Apple iPhone 16e

At Rs. 263,999, the Apple iPhone 16e is priced like an upper mid-range phone, not a budget iPhone, so its value depends on what you need.

Its strengths are real: the A18 chip, Apple Intelligence support, excellent battery life, IP68 water resistance, USB-C and an Action Button. Its compromises are just as clear: a 60Hz notched display, a single rear camera with no ultrawide, slow 7.5W wireless charging with no MagSafe, Wi-Fi 6 rather than 6E or 7, and no Ultra Wideband for precise AirTag finding.

• Worth it for: users upgrading from an iPhone 11, iPhone 12 or older SE model who care most about speed, battery life and long software support.
• Think twice if: you want a versatile camera or a smooth high-refresh screen. Older Pro models such as the Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max (Rs. 318,699) offer a 120Hz screen, three cameras and MagSafe, at the cost of an older chip and a Lightning port.

Verdict: a sensible upgrade for iPhone buyers who value performance and endurance, but the price leaves little room for its missing features.

The iPhone 16e has a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED screen with a 1170 x 2532 resolution, HDR10 and Dolby Vision support. Colours are well calibrated, touch response is good and HDR video looks rich, so day-to-day viewing quality is strong.

The weak points are practical ones:

• 60Hz refresh rate: scrolling and app opening show small micro-stutters, which stand out if you are coming from a 120Hz phone.
• Brightness: rated at 800 nits in high brightness mode and 1200 nits peak, it is less visible in direct sunlight than the iPhone 16 and many newer screens.
• Notch: there is no Dynamic Island, and the notch takes up more of the top of the screen.

The front uses Ceramic Shield glass, though reports note it is an older generation than on newer iPhones. For videos and reading, it is a good panel; for gaming and fast scrolling, the 60Hz limit is the main drawback.

The Apple A18 (3 nm) with 8GB of RAM makes the iPhone 16e one of the fastest phones in its price range. It is the same chip family as the iPhone 16, with one fewer GPU core (a 4-core GPU).

In real use, that cut is hard to notice:

• Everyday use: apps open quickly and multitasking is smooth, apart from the visual limit of the 60Hz screen.
• Gaming: PUBG and Genshin Impact run with frame rates close to the iPhone 16. Only GPU-heavy benchmarks show a clear gap. Against the Google Pixel 9a's Tensor G4, real-world gaming performance is roughly 40% higher.
• Heat: thermal management is slightly weaker than on the iPhone 16, so long, heavy gaming sessions may warm it up a little more.

The chip also unlocks Apple Intelligence, including writing tools and the Clean Up photo tool, which older iPhones do not get.

The iPhone 16e has a single 48MP main camera (f/1.6, OIS) and a 12MP front camera. The main sensor is much smaller than the iPhone 16's, and that shapes the results.

• Daylight: photos are sharp with typical iPhone colours and saturation, and detail and dynamic range are close to the iPhone 16. There is less natural background blur. A 2x crop from the 48MP sensor gives good subject framing.
• Low light: images soften faster and show more grain than the iPhone 16, and night mode kicks in sooner, making moving subjects harder to freeze.
• Portraits and selfies: portraits look much like the iPhone 16's, and the selfie camera gives near-identical output.
• Video: up to 4K at 60fps with Dolby Vision HDR. Footage is clean, but standard OIS (not sensor-shift) shows a little more shake than the iPhone 16.

Limitations: no ultrawide, no macro, no Cinematic mode and no spatial video. Zoom quality falls apart quickly at higher levels such as 8x.

The iPhone 16e has a 4005mAh battery, and battery life is one of its strongest points. Apple's C1 modem is built for efficiency, which helps most on mobile data and in weak-signal areas.

• Real-world use: around 7 hours of screen-on time on mobile data is achievable, compared with about 6 hours for the iPhone 16 under similar use. Endurance is also reported to be on par with the iPhone 16 Pro.
• Mixed use: after a two-hour run of social media, video streaming and general apps, it still had 91% left, ahead of the Google Pixel 9a's 86% running at 120Hz.

Charging is the weak side. Wired charging reaches 50% in about 30 minutes, and no charger comes in the box, only a cable. Wireless charging tops out at 7.5W Qi with no MagSafe magnets, so a slightly misaligned phone can charge extremely slowly while getting warm. A MagSafe-compatible case helps alignment but does not raise the speed.

The iPhone 16e launched with iOS 18 and is upgradable to iOS 26, with the full iOS experience of Apple's more expensive models and no bloatware.

• Apple Intelligence: supported thanks to the A18, with writing tools and photo Clean Up. Opinions differ on its usefulness, and Apple's AI features are widely seen as behind what Android offers right now.
• Action Button: replaces the mute switch and can be set to launch other functions.
• What is missing: no Camera Control button and no Dynamic Island, both of which are optional extras rather than core features.
• Ecosystem: Face ID works for banking app logins and payments, and the phone links smoothly with other Apple products such as the Apple Watch and AirPods.

Updates: Apple does not publish a fixed number of iOS upgrades for each model. It is generally expected to support the 16e for at least five years, in line with its past iPhones, but this is an estimate rather than a published guarantee.