The new iPhone 16e lacks MagSafe, Camera Control, vibrant colors, and more. It also has a missing GPU core and a downgraded display without Dynamic Island, among other omissions. If you’re getting an iPhone 16e for yourself, you need to know about the missing features.
1Sub-$500 Pricing
We knew Apple could charge a bit more for an iPhone SE successor, but kept our fingers crossed for a sub-$500 price. However, the iPhone 16e starts at $599. While you get twice the storage and much better hardware, that doesn’t change the fact that the cheapest iPhone in 2025 no longer costs the same as when the iPhone SE 3 came out in 2022.
64 GB
128 GB
256 GB
512 GB
1 TB
iPhone SE 3
$430
$480
$580
—
iPhone 16e
$600
$700
$900
iPhone 15
$800
$1,000
iPhone 15 Plus
$1,100
iPhone 16
iPhone 16 Plus
$1,200
iPhone 16 Pro
$1,300
$1,500
iPhone 16 Pro Max
$1,400
$1,600
Apple cunningly discontinued the iPhone SE 3, iPhone 14, and iPhone 14 Plus models. The lineup reshuffling has resulted in an increase in the entry price of an iPhone experience by $170! If youcompare the iPhone 16e to the iPhone SE 3, you’ll realize that the base 128GB iPhone 16e will set you back $120 more than the equivalent 128GB iPhone SE 3.
Using the inflation calculator from theUS Bureau of Labor Statistics, the $430 spent on a base 64GB iPhone SE when the device was released in March 2022 would translate to about $475 in January 2025 dollars.
2Fun Color Options
Comparing the iPhone 16e to the iPhone 16, the new Phone 16e comes in the same boring Black and White color finishes as the discontinued iPhone SE 3. Contrast this with the Ultramarine, Teal, Pink, Black, and White optionsfor standard iPhone 16 models!
Phone 15, iPhone 15 Plus
iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus
iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max
BlackTitanium, White Titanium, Desert Titanium, Natural Titanium
3MagSafe and StandBy
The new iPhone 16e doesn’t support magnetic charging,one of Apple’s best featuresand a compellingreason to upgrade your old iPhone. This is a surprising omission asMagSafehas been present on nearly all models from the 2020 iPhone 12 lineup onward. You also cannotuse StandBy, which turns any MagSafe iPhone into a bedside clock.
Unlike the old iPhone SE 3, you can charge your iPhone 16e with Apple’s MagSafe charger, but the handset won’t magnetically snap into place. Also, MagSafe-based accessories like SSD enclosures won’t snap on this phone.
In comparison, the iPhone 15 lineup supports 15W MagSafe charging, and the iPhone 16 models (sans the new 16e) use even faster 25W MagSafe charging. The iPhone 16e also doesn’t support the latestQi2 charging protocol, which is itself based on MagSafe.
4Six GPU Cores
A GPU core is missing. While the handset runs the A18 chip like the regular iPhone 16 models, it’s a binned version with four instead of five GPU cores.
Chip binningis a semiconductor manufacturing technique where some lower-performing cores or defective components are disabled to repurpose the chip for lower-tier products and maximize yield.
The missing core means the iPhone 16e doesn’t match the more expensive iPhone 16 models in terms of GPU performance. Indeed, Geekbench 6 Metal benchmark results,spotted by MySmartPrice, reveal that the iPhone 16e graphics performance is around 15% lower than the standard iPhone 16 models whilefalling slightly short of the iPhone 15 Pros.
The 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display has a notched design instead of theDynamic Island feature, with a cutout at the top of the OLED panel accommodating Face ID hardware. As a modernized version of the notch, Dynamic Island is a pill-shaped area on the upper side of the display that shows various system statusesand ongoing activitywhile multitasking.
The iPhone 16e has a screen resolution of 1170×2532 pixels versus the 1179×2556 screen on the standard iPhone 16. That’s 51,084 fewer pixels on the new phone.
6The Latest Display Technologies
With a typical brightness of 800 nits, the iPhone 16e screen is visibly brighter than the iPhone SE 3 (625 nits) but also darker than the iPhone 16 (1000 nits). It goes to 1200 nits for HDR video, which still pales in comparison with up to 1600 nits of peak brightness on the regular iPhone 16. The iPhone 16e also cannot boost the brightness beyond 1000 nits outdoors, whereas the regular iPhone 16 supports 2000 nits of peak brightness under direct sunlight.
These specs make the iPhone 16e’s display a downgrade. Basically, Apple has equipped the handset with the same screen as the iPhone 14 series.
The iPhone 16e cannot lower screen brightness to 1 nit, either. The other iPhone 16 models support this automatic brightness feature. 1-nit brightness is handy for reading in bed, especially when paired with theReduce White Point accessibility setting.
7The Camera Control Button
The iPhone 16e lacks a touch-sensitive capture button called Camera Control, which is found on every other model in the iPhone 16 series.Camera Control lets youquickly launch a designated camera app from the lock screen, use a DSLR-like two-stage shutter in the built-in Camera app, or invoke the visual intelligence feature of Apple Intelligence.
iPhone 16e owners can instead bind visual intelligence to theAction buttonor trigger the feature via a dedicated Control Center widget. Apple has promised to bring the same capabilities to the iPhone 15 Pros in a future update to iOS 18.
8Apple’s Ultra-Wide Camera
The iPhone 16e is equipped with a single-lens rear camera boosted from 12MP to 48MP, bringing four times the pixels. However, there’s nowide-angle cameralike on the other iPhone 16 models so iPhone 16e owners cannot capture wide shots of outdoor scenery or large groups of people,enjoy macro photography, ortake spatial photos and videos.
Apple advertises the iPhone 16e camera as a “2-in-1” system supporting 2x telephoto capability. Instead oftrue optical zoom, the center 12MP of the 48MP sensor is cropped (like on the regular iPhone 16) so you can zoom in “with optical quality.”
9Sensor-Shift Optical Image Stabilization
Recent iPhones use sensor-shift optical image stabilization, which results in more precise stabilization because the image sensor is much lighter than the lens barrel and thus easier to move around to atone for camera shake. However, the iPhone 16e uses regular image stabilization where the sensor remains fixed.
10Cinematic and Action Shooting Modes
The iPhone 16e lacksCinematic Mode(available since the iPhone 13 family) for shooting videos at a shallow depth of field. Action Mode, found on the iPhone 14 and later lineups for correcting significant shakes in handheld videos, is also unsupported.
