William Gallagher
The first Geekbench listing for what appears to be the iPhone 16e details the difference between it and the iPhone 16, plus confirms the expected amount of RAM.
Apple would rather talk about what you can do with a device than mention specifications such as the amount of RAM in it. Consequently RAM wasn't mentioned in the launch of the iPhone 16e, but it was presumed that the new iPhone comes with 8GB RAM.
That's because at least 8GB RAM is required for Apple Intelligence. There was never any question that the iPhone 16e would include Apple Intelligence, but now the first benchmarks confirm it has 8GB RAM.
The new Geekbench listing, which describes the model as the "iPhone 17,5" does not as yet show the full single- and multi-core speed scores. But it does show that the iPhone 16e scored 24,188 in Geekbench's metal tests.
That's fractionally lower than the 27,669 of the iPhone 16 in the same graphics category. The difference is because the A18 in the iPhone 16 has five GPU cores, but in the iPhone 16e, it has only four.
First Geekbench scores for the iPhone 16eWhile this difference in graphics cores produces a noticeable drop in the Geekbench results, it's not a significant one for users. The iPhone 16e is unlikely to appear slower than the iPhone 16 in real-world use.
It's a different story for users going from the last iPhone SE to the new iPhone 16e. They will see a dramatic difference in how fast and responsive the new iPhone is.
As first spotted by mysmartprice, the benchmarks also confirm that the iPhone 16e has a 6-core CPU. The same source also cites a Chinese regulatory filing that says the iPhone 16e can support up to 29W charging.
What the benchmarks cannot uncover, though, is now well the iPhone 16e battery lasts under regular use. But Apple has been promoting that the new model has a significantly longer battery life than the previous iPhone SE range.
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Wesley Hilliard
Amber Neely
William Gallagher and Mike Wuerthele
Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
3 Comments
For me, the order of priority for mobile computer internals is: 1) RAM, 2) storage, 3) network, 4) CPU, 5) GPU, 6) NPU.
Going from 4 GB RAM in the iPSE and 6 GB RAM in the iP14 is a big upgrade. 8 GB RAM meets about 99% of phone workflows, and probably has comfortable margin for 97% of users' workflows. By workflow, I think it means scrolling through endless images, videos, playing games on a 6" displays, messaging, and web browsing.
The only thing that really stresses phone is the ad load from web browsing. It's gotten to the point now that giving up on web browsing is becoming a real possibly. I don't use ad-blockers as ads is the cost of browsing a website for free. Honor the deal. If the ads get too much, I stop browsing.
128 GB storage is a very good baseline for a phone. I see some people complaining about it, but I think that is the usual people always wanting the most bang for their buck, no matter how reasonable a price is. Cellular and WiFi performance is commoditized. The only thing I think people value with networking is availability and reliability, not bandwidth anymore. And, yeah, the CPU, GPU are fine. An A15 with 8 GB RAM will be good enough for iPhone work flows for another 5 years, let alone an A18. NPU? Not a fan. Maybe in a few years when it becomes mature, but what it offers now, not a fan.
So, very good to see 8 GB. That is the biggest reason for people with 2, 4, 6 GB RAM phones to upgrade.