Today marks day 13 of using the iPhone 16e as my primary phone, and after this review goes live, I'll be moving my eSIM back to the 16 Pro that I use day to day. I intended to use this phone for a month before going back to the Pro, but I'm calling it early – not because the phone is bad, but because I know what I need at this point. As I wrote last year:

As a reviewer, I’ve used dozens of phones over the years and I can tell numerous things about a phone within a matter of moments of picking it up for the first time, and not much longer to figure out how it compares to other phones.

So yeah, 12 days is more than enough time for me to give you the gist.

General thoughts

In general, I think the iPhone 16e is a very good phone for a lot of people, and while it's not bleeding edge in any specific technology, it's very competent in future-proofed in almost every way that matters. If you're someone who wants an iPhone that is reliable and will last you for years, then this phone has all the essentials.

That said, a used iPhone could be a good choice as well. You could get a used iPhone 14 for about $100-150 less than the 16e, and the trade-offs might work for you. The 14 has an ultra-wide camera and MagSafe, but the 16e has a better main camera, a 3 year newer processor, USB-C, and 30% more advertised battery life (not to mention the used iPhone 14 probably isn't at 100% battery health anymore, so there's a bigger gap). I'd personally take the 16e, but I could see why others would pick differently.

I know there are some questions about whether this phone will appeal to current SE owners with the higher price tag, and I don't know the answer to that, but I do think that this phone could appeal to many people who currently buy the normal iPhone every couple of years. It's still clearly the "lesser" iPhone in the lineup, but I think it's closer to the main iPhones than any SE has ever been.

The camera

The core specs of the single camera system on the 16e are pretty simple: it's a 48MP sensor that's a couple years behind the sensor in the 16 Pro phones, so it takes 24MP images by default but those images are a slightly lower quality than those taken from Apple's flagships. Here's some examples that I think get across the differences.

Bokeh

One thing that was pretty clear to me right up front but might not be a huge thing for others is that the 16 Pro has a more shallow depth of field and heavier bokeh on things not in focus. You can see that in the iPhone and audio sliders in the image above, and we can see them even more if we zoom in to another part of the image way in the background.

There is a natural bokeh on both cameras of course, but the 16 Pro definitely has a wider aperture which creates a bit more.

Low light

This is a photo taken in my office of a nearly 100-year-old camera. Again, color differences aside (I had the 16e set to warm up images too much when I took this one), the 16 Pro is simply a more crisp image by a pretty wide margin. You can really see the difference when we zoom in on the center of the frame.

It’s also worth noting that while these photos triggered night mode on both cameras, the 16 Pro made me hold still for one second and the 16e made me hold still for 3 seconds.

As another low light test, I took a picture of my wife’s pegboard in her office and here’s a detail comparison of a couple succulents.

So yeah, in low light, the difference is pretty noticeable.

Main lens outside

Once you go outside, the differences become far smaller, and I’ve found both cameras to do largely the same job when in good light. If we zoom 8x in then we can maybe see a little difference?

The 16 Pro image might have the slightest bit more detail, but I think this actually comes down to a little more sharpening being applied. I’m not totally sure, but we’re in a good spot when you zoom in 8x and have to go “um, maybe there’s a difference?”

5x zoom

This one is pretty obviously going to go to the 16 Pro since it has a separate lens specifically for zooming in, and yeah, it’s not even close. If you want to zoom in, the 16 Pro wipes the floor with the 16e.

Selfies

Once again, color differences aside, the selfies I’ve taken on both cameras look effectively identical, which makes since as I believe they share the same sensor and lens. Even zooming into uncomfortable levels shows no difference in clarity.

Overall, I'd say this camera is fine for most situations, but I did miss the macro mode when scanning a QR code on my new Wi-Fi router this week and I would miss the 5x zoom at live events.

The design

I think this phone looks sick. It's super minimal, which some find boring, and that's fine, but I think it's a classy device that makes me long for a world where we could get all the utility of 3 cameras with a single tiny lens.

That said, this has the iPhone 12/13/14 design, which means thicker bezels than I'm used to and harder corners on the 15/16 generations of iPhones. I personally didn't love these corners and was happy when we moved past them, so yeah this phone is less comfortable in the hand than newer models, but a case would make this a non-issue for many people.

The battery

Battery life is one of those things that’s really hard to test as a reviewer. On the one hand, your audience demands you use the phone extensively so that you can speak to all of its aspects with confidence, but on the other hand you need to use the phone like normal to get a real world feel for how it performs. Also viewer/reader interest in reviews wanes massively soon after the embargo lifts (even though people will tell you they want longer term reviews) so you need to work fast. Not to mention there are so many variables that go into how your battery performs – the simple fact one person lives in a place with good cell coverage and another person has bad coverage can make a significant difference in their battery experiences.

Ultimately, the best I can offer as someone who has used many more phones than the average person is to give you a vibe check, and reader, the vibes with the 16e are good. Like really good! Here’s my battery report from this past weekend:

I woke up at 5:30AM, used my phone all day, got a few percent boost when I plugged into the car when I went to pick up dinner, and went to bed at 10:30PM with exactly 50% battery left. I had the screen on for 6 hours throughout the day and used it a decent amount. That screen time is actually higher than normal, and some of it amounts to the fact that without an always-on display, I’m keeping my phone screen lit up more often as it plays music and podcasts since I like seeing playback status and have quick access to media controls. That wasn’t really a behavior change I anticipated, but it’s something I find myself naturally doing to make up for the lack of a proper always-on mode. For what it’s worth, I have pretty terrible cell coverage in my home which is where I spent most of this day, usually having one bar of cell reception. This was true on Qualcomm modems and Apple’s new C1 modem.

But what’s the vibe check here? I’m a heavier iPhone user than a lot of people, so the battery life I require is a bit more than others, but here’s how I’d describe some recent iPhones’ battery performance.

  • iPhone 16 Pro Max: outstanding
  • iPhone 16 Pro: very good
  • iPhone 15 Pro: good
  • iPhone 14 Pro: not great
  • iPhone 13 Pro: very good
  • iPhone 13 mini: horrendous
  • iPhone 12 Pro: terrible
  • iPhone SE (2022): horrendous

Based on those definitions, I’d call the iPhone 16e battery “very good” to “outstanding”. Apple says the battery should perform almost exactly as well as the 16 Pro, but for whatever reason I’m finding the battery to feel marginally better than the Pro. Now I did have 5 months with the 16 Pro so the sample size is much larger there and it’s possible the days where I drop lower are standing out more there and those days would come for the 16e as well, but I’d say the vibes are very strong with this one.

The C1 modem

The best thing I can say about this modem is that I completely forgot it was new and nearly published this review without mentioning it. I have Visible service which runs on the Verizon network and I had no issue moving my eSIM over to this device. My coverage has been just as good as it always is, and if there were any variances in reception or speed, they were too minor for them to make any difference in how I used my phone.

Honestly, I bet someone at Apple reading this would be very happy with this review – the C1 seemingly wasn't built to run circles around the offerings from other companies, it just quietly goes about its business.

No MagSafe

This one is a bummer, but potentially a minor thing for owners who buy a case. I do think it's annoying that MagSafe accessories don't work with this thing out of the box, and I was reminded how annoying wireless charging can be when you don't have magnets confidently aligning the phone perfectly for you.

Apple says that most SE owners plug in to charge, and that's fine, but I bet more would wirelessly charge if MagSafe was there and I bet they'd also like to be able to use the car mounts and other accessories that work with their every iPhone since 2020.

That said, basically every case I see for the 16e (besides Apple's own cases) has MagSafe magnets built in, so most people who use a case (which is most people) will get to use MagSafe stuff to their hearts' content.

The display

Let's start going really quick through these now…

The display looks great and is very similar in every way to the iPhone 16. The brightness is marginally lower both in normal and HDR modes, but remember that nits are a logarithmic measurement and the perceptible difference in brightness decreases the higher the nits value gets. Yes, I can tell my 16 Pro is a bit brighter, but we're getting to a place where the gaps are pretty minor and you're mostly getting an edge in bright daylight. To be clear, I could see this phone's screen in the middle of a sunny day, but it was a bit dimmer than I'm used to with the Pro.

Also it has to be said that 60Hz is getting pretty ridiculous. Apple is the only phone manufacturer of note selling phones even close to this price with low refresh rate displays.

The notch

Going back to a notched iPhone made me appreciate the Dynamic Island more than I expected. The first thing I noticed was that it was strange to have the Face ID indicator always be either in the bottom or middle of the screen when the camera you're supposed to be looking at is at the top. But as the days went on, I remembered how nice it was to have things like timers or media controls or weather updates appear there.

That said, the notch is not a big deal, and if you've never gotten used to the Dynamic Island, then this likely won't bother you at all.

The speed

I was talking with someone at the Apple Store when I was getting my 16 Pro last fall and he told me that he notices that people who buy the Pro phones are more likely to be trading in a phone and they're more likely to be upgrading from a 1-2 year old phone. The people buying normal iPhones or the SE were more likely not to have a trade in and they were more likely coming from a much older phone. Basically, lower end buyers tend to keep their phones for longer.

It's good to keep this in mind when you consider what a customer buying this phone needs. If you're buying a phone in 2025 and you expect to keep it until 2030 or beyond, then performance is something real to consider. Do you want a processor that's already 2-3 years behind on the day you buy it or do you want one that's going to handle the software updates you're going to get over the next half decade? From that perspective, I think it's great that Apple's lower cost iPhone still has the best silicon they offer (well, minus a couple GPU cores).

Could I live with this phone?

Absolutely. If my 16 Pro shattered into a million little pieces today, I'd quite easily be able to make it to September on the 16e. Obviously I'd miss some things, and I do fully expect to stay on the Pro iPhone train, but this exercise has made it clear to me what I'm actually paying for with these more expensive phones. They're worth it to me, but you really do get a very complete, very fast iOS experience with their baseline phone as well and I think that’s great for those who can’t justify buying the most expensive phones.