Hands On with the iPhone 17e – time for an upgrade

Haters gunna hate – I get that, but anyone out with a pitchfork for the iPhone 17e doesn’t understand why it exists. We’ve got the latest Apple iPhone here in the EFTM studio and it’s a cracking good phone, aimed fairly and squarely at a key market segment. Users of older phones.

We all know someone who’s using an iPhone 8, maybe an iPhone X or 11 – it works, why change it?

Well we also know they complain now and then about battery life or performance, but they also have no interest in spending two grand on a new phone.

Enter the iPhone 17e at $999.

The follow up to last year’s iPhone 16e which was created for the same purpose, this is just an incremental step forward, but keeps a strong but brand new option available to those looking for a sub $1,000 phone.

With double the base storage at 256GB, it’s also better value than last year.

However as with many Apple products, while Apple won’t sell you an iPhone 16e, many retailers do have stock. So the one year old iPhone 16e is available for $799 in many places – that’s great value.

iPhone 17e’s key advance in feature set is MagSafe, the magnetic attach charging capability introduced in 2020 and while it offers a simple way to get charging, it’s also more efficient and powerful so it’s faster wireless charging too.

Still with it’s 6.1 inch screen, I was instantly drawn back to my love of smaller phones. This is the smallest iPhone you can get with the basic iPhone 17 a 6.3 inch screen.

Feels great in the hand, and I think it’s the right size for the target market.

A market that also won’t care that it’s not WiFi 7, because why would they.

Under the hood the iPhone 17e rocks Apple’s A19 processor with Neural Accelerators, which means more on-device AI processing.

Many will argue the lack of a second – or third – lens is a real drawback here, and it is. No teenage girl will rock a phone without 0.5 mode.

But with a sensor crop 2x zoom off the single lens, there’s still some scope and as someone who used the single lens iPhone Air for some time, you’ll get by just phone with the iPhone 17e.

I’d be critical that it doesn’t have WiFi 7, but you wouldn’t know that unless you checked the spec sheet – and I guess we can’t expect it all.

But here’s the bottom line.

iPhone 17e is overpriced on specs when compare to Android phones. There are plenty of amazing phones around $450 or so that have more camera features, bigger screens etc.

However, This is an iPhone. That’s the key.

If I’m counting pennies but need an iPhone I’d choose the iPhone 16e. However with double the storage and a newer processor, iPhone 17e re-establishes a great entry point for iPhone.