Mike Wuerthele
The iPhone 16e appears on the surface to be an excellent addition — assuming you don't want to use MagSafe charging or accessories.
It's an interesting omission — while the iPhone 16e has Qi wireless charging, it lacks the magnet ring for MagSafe accessories. Practically, that means that old-style car mounts are the order of the day.
For those not familiar, MagSafe appeared with the iPhone 12 family. It is the combination of a mounting system and a charging system. Apple started with its Qi wireless charging coil and added several new components to create a proprietary type of wireless charging as well as allow the mounting of different accessories.
Practically, this allows for improved MagSafe wireless charging, and precision alignment for wireless charging. There are also a wealth of accessories going beyond charging, and including SSDs, camera grips, speakers, and more.
We expect third-party cases to add a magnet ring to sort-of restore the functionality to the iPhone 16e.
But for now, that rudimentary stand without magnets is probably the order of the day.
Charles Martin
Wesley Hilliard
Oliver Haslam
Marko Zivkovic
Amber Neely
23 Comments
That. is stupid.
Deal-breaker. Disappointing.
As always, readers saying in comments what the people being paid to write should have said in the article.
Was planning to purchase this new phone, but having just learned about the absence of MagSafe means it is a pass for me. Would be nice to learn of Apple’s reasoning behind this omission. I would pay a few more bucks for MagSafe. Sad.
If they were going to cut features to save cost, lower price and avoid cannibalizing sales of higher-end product this is exactly the area to cut corners. It still allows wireless charging; you just lose the magnet. I expect at least 40% if not 60% of consumers have never taken advantage of the magnet (I know I haven't).
You really have to look hard to see the differences between the 16 and the 16e iPhone - Compare Models - Apple
The vast majority of consumers should save $200 and get the "economy" model.
Here are the differences:
- Magsafe (but not wireless charging)
- 4 GPU cores rather than 5
- a LONGER battery life (26 hours video compared to 22 hours video--the only times shown)
- a trivially smaller screen (9 pixels less width and 24 pixels height)
- a dimmer screen (only 80% as bright)
- no wide angle camera
- lots of camera-related step downs, including the dedicated camera control button, but the same megapixels front and back. Examples:
"Next-generation portraits with Focus and Depth Control" versus "
And that is pretty much it. So if photography is very important to you, don't skimp on the "e" otherwise, get the 16e (or wait for the 17).
Edit: I almost forgot, the 16e is missing: "