📱 Shopper's Guide: New Budget iPhone 16E

What you get vs. what you lose

I’ve received so many calls and e-mails this week about the new “budget” iPhone 16e that went on sale Friday.

As the lowest priced iPhone in the family, at $600, vs. $800, $1,000 and $1,200, why not buy the cheapo model, even though it’s missing a few key features? Many of the people who inquired said they didn’t care about those things, they just wanted a basic phone to make calls, receive text messages, surf the Web and use apps.

New iPhone 16e

And that’s fine. I get it. But as your consumer advocate, I want to run down what you get and/or don’t get from the other models, to help you make a good purchase decision.

So should you buy?

The more interesting question is what would you lose by buying the 16E, instead of spending $200 more for the 16 or $400 more for the iPhone 16 Pro.

Let’s start at (almost) at the top:

The 16 Pro ($999):

✔️ Four camera lens choices, running the gamut from ultra-wide .5mm to telephoto at 120mm.

✔️ Magsafe, the ability to use these great magnetic charging accessories that snap onto the back of the phone.

✔️ Macro photography, the ability to come in really tight for ultra closeups.

✔️ The choice of more colors beyond just black or white on the 16e. (The iPhone 16 Pro Max has the same features, but a bigger screen, and pricetag, $1,199)

iPhone 16 ($800)

Go down one step to what was the entry level $800 iPhone 16 model:

✔️ You lose one of the lens choices, the 5x telephoto. But you still get Macro and Magsafe. And more colors.

📱 iPhone 16e

The old budget phone, the SE, was a stripped down take on the iPhone 8, which is now a phone that’s eight years old. It also sold for just over $400. Apple updated the SE as a modern, full-size phone that looks and feels like a current iPhone, with a bigger 6.1 inch screen, Face ID, no Home button and USB-C charging, which means you can use the same cable that every other contemporary device uses.

📲 Camera: Only one choice, the 1x standard lens, and the ability to crop a portion of the image to simulate a short telephoto (2x) which admittedly doesn’t look bad. But I use the .5 ultra-wide on the 16 Pro all the time, and the only way you’ll get a wider shot is by moving backwards.

🔋 MagSafe: Not available, even though Apple has built an ecosystem of products to fit on the phone for charging. You can buy an accessory MagSafe case however, which will work.

🦺 Storage: Double of what you got with the SE, 128 GB.

🥃 Stronger glass that’s less likely to crack

🧠 Apple Intelligence, the Apple buzzword for AI tools that few people use, but are probably happy to have. Namely, summaries of your e-mail and tools to help you write better; instead of Siri, you can have ChatGPT answer queries, and generate images in the Playground app.

Most of these are meh, but I do really like CleanUp in the Photos app (accessible when you click EDIT) which lets you erase unwanted objects from the photo. It works well.

🪫 The one feature that should really pique people’s attention is the improved battery life. Apple created a new chip that it says dramatically improves how long you can go without having to recharge. In its comparison chart, it claims you could watch online video with the 16E for 26 hours, compared to 22 on the iPhone 16 and 33 hours on the iPhone 16 Pro.

💵 So yeah, you get a lot of great phone for your $600. But is $600 too much for you to spend on a new phone? Would you consider switching from Apple? You could buy a Samsung A35 for $400 or a Google Pixel 8A for $500, and get two camera lenses and AI features. Or of course, a refurbished iPhone 15 Pro for around the same .

But for many, switching doesn’t make sense for them, because those aren’t iPhones, the most popular device in the United States, with over 58% market share, compared to just over 20% for Samsung.

So here’s the big question: you need a cheap phone for your kids and don’t care about features. The 16E is less likely to break when it drops.

For seniors, maybe AI features or photo capabilities are irrelevant. They grew up on cameras with one lens; so perhaps they’ll be fine with the 16E.

But let me ask you this: would you happily pay $600 instead of $1,000 for a phone with an inferior camera and no MagSafe charging?

And why would you quibble over $200? That’s the price of one night in a hotel room somewhere, or two to four expensive dinners. With the new phone, you’ll be using it every day for one to two years.Think about that.

Let me know what you think. If you have any questions, I’m one click away!

All new Alexa (+)

You know how Apple has been promising us since last June that the Siri digital assistant was about to become more chatty and smarter?

We’re still waiting.

Meanwhile, Amazon had a press briefing this week to showcase a new Alexa that it says is….you know, chattier, smarter, etc. It will be out later in the year, but oh the fine print!

Alexa+ is a free perk for those of us in the Prime expedited shipping and entertainment program—or $19.99 monthly for everyone else. And guess what you’ll probably need to make it work? You guessed it, a new Amazon device.

Most of the old Echo and Dot speakers won’t work, ditto for the early Echo Show units, which have a video screen and were envisioned as a place to watch Prime Video, search recipes and manage the smart home.

As of this writing, only four units will (eventually) work with Alexa+, all Show models, starting at $149 for the 8-inch Show, and going to $399 for the 21-inch version.

New Photoshop App

The folks at Adobe turned a lot of heads this week by introducing what was billed as the first Photoshop app for smartphones. Wait a minute—wasn’t there always a Photoshop app?

Well yes, and they were Photoshop Light apps that could do minimal things, like Photoshop Express. The new app, which is free (with add-ons for a fee) can do many of the things we love to do with Photoshop on desktop, like generative fill, which lets you instantly erase things from a shot (like Apple'‘s Cleanup tool, only better) and add in things, like I did with the imagined photo of a witch flying over the Gulf.

Mardi Gras Time!

Speaking of the Gulf, this weekend some 150,000 folks are expected to Galveston, Texas to the third largest Mardi Gras celebration in the U.S., after New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama.

I’ve got a little preview video below about Mardi Gras in Galveston. Sunday at 3 p.m. ET we’ve got the debut of the latest Photowalks episode—from Galveston on Scripps News. I’ll have a link for you and more to tell you on Sunday.

100 Photowalks

Last week’s visit to the California Gold Country marked the 100th location we’ve checked out for PhotowalksTV. Our first was the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and since then we’ve done the entire California coast, from Imperial Beach to Mendocino along with 17 states and 7 countries. If you haven’t had a chance to see it yet, please check out this small 100 highlights video, which includes some of our favorite stops, and some of the wackier things that have happened as we walked across the world. (We hope to top 25 states by the end of the year, as we embark on the Route 66 trip, from Chicago to L.A., and hit some other states later in the year as well.)

A Foggy Day in L.A.!

It was so foggy in Los Angeles on Wednesday that….even the traffic on the 405 disappeared.

But seriously folks, the entirety of the South Bay of Los Angeles was completely covered. Luckily, I know a very special place high up in the hills where you can escape the fog and look down at it. Like gazing out an airplane, right? (Photo processed in Google Snapseed app.)

It was a great shoot—and I’ll have more to tell you about it next week with another in a series of big announcements!

Thanks as always for taking the time to watch, read and listen! Let me hear from you!

Jeff