apple calling Apple announces iPhone 16e to replace iPhone SE, starts at $599 for 128GB Lower-end iPhone replaces both the old iPhone SE and the aging iPhone 14. Andrew Cunningham Feb 19, 2025 11:24 am | 19 Apple's iPhone 16e, a new lower-cost phone that replaces both the iPhone SE and iPhone 14. Credit: Apple Apple's iPhone 16e, a new lower-cost phone that replaces both the iPhone SE and iPhone 14. Credit: Apple Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreAs expected, Apple has released a new low-end iPhone into its lineup to replace the aging iPhone SE. The iPhone 16e is a 6.1-inch phone with an edge-to-edge OLED screen and a display notch, an Apple A18 processor inside (similar to, though not exactly the same as, the regular iPhone 16), a USB-C port and Action Button, and Apple's first in-house cellular modem, dubbed the Apple C1.The iPhone 16e starts at $599 for 128GB, and will go up for pre-orders on February 21st. The phone will be available on February 28th. A 256GB version and a 512GB version will run you $699 and $899, respectively.At $599, the iPhone 16e's starting price is $200 less than the iPhone 16, but a whopping $170 more than the old 64GB iPhone SE, and $120 more than the 128GB version of the iPhone SE. The 16e is a more direct replacement for the iPhone 14, which Apple started selling for $599 when the standard iPhone 16 was released. The iPhone 14 and 14 Plus have both been discontinued, which means that Apple is no longer selling any new phones that use Lightning ports instead of USB-C.Almost an iPhone 16 Like the iPhone 16 series and the iPhone 15 Pro, the iPhone 16e has a programmable Action button on the side. It doesn't have the iPhone 16's extra Camera Control button, though. Credit: Apple For most people, the iPhone 16e will offer essentially the same iPhone experience that the iPhone 16 does. It replaces the iPhone SE's Home button and Touch ID fingerprint sensor with the same Face ID scanner as other iPhones. It's got the programmable Action button, like the iPhone 16 series and the iPhone 15 Pro. The A18 chip enables support for Apple Intelligence, meaning that the phone includes the same 8GB of RAM inside as Apple's pricier phones.But Apple has omitted a handful of features to hit the lower price. For example, Apple is only offering the phone in two colors (black and white), instead of the rainbow of options you have with the iPhone 16. The OLED screen includes a notch rather than the Dynamic Island, a mostly unnecessary but nice-to-have evolution of the notch concept that first appeared in the iPhone 14 Pro and the iPhone 15.Apple's press release also notes that the A18 includes a four-core GPU, one core less than the A18 in the iPhone 16. The six-core CPU (two large performance cores, four smaller efficiency cores) is the same, though, as is the 16-core Neural Engine; you may notice the performance difference in some games, but otherwise the phone should feel about the same as the more expensive version. The iPhone 16e comes in just two colors: white and black. Credit: Apple The iPhone 16e's main downgrade compared to the regular base-model iPhones continues to be its single-lens camerait doesn't have an integrated wide-angle or telephoto lens. But Apple has upgraded it to a 48 megapixel sensor. As in other iPhones with this camera, the phone will normally take that 48MP image and downscale it to a 12MP image, merging pixels together to improve image quality (a process known as "pixel binning"). But the phone also supports a 2x telephoto mode, which "zooms" closer to a subject by snipping a native 12MP image out of the middle of that 48MP image. Having used it on a regular iPhone 16, the feature is a definite improvement over digital zoom, though it's not a replacement for the native 3x telephoto lens on a Pro iPhone.Apple provided few details on the Apple C1 modem, except to say that it offered "fast and reliable 5G cellular connectivity" and that it was "the most power-efficient modem ever on an iPhone." But its inclusion in the iPhone 16e is quietly momentous, and could foreshadow a switch to Apple-designed modems in future flagship iPhonesApple has been working on its own modems since at least 2018, according to reports, and spent $1 billion buying Intel's modem business in mid 2019. Apple currently uses modems from Qualcomm in most of its iPhones, but the two companies have a litigious history, and Apple's current contract with Qualcomm only runs through 2026.Andrew CunninghamSenior Technology ReporterAndrew CunninghamSenior Technology Reporter Andrew is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica, with a focus on consumer tech including computer hardware and in-depth reviews of operating systems like Windows and macOS. Andrew lives in Philadelphia and co-hosts a weekly book podcast called Overdue. 19 Comments