Apple has unveiled its latest iPhone SE model, called iPhone 16e, and it features improved hardware and a higher starting price than before.
The announcement says that iPhone 16e pre-orders will begin Friday, February 21, with availability in retail stores starting the following Friday, February 28. The handset will be available in the black and white color finishes, and Apple is also offering colorful cases to accessorize.
iPhone 16e starts at $599, which is significantly more than 2022’s iPhone SE 3, which sold for $429 but is no longer available in the lineup. Leaks correctly predicted that the next iPhone SE—excuse me, the new iPhone 16e—would feature the old notch instead of Dynamic Island.
Apple unveils iPhone 16e with A18 chip and 48MP camera
iPhone 16e is Apple’s first smartphone featuring an in-house modem with 5G cellular connectivity, dubbed the Apple C1. The company says the C1 is the most power-efficient modem ever on an iPhone.
The Home button is no more because iPhone 16e has a fullscreen design with Face ID, which has enabled Apple’s engineers to squeeze an edge-to-edge 6.1-inch display without making the device much bigger than the 4.7-inch iPhone SE. The display uses OLED technology instead of LCD, providing blacker blacks, whiter whites, and higher brightness and contrast for true HDR video.
Apple says iPhone 16e has “the best battery life ever on a 6.1-inch iPhone,” lasting six hours longer than iPhone 11 and twelve hours longer than all iPhone SE models.
The handset is powered by Apple’s A18 chip, built using TSMC’s 3-nanometer process technology, which sports six processing cores, four graphics cores that support hardware-accelerated ray tracing and a 16-core Neural Engine for running large generative AI and machine learning models without taxing the CPU, the GPU or the battery. The same chip also powers the regular iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus models, and it brings Apple Intelligence to iPhone 16e.
A 48MP two-in-one camera
If you couldn’t care less about artificial intelligence, however, iPhone 16e has you covered with a single rear camera bumped from twelve to 48 megapixels that has an integrated 2x telephoto capability. Like on the regular iPhone 16 models, this isn’t a dedicated lens for 2x optical zoom. Instead, it just crops the 48-megapixel snap down to 12 megapixels—Apple calls this a 2-in-1 Fusion camera system.
Unlike digital zoom that doesn’t retain quality like a dedicated 2x telephoto lets, the iPhone 16e camera lets you “zoom in with optical quality.” Video recording is supported up to 4K resolution at sixty frames per second, Dolby Vision color and spatial audio with wind noise reduction.
iPhone 16e also has the Action button on the left side, the Ceramic Shield cover on the front, USB-C for data and charging at the bottom, wireless charging compatible with Qi at 7.5W and IP68-rated splash, water and dust resistance—just like the rest of the iPhone 16 lineup.
Interestingly, Apple says iPhone 16e owners can use the Action button to summon a new visual intelligence feature which on the rest of the iPhone 16 lineup is invoked by pressing and holding the Camera Control button.
Pricing and availability
iPhone 16e is offered in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB storage capacities priced at $599, $699 and $899. The handset is available in two color finishes: black and white. You can pre-order iPhone 16e via Apple’s website and the official Apple Store app starting Friday, February 21.
It’ll start shipping the following Friday, February 28, in 59 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea and Türkiye.
You can accessorize your iPhone 16e with Apple’s $39 silicone cases available in five new colors called winter blue, fuchsia, lake green, black and white.