Apple iPhone 16e Review: Sexy But Pricey With Caveats

The iPhone 16e’s specs are similar to the rest of the iPhone 16 lineup, minus WiFi 7 (802.11be) and UWB, which are absent. What you get instead is sub-6GHz 5G, 4G LTE, satellite SOS, WiFi 6 (802.11ax), Bluetooth v5.3 + LE, NFC, plus A-GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, BeiDou, and NavIC positioning. There’s no fingerprint sensor, but Face ID works like a charm, and Apple’s Taptic Engine delivers superb haptics.

Apple C1 5G Modem Performance

For our reviews, we usually test reception, call quality, and data speeds with a handful of speed tests and voice calls on a couple of US carriers right in our office, just to make sure everything works as expected. But considering the iPhone 16e packs Apple’s first in-house 5G modem – or C1 chip – we wanted to try something more in-depth. So we decided to spend a day in Seattle, and test the iPhone 16e vs. the iPhone 16 Pro.
As you can see from the graphs above, the iPhone 16e beat the iPhone 16 Pro just as often as the iPhone 16 Pro beat the iPhone 16e, when it comes to data speeds -- the two traded victories. Calls sounded just as loud and clear on the iPhone 16e as on the iPhone 16 Pro, regardless of signal quality, carrier and neighborhood. In other words, Apple’s in-house C1 chip appears to be a successful first attempt at making a viable 5G modem, which is certainly no small feat.

Obviously, with so few data points, our tests didn’t paint the whole picture. Luckily, the folks over at Ookla – best known for their Speedtest app – published their own results. What they found is that the iPhone 16 offers higher top-end performance than the iPhone 16e, the iPhone 16e beat the iPhone 16 on download speeds for AT&T and Verizon, but not T-Mobile, and the iPhone 16e often delivers higher upload speeds.

iPhone 16e Sound Quality

On the audio front, the iPhone 16e boasts excellent-sounding stereo speakers that support Dolby Atmos content via Apple Music. Obviously, there’s no headphone jack here since Apple famously ditched it way back with the iPhone 7. “Courage”, remember? The iPhone 16e supports wired audio accessories over USB (digital only) and wireless audio devices via WiFi (AirPlay) and Bluetooth (AAC and SBC codecs only).
The lack of high-resolution Bluetooth codecs like LDAC, LHDC, and aptX HD/Lossless on iPhones is odd, considering Apple’s long-time focus on sound quality. Not to mention, these codecs are widely available on Android phones, and can make a difference for discerning ears with quality buds or headphones installed.

iPhone 16e Performance And Battery Life

As we previously mentioned, the iPhone 16e is powered by Apple’s flagship 3nm A18 chip. But unlike the iPhone 16, which features an A18 SoC with five GPU cores, the iPhone 16e’s A18 chip only has four GPU cores. This is similar to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite, which comes with either seven or eight CPU cores, depending on version. On the iPhone 16e, the A18 chip is paired with 8GB of RAM, and 128, 256, or 512GB of storage.

When it comes to subjective performance, the iPhone 16e feels very responsive and light on its feet. It ran our usual communication, entertainment, productivity, and other day-to-day apps like a champ. The iPhone 16e also handled graphically demanding games like Call Of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends without any trouble. None of this is really surprising, since iOS 18 is highly optimized to run on Apple’s A18 SoC.

If you’re looking for our usual benchmark results, our very own Ben Funk took an in-depth look at the iPhone 16e’s objective performance last month. So go ahead and check out his findings – we’ll wait…
Battery life is another one of the iPhone 16e’s strengths. While our PCMark battery test isn’t available for iOS, in our experience, the iPhone 16e’s 4005mAh cell easily lasts a full day on a charge – even on days like the one we spent in Seattle, when we shot a lot of pictures and ran multiple speed tests. As such, we believe that most folks won’t have any issues using this handset for two days with light use.