and was struck by how crisp and richly colorful the shots turned out, given the relatively minimalist camera specs. The best smartphones have come with reliably strong cameras for years, but it’s still hard not to be impressed with the photos they capture.

While the iPhone 16e doesn’t have a dedicated telephoto camera, the main rear camera offers 2x optical-quality zoom, Apple says, and 10x digital zoom. When I took a few faraway shots, the photos generally retained plenty of detail.

The iPhone 16e gets an expected upgrade to USB-C charging, officially making Apple’s Lightning cable a relic. If your household currently uses a mishmash of incompatible phone chargers, like mine does, this is probably a welcome change.

But like the iPhone SE, the 16e isn’t compatible with MagSafe charging, Apple’s proprietary and popular wireless charging technology. MagSafe relies on magnets to snap the phone into place on the charger and allows for faster charging speeds than traditional Qi wireless charging. This might be a deal-breaker omission if you already own a number of MagSafe charging devices. The tech has been around since iPhone 12, after all. But if you don’t use it regularly, it’s another case of not missing what you never had. 

When it comes to overall battery performance, the 16e lasted 37.5 hours on a single charge in our tests. That’s half an hour longer than the 6.1-inch iPhone 16 and 7.5 hours longer than the iPhone SE. If you’re upgrading from a significantly older model or a phone with a diminished battery, you’ll likely notice the difference, but otherwise, the battery life on the 16e is relatively average.

The iPhone 16e gets the handy Action Button, which allows you to access tools like the flashlight, camera, or Focus Mode more quickly. You can also create your own shortcut to the Action Button, perhaps to an app or tool that’s a bit harder to get to. (I set the Action Button to open Apple’s new Visual Intelligence feature, which I review in the Apple Intelligence section below.)

First rolled out on the iPhone 15 Pro models, the Action Button is a handy feature now available across the iPhone 16 line. But I wouldn’t call it essential. I don’t have it on my iPhone 13 and manage just fine using the swipe-down Control Center to quickly access features. 

While the iPhone 16e gains the Action Button, it misses out on the new Camera Control. Apple added this side button to the other iPhone 16 models last fall, allowing you to change certain camera settings without opening the Camera app. I actually wasn’t a huge fan of the Camera Control anyway—it requires a little too much finessing for me—but it’s just another way that Apple markets the iPhone 16e as a pared-down device. 

Like the rest of the iPhone 16 lineup, the iPhone 16e is designed for Apple Intelligence. That means it gets all the AI-enabled features you’ve likely now heard about—and we’ve covered in the past—like the ability to clean up photos, generate images in the Image Playground, rewrite email and texts, and more. Apple is still rolling out more AI features in the latest iOS 18 releases, too.

All of that is great—but once again, whether that matters really depends on how you use your phone. When trying out the iPhone 16e, I found myself looking for ways to experiment with the AI features rather than relying on them organically.

I did make use of Apple’s smarter Siri, now more capable of tackling on-device tasks and integrating with ChatGPT for complicated queries. I appreciate that you can now text Siri—similar to an AI chatbot—rather than just use voice commands. And with ChatGPT integration, Siri is able to answer more complicated questions that pull from the web or reference current events without simply pointing me to a list of links to explore myself. With ChatGPT’s help, Siri could spout off a seven-day travel itinerary through Japan or recap all the recent Oscar winners. But an AI assistant that can truly take over your digital workload—for example, using details from your email and calendar to book travel arrangements—has not yet arrived on our phones. 

I also enjoyed using Apple’s Visual Intelligence, a feature that allows you to search for information based on what’s in your camera’s viewfinder. Think of it like a souped-up Google image search but for what’s in front of you. It accurately identified my snake plant and then offered me care instructions, for example.

It all feels neat enough—and might persuade you to opt for the 16e over an older iPhone 14 or 15—but like the slowly evolving AI features on other devices, it’s not altogether clear when or if you’d want to use it. It’s very possible, though, that in a few years, these Apple Intelligence features will be more integrated into our day-to-day lives, at which point you might be glad you invested in an iPhone capable of using them.

Apple’s new budget model does what it needs to. And when it comes to today’s high-performing iPhones, that makes for a delightful and reliable smartphone.

If you’re deciding between the iPhone 16e and other models, consider which features matter most to you. If you’re particularly attached to a specific function that the iPhone 16e lacks—like a more versatile camera system, MagSafe charging, or the Dynamic Island—then it may be worth springing for the $800 iPhone 16.

Older models, like a refurbished iPhone 13, 14, or 15, are available in a similar price range but don’t come with the new A18 chip or access to certain Apple Intelligence features. Maybe you don’t care about this functionality right now, but it’s possible that it will evolve in a way that makes a pre-AI iPhone seem outdated in just a few years. 

If you’re someone who wants iOS perks at the lowest possible price, the iPhone 16e is a great fit. You’ll probably be pleased with the investment if you’re coming from an iPhone that’s on its last legs because the truth is that so few of us need all the bells and whistles of a premium flagship device—and Apple’s budget model is a pretty impressive piece of tech.

CR members can view the full test results for the iPhone 16e in our smartphone ratings, alongside those of more than 80 other models.