Apple iPhone 17e Review

Apple doesn’t merchandise discounted, mid-range devices each year, but this twelvemonth sees the instauration of the iPhone 17e pursuing blistery connected the heels of 2025’s iPhone 16e, and it comes with a much appealing package. The terms hasn’t gone up, truthful you’re inactive looking astatine a $599 starting price, but Apple has enactment successful much storage, much durable parts, and the latest A19 chip. Those factors marque for a precise promising midrange smartphone that should grip mundane needs with ease. So let’s person a look astatine however it holds up.

iPhone 17e – Design and Features

The iPhone 17e isn’t a peculiarly striking caller summation to Apple’s lineup. It plays a simpler game, offering small excitement oregon luxury successful the sanction of being much affordable. Unlike phones with bottom-of-the-barrel terms tags, the iPhone 17e doesn’t rather chopped everything, though.

iPhone 17e (left) vs iPhone 12 (right)

Where a discount Android telephone mightiness person a lower-quality screen solid and integrative rear, the iPhone 17e inactive gets a premium measure of materials that hews adjacent to the mainline iPhone 17 devices. It has an aluminum frame, solid back, and Ceramic Shield 2 front, conscionable similar the iPhone 17. That’s large quality for the durability of the display, with the surface showing nary disposable blemishes aft my clip investigating it – a just spot amended than the first-gen Ceramic Shield connected my iPhone 16 reappraisal portion fared. Even with the metallic framework and pugnacious glass, I wouldn’t dainty this telephone similar its bulletproof. It’s h2o resistant, though, and tin grip submersion successful heavy capable h2o (6 meters for 30 minutes) that betterment would apt beryllium much of a interest than h2o damage.

The beforehand of the iPhone 17e is wherever you’ll spot however it lags down the latest models. It fits a 6.1-inch show that’s the aforesaid arsenic what Apple built into past year’s iPhone 16e and adjacent the iPhone 12 from 2020. It’s a great-looking OLED show that’s crisp and plentifulness bright, reaching up to 1200 nits. Sadly, it doesn’t bring on a 120Hz refresh complaint for smoother visuals. It besides lacks the smaller notch for the Face ID and selfie camera that newer models person gotten.

The show pairs with stereo speakers. The speakers clasp up good erstwhile pushed to their limit, letting maine perceive to a podcast portion moving retired connected a rowing machine, doing immoderate dishes, and taking a shower. There’s immoderate harshness astatine afloat measurement and the bass is meager arsenic is emblematic connected tiny devices, but the speakers are inactive a bully complement for the display.

By sticking with the smaller display, the iPhone 17e proves a reasonably casual telephone to hold. It’s inactive a wider telephone than I’d expect from 1 with its surface size, proving conscionable astir arsenic wide arsenic the Google Pixel 10 Pro contempt the second having a 6.3-inch display. Even then, it’s rather airy and has a bully equilibrium successful the hand, ne'er feeling similar it’s trying to autumn implicit the apical of my grip.

The iPhone 17e charges implicit USB-C, but successful a large get implicit the 16e, it besides supports MagSafe for accelerated wireless charging and compatibility with the wide assortment of magnetic accessories retired there. As acold arsenic information transfer, though, that USB-C larboard is stuck astatine disappointing USB 2.0 speeds. The telephone besides gets the Action Button, providing a speedy shortcut to circumstantial apps, the camera, oregon antithetic features depending connected what you delegate to it. I find myself accidentally hitting it alternatively of the volume, but it’s inactive bully to spot a handy, user-assignable button.

You won’t find a SIM paper slot connected the iPhone 17e. Like Apple’s different phones, this 1 has ditched it successful favour of going afloat eSIM. While eSIM tin beryllium useful for getting acceptable up connected a caller web without waiting for a carnal SIM paper to amusement up, I’ve recovered that convenience is mirrored by a fussiness trying to transportation an eSIM from 1 telephone to different – a trouble I’ve ne'er tally into with a carnal SIM card.

iPhone 17e – Software

The iPhone 17e comes moving the latest mentation of iOS, iOS 26. And portion Apple whitethorn not beryllium making immoderate circumstantial promises astir semipermanent bundle support, it has possibly the champion enactment successful the business. iOS 26 is disposable for devices each the mode backmost to the iPhone 11 from 2019, and the information that the iPhone 17e comes with the newer A19 spot alternatively than redeeming wealth by going for an earlier spot suggests it volition spot enactment arsenic agelong arsenic the modular iPhone 17.

One diagnostic Apple plugged with the caller phones was Visual Intelligence, which is 1 of the features you tin delegate to the Action Button. I gave it a shot, asking it to assistance maine place immoderate things, and it was thoroughly wrong, misidentifying a Pixel 10 Pro arsenic a Pixel 8 Pro (at slightest connected brand), a GameSir controller arsenic an aged Xbox 360 controller (at slightest it had the close power scheme, and an aged Nissan Sentra arsenic a Mercedes based connected the logo (a logo that intelligibly proudly said Nissan successful the photo). It did correctly place a lawsuit of Icebreakers Sours from a photograph of the lid, which had the sanction successful bold print, but I’d hardly accidental that makes up for its deficiency of reliability elsewhere. There’s inactive a batch of country for improvement.

iPhone 17e – Gaming and Performance

The iPhone 17e whitethorn not beryllium pushing boundaries with its design, but it has a batch much to connection successful the show department, peculiarly for a $599 phone. The telephone includes Apple’s A19 chip, overmuch the aforesaid arsenic the modular iPhone 17. This means immoderate superior CPU performance. Unfortunately, the 17e gets a trimmed backmost GPU which has 4 cores alternatively of the 5 successful the iPhone 17.

General show is excellent, though. The A19 spot successful the iPhone 17e does superior work. It has immoderate of the champion single-core show we’ve seen astatine 3620.5 points successful Geekbench 6, astir keeping gait with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen successful the RedMagic 11 Pro and really pulling up of the iPhone 17 Pro Max successful my testing, albeit by a tiny margin. Its multi-core show is besides fantabulous – 9,229 points successful Geekbench 6. That’s bully capable to get retired up of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 successful the OnePlus 15R and wrong 2% of the iPhone 17 Pro Max and the OnePlus 13. That said, the Snapdragon 8 Elite 5 successful the Redmagic 11 Pro inactive leads the mode astatine 11,248.5 points.

That CPU show translates to creaseless mundane operation. Launching apps and navigating the telephone isn’t liable to get bogged down anytime soon. But if you’re a large gamer, the GPU setup isn’t arsenic promising. The iPhone 17e could tally Where Winds Meet stably, and it was capable to usage the Ultra graphics preset, but the framework complaint paper topped retired astatine High (leaving Ultra, Extremely High, and Supreme each locked). From the look of it, that’s a 30fps cap, and it’s a astonishing bounds fixed the Pixel 10a besides supply Ultra graphics and a High framework complaint mounting but has considerably little graphical horsepower. Heat doesn’t look to beryllium an contented for the iPhone 17e though, arsenic adjacent aft a fractional hr of Where Winds Meet, the telephone was hardly warm.

In benchmarks, it lagged down Android phones moving caller Qualcomm chips similar the OnePlus 15R with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, which led it by treble digits successful 3DMark’s Wildlife Extreme, Steel Nomad Light, and Solar Bay benchmarks. The Redmagic 11 Pro lone pulled distant further, with the iPhone 17e averaging betwixt 39% and 47% little graphical show successful these benchmarks. Even the OnePlus 13 with the older Snapdragon 8 Elite 1 led by a sizeable margin.

On the flip side, the iPhone 17e readily clears the show of much affordable phones similar the $499 Pixel 10a oregon $379 Nothing Phone 3a. This puts the iPhone 17e successful a bully presumption to beryllium a performance-value contender, but that’s lone for the $599 basal model. If you privation 512GB of storage, the iPhone 17e’s terms leaps up an absurd $200 to $799, and that terms opens it up to contention from devices that present acold more. The RedMagic 11 Pro is simply a gaming beast with a gorgeous show and amusive design, and it besides costs $799 for 512GB of storage. I’ve seen remaining banal of the OnePlus 13 with 512GB of retention going for $799 arsenic well, and it has a batch much to connection successful astir regards – battery, camera, wide performance, show quality.

The iPhone 17e’s inclusion of satellite-connected features whitethorn springiness it an borderline implicit its competition, but that comes alongside 2 steps backward: Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3. As much of the manufacture moves towards the faster and much precocious Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0, the iPhone 17e volition beryllium lagging behind. It besides lacks ultrawide-band and mmWave support, truthful it won’t connection precision uncovering with Apple Find My devices similar Airtags nor payment from the unthinkable speeds of mmWave 5G networks, uncommon and inconsistent arsenic they whitethorn be.

Battery beingness is promising for the iPhone 17e. Streaming Avatar: The Way of Water connected Wi-Fi with the show astatine afloat brightness and Bluetooth headphones connected, the telephone lone dropped 13% aft 2 hours. That puts it connected way for astir 16 hours of video streaming and doesn’t relationship for the information that little brightness levels would connection adjacent longer runtimes. A 30-minute gaming league successful Where Winds Meet besides lone took 6% disconnected the artillery with the show astir 50% brightness, truthful lengthy gaming sessions are besides good wrong the cards. All-day artillery beingness successful wide usage won’t beryllium hard for astir users to achieve.

iPhone 17e – Cameras

The iPhone 17e lacks a robust camera system, fitting successful conscionable 1 rear sensor and 1 front-facing sensor. Neither camera onboard is among Apple’s best, either. The selfie camera, for instance, doesn’t get the caller 18MP Center Stage sensor with auto-rotating and cropping. And the rear sensor whitethorn beryllium 48MP, but it’s not the aforesaid arsenic what’s featured connected the iPhone 17, lacking immoderate large features, similar sensor-shift stabilization. Here’s what the iPhone 17e packs:

• 48MP Wide, f/1.6, OIS
• 12MP Selfie, f/1.9, auto-focus

The main sensor does a decent occupation overall. Its wide aperture and wide tract of presumption tin seizure a bully deal. For close-ups, it gets a satisfying inheritance blur. For larger shots, it tin get plentifulness into the framework generally. Not having an ultra-wide sometimes hurts, arsenic it tin beryllium hard to get ample objects successful without needing to backmost up, but those are uncommon cases.

What hurts much is the deficiency of meaningful zoom. The telephone volition punch successful digitally, and bumping up to 2x offers immoderate betterment to the representation prime compared to simply cropping into a photograph aft the fact. But it’s a precise insignificant improvement.

Even with the f/1.6 aperture, I noticed the iPhone 17e struggling a spot successful darker environments. If it’s snapping a inactive subject, it does great. But if there’s movement, it doesn’t look to prioritize freezing that movement. I struggled to get wide shots of my cats and friends successful dimmer settings. In precise agleam settings, the camera could besides endure surprisingly. Some precise unusual sharpening artifacts showed up erstwhile I snapped immoderate photos of birds successful a sunny spot of grass. When viewed astatine afloat size, the writer looked similar wrinkled cellophane. These cases suggest that the processing of the photos is not ever up to snuff. Thankfully, astir of the time, it’s astatine slightest beauteous good, and galore cameras fare overmuch worse successful dim environments.

The selfie camera tin look akin struggles. It has a wide viewing space bully for getting a fewer friends into frame, but it tin besides autumn abbreviated connected crisp absorption successful dimmer settings. In agleam settings, it looks great, offering crisp visuals. Though it besides introduced a funny artifact, adding chiseled patterns, astir similar a fingerprint, to my backpack straps that are not contiguous astatine each connected the existent article.

Apple has immoderate AI tricks for the camera, but 1 of its highlights – the object-erasing “Clean Up” diagnostic – failed to impress. It could region objects and radical good capable if they were connected a elemental background, and it would adjacent effort to tidy up shadows and reflections. But adjacent small complications to the changeable would effect successful bizarre-looking edits successful my experiments, often warping the country astir the moved object.