iPhone 16e Teardown: Apple's First In-House 5G Modem Detailed And A Battery Surprise
Apple's latest iPhone 16e has unsurprisingly gone under the knife by a popular tech repair site. The teardown found that Apple is making good on its promise to increase repairability to its devices with the 16e. In fact, the iPhone SE replacement garnered a slightly higher 7 out of 10 repairability score than its pricier iPhone 16 counterparts. The team also found the battery to be 444 mAh larger than the—you guessed it—iPhone 16.
As most often the case with new smartphone releases, especially something as high-profile as an Apple, it's only a matter of days before iFixit, the titular tech repair help site, got its grubby hands on an iPhone 16e for a proper teardown. As always, iFixit's traditional teardown is meant to take a better lock at the internal components and if/how certain parts can be replaced. The final iFixit "repairability" score has almost become an industry standard that manufacturers strive to beat, particularly in light of the Right to Repair law.
During the disassembly, the iPhone 16e was praised for having electrically-released battery adhesives. When a 12 V supply was applied between a conductive tab and a screw post, the adhesive released in a mere five seconds. From this, we see that the battery is a larger 15.55 Wh pack versus 13.83 Wh packs used in other iPhone 16s. Taking into account the efficiency of the A18 processor and the all-new low-energy C1 modem, battery life/lifespan would likely be pretty solid. If someone were to keep the 16e long enough, it's good to know that replacing the battery would be pretty pain free.
Speaking of the battery, however, the teardown reveals (and confirms what we've reported) that the iPhone 16e doesn't have Magsafe. Instead, there's a more basic Qi coil that charges the phone at a pedestrian 7.5 W. There are pluses and minuses to this decision:
- Wireless charging creates lots of heat that can deteriorate the battery; at 7.5 W though, the problem is greatly lessened.
- Qi also potentially allows the device to dock with accessories outside of the Magsafe ecosystem.
- That being said, household heavily invested in Magsafe chargers and/or mount in the cars, for example, will have to adapt to the weaker Qi-equipped 16e.
- Qi is a lower efficiency than Magsafe while charging.
iFixit did knock on the poor ability to replace the USB-C port, however. To replace this high-traffic assembly, all the internal components of the phone had to removed first. At least, Apple now provides a proper manual for those wanting to attempt this repair.
Photo credit: iFixit
