At $1000, the iPhone 16e isn’t exactly cheap, even in the smartphone world. But it is $400 less expensive than the standard iPhone 16 with which it shares an awful lot. So it’s a fundamentally different proposition than previous cut-price iPhones, including the $720 iPhone SE that Apple has now put out to pasture.

Comparing the 16e with the 16 reveals a number of small nice-to-haves were stripped away in exchange for the lower price, and it will be up to each person to decide whether they’d rather have better cameras, faster charging and a brighter display, or $400 left in their pocket.

But compared with iPhones from a few years ago, the 16e is, like the 16, practically a quantum leap.

If you’re still on the latest SE, for example, the new phone ditches the old-fashioned Home button and Lightning port, has a huge screen despite only a modest increase in physical size, features twice the storage and twice the battery life, and has a much nicer version of iOS complete with the full Apple Intelligence suite.

In fact, since Apple’s put the requisite AI hardware only in the 16 line-up and the iPhone 15 Pro, the 16e is by default the cheapest way to get access to features such as Writing Tools, Image Playground........

© The Sydney Morning Herald