Apple has officially introduced the iPhone 16e, the newest and most affordable model in the iPhone 16 lineup it says. Say goodbye to the iPhone SE naming scheme.
The iPhone 16e is powered by Apple’s A18 chip and the C1 modem (its first in-house modem in an iPhone). It also supports Apple Intelligence and has a single 48MP Fusion camera with 2x Telephoto lens on the back (well, through a zoom/cropping trick). Yes, the Action button is there on the side like the other iPhone 16 series lineup–but no Camera Control.
“iPhone 16e packs in the features our users love about the iPhone 16 lineup, including breakthrough battery life, fast performance powered by the latest-generation A18 chip, an innovative 2-in-1 camera system, and Apple Intelligence,” said Kaiann Drance, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPhone Product Marketing. “We’re so excited for iPhone 16e to complete the lineup as a powerful, more affordable option to bring the iPhone experience to even more people.”
The screen is a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display. Apple says battery life is six hours longer than the iPhone 11 and 12 hours longer than previous iPhone SE models. It also includes Face ID and a USB-C. Gone are Touch ID. Battery life is rated at 26 hours on the iPhone 16e versus 22 hours on the iPhone 16 when it comes to video playback. That’s a good thing at least.
The iPhone 16e is IP68-rated for water and dust resistance and features Ceramic Shield glass. There doesn’t appear to be MagSafe support but only Qi wireless charging support.
Apple says the A18 chip, which has a 6-core CPU and 4-core GPU (iPhone 16 has a 6-core GPU), delivers 80% faster performance than the A13 Bionic. The C1 modem is Apple’s first in-house cellular chip, ensures fast and efficient 5G.
As for iPhone 16e Canadian pricing? Check it out below…are these budget prices?
Compared to the iPhone SE 3, the latter started at $579 but with a paltry 64GB. 128GB cost $649 and 256GB cost $789. So we’re seeing some pretty big price increases, likely from currency fluctuations since the Loonie is not very strong right now compared to the U.S. dollar. A $250 CAD minimum price increase for the iPhone 16e compared to the iPhone SE 3 128GB (ouch)?
You can get 0% APR for iPhone 16e, which starts at $37.46 CAD per month over 24 months.
Apple says trade-in discounts give up to $165 when trading in an iPhone 11 or up to $220 for an iPhone 12. Clearly they want people using these phones to upgrade.
There’s an iPhone 16e Silicon Case available in winter blue, fuchsia, lake green, black, and white for $55 CAD.
Pre-orders begin February 21 at 5am PST/8am EST, and the phone officially launches February 28 in Canada and 58 other regions, including Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, and the U.S.
Who’s buying or upgrading to an iPhone 16e?
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What a big price hike from the old SE. I wonder if this’ll push people away from iPhone if they can’t afford one.
All the prices for Apple items will be much higher once they’re refreshed, because of the US dollar exchange fluctuations, I believe. It’s been like this for decades. Just wait til the new MacBooks launch!
They set the exchange rate at 1.50 while the real one is 1.42. Typical apple
Yep, they have always marked up the exchange rate. It sucks that our dollar is so low this time around, I remember when it was around 1.35 Apple used a 1.40 exchange rate
Yet in most countries they use a more accurate exchange rate, Mexico for exemple at 21 peso for a dollar.
Tell that to the UK
Its not really a big difference, the UK has the VAT included, if you remove it it ends up 500 pounds, not far from the actually rate at 475 pounds.
It really varies. When the M2 or M3 MacBooks Pro were released, the exchange rate was way off for the UK and they were rioting about it. Apple tries to predict the headwinds of where the currency will be going, since it can be 1-2 years or more sometimes before they update a product again. At the time the UK pound was tanking as a result of Brexit fallout and their disastrous PM Liz Truss tanking the economy.
They should update prices every Quarter, like software companies do
Actually when they released the M4 iPads Pro, they were cheaper than the exchange rate. Since the price will be locked in for awhile, they try to predict how it will be going over time, not just what it is presently. Unfortunately, with the orange tyrant in office, the near future of the Canadian dollar is looking grim 🙁
an exchange rate of 1.50 is crazy
I remember back in 2008/2009 when the Canadian $ was actually better than the US $, Apple products always cost $50 more even then. They like to take advantage of us Canadians.
Wait for when, despite Tim's chuminess with Trump, Apple actually discovers that his tariffs will actually apply to their products as well. Then the US will experience a price bump which they'll happily pass on up to us here, as well.
So…their replacement of iPhone SE, which was a dramatically cheaper version of the device, and a combo of both old and new tech. 16E with similar premise – old and new tech – but price spiked to $899. Crazy price for a 'discount' phone.
If it was priced around $700-800, then I could see it selling. At $900, I could see more people who may be looking to upgrade either buying refurbished older models or switching to Android.
I checked at the Apple Store in Toronto's Eaton Centre yesterday – they still have SE on display – just to confirm that device's price. $649 for the 128GB model. So even with that making a profit for Apple, yeah, I might be able to see justification of a $700 16E. That said, its still leaning heavily on the Apple Tax (and 'there's a sucker born every minute') for a device that enjoys a significant market share only in North America.
No MagSafe … $900 pre tax….
Not sure who will be buying it. They want people with their older iPhone 12 and countless MagSafe accessories to upgrade to it?