Вийшов Apple iPhone 16E: Face ID замість Touch ID, USB-C замість Lightning, $599 замість $429
Apple has officially unveiled its new «budget» smartphone iPhone 16E (previous rumors have been confirmed), and at the same time said goodbye to the Home button and the classic Touch ID sensor. Instead, the new smartphone received Face ID, an updated design, an A18 chip, and support for Apple’s proprietary AI tools, Apple Intelligence.
The iPhone 16E can be considered a kind of continuation of the iPhone SE, but this time Apple has abandoned the outdated design. The appearance of the new product is based on the iPhone 14 (2022), which means that instead of large bezels and a Home button, the smartphone has a Face ID notch, although not the Dynamic Island, as in the flagship models.
At the same time, Apple has abandoned compact smartphones. The iPhone 16E is equipped with a 6.1-inch OLED display, so its dimensions are almost identical to the regular iPhone 16. If you need a smaller iPhone, you’ll have to wait for the iPhone 17 Air, which is rumored to be compact.
The new iPhone 16E gets a customizable Action Button, but not the new Camera Control you’ll find in the iPhone 16 series. It also replaced the proprietary Lightning port with universal USB-C, which is now a requirement for selling the phone in the EU.
Inside is the A18 chipset, the same as in the iPhone 16. This makes the 16E powerful enough to run Apple Intelligence, a set of artificial intelligence tools that includes notification summaries. Even the iPhone 15 without Pro can’t boast of this, so the 16E is one of the most powerful iPhones. Apple has previously confirmed that 8GB of RAM is the minimum to support Apple Intelligence in the iPhone 16 series, so it’s likely that the 16E also has at least that much memory. The base storage capacity has also been increased from 64 GB to 128 GB.
The device has only one 48-megapixel camera on the back. The lack of additional cameras can be considered the biggest disadvantage compared to other phones from the company. At the same time, the new device offers wireless charging and protection against dust and water, so no other important sacrifices are expected.
Interestingly, the iPhone 16E is the first iPhone to feature a modem designed by Apple itself. The company has spent years trying to move away from Qualcomm modems, and we’re finally seeing the fruits of that labor. The big question now is how well the new modem works and whether Apple is ready to release its own connectivity components in the iPhone 17 line later this year. Probably, the budget iPhone 16E will become a kind of test site in real-world conditions.
The new iPhone 16E will be available for pre-order tomorrow at a price starting at $599. And this is significantly more expensive than the starting price of the previous iPhone SE 2022 model ($429). The novelty will go on sale on February 28.
Source: The Verge