On March 2, Apple announced the iPhone 17e, its newest budget-friendly smartphone with a $599 price tag. Visually, the smartphone is nearly identical to its predecessor, the iPhone 16e from 2025, but it packs a few very important changes, albeit a few. In this Specs Appeal, we compare the iPhone 17e with the iPhone 16e and the iPhone SE3, the last iPhone with a TouchID Home button.
The iPhone 17e is visually identical to the iPhone 16e. It has the same design, the same display, the same single-lens camera with some software improvements, and the same aluminum chassis. What is different is the new color. Now, in addition to black and white, the iPhone 17e is available in pink, offering users on the lower end of the price spectrum a bit of color. That is all that the iPhone 17e has to offer outside.
Inside, we have three main changes: a newer processor, a newer modem, more storage, and MagSafe. Apple bumped the processor to the latest A19 chip (still a six-core chip with two performance and four efficiency cores), doubled the storage (now starting at 256GB with optional 512GB), and added the custom-made C1X modem. The latter offers double the speed of the C1, while consuming 30% less energy for better battery life.
