iPhone 17e Review

The 16e was the cheapest iPhone and the most obviously cut-down one. The 17e repairs the two cuts that mattered: MagSafe is back, so the phone works with the accessories every other iPhone since 2020 has used, and base storage doubles to 256GB. The price did not move at launch. At the $599 it opened at, it was the most straightforward thing Apple sold, until the company lifted it to $699 on 9 September alongside the 18 Pro.

The A19 is the same generation of silicon as the iPhone 17 with one graphics core removed, which leaves the 17e faster than most Android phones costing twice as much and quick enough to age well. Apple's own C1X modem handles 5G more efficiently than the Qualcomm part it replaced, and the 4005 mAh cell is rated for 26 hours of video. The single 48-megapixel camera crops to 2x in place of a telephoto and takes pictures that hold up beside the iPhone 17 in daylight and fall behind after dark. Ceramic Shield 2 and IP68 come down from the Pro.

What Apple kept back is the screen. It is a 6.1-inch OLED at 60Hz and 1200 nits, in a year when $300 Android phones run 120Hz panels, and it is the one part of this phone that reads as a decision made in a spreadsheet. Everything around it is the cheapest good iPhone there has been.