The iPhone 17e may be a subtle upgrade, but it’s a slight change that makes all the difference. Now with MagSafe, the budget smartphone doesn’t suffer much in the way of compromises. Storage capacity is doubled, making the base model an exceptional choice; the blistering A19 chip is even faster than its predecessor.
Although the lack of a Dynamic Island makes it feel like an older phone than it really is, unless you really care about photography or giant screens, there’s not a lot that seems missing. It’s just as gorgeous as before and still highly practical.
Here’s my full review.
iPhone 17e review: A solid budget phone
The iPhone 17e combines Apple’s latest processor with an older design and budget feature set. It’s a phone designed to last for years at a low price point. Now with support for MagSafe, it’s compatible with a wide range of charging stands and accessories.
- Most affordable new model
- Latest A19 chip
- MagSafe support
- Only one rear camera
- Older display
The iPhone 17e is Apple’s entry-level iPhone. It comes with a few cheaper components, like the display and single camera, but packs the latest processor inside to keep its guts modern.
If you’re not particularly attached to your phone, you don’t use any of the advanced features, and you just want something cheap and reliable, the 17e is the model for you.
And now that Apple is seemingly updating this model annually, budget-conscious buyers will always have something great to buy. I tried out the 17e to understand what they’re in for.
Table of contents: iPhone 17e review
- Design
- MagSafe
- Dynamic Island … or lack thereof
- Camera
- No Camera Control
- Miscellaneous improved specs
- Miscellaneous missing features
- Conclusion
Design
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
The physical design is largely unchanged from the iPhone 16e, which is great, because the iPhone 16e is one of the most beautiful iPhones ever made.
We’re so used to the “iconic” camera plateau that we forget that it’s actually really ugly. The iPhone 17e is so perfect and unadorned, a callback to when the iPhone was an object you could fall in love with.
It’s easy to hold in the hand. The textured back is grippy. I can confidently hold the phone one-handed. It’s not so top-heavy that I feel like it’s going to tumble out of my hands if I’m not careful. The corners are surprisingly sharp, though; I like the softer edges of the iPhone 15, 16 and 17 Pro.
The iPhone 17e is virtually the same weight as the iPhone 16e — 5.96 ounces vs. 5.88 ounces. Its dimensions are identical. Both are so much lighter than the iPhone 17 Pro, at 7.27 ounces, that the 17e still feels like a breath of fresh air.
Speaking of which, I had similar feelings about the iPhone Air. The Air’s 5.82 ounce weight made it a joy to hold in the hand. While the iPhone 17e is just as thick as a regular phone, it’s not as wide as the Air.
It now comes in a color: soft pink joins white and black. It’s more soft than it is pink. In just the right lighting conditions, it looks pink. In most others, it looks like a single red sock got mixed in with the white shirts.
MagSafe
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
There was one big problem with the iPhone 16e: the lack of MagSafe. Now, there’s no caveat, no hesitation. Go ahead and buy or recommend someone an iPhone 17e and you don’t need to worry.
It’s fully compatible with the MagSafe charging stands on my nightstand and my desk, the MagSafe grip from OhSnap, the Apple MagSafe Wallet and the wide variety of MagSafe batteries.
I realized as I was setting up the iPhone 17e that I instinctively snapped it on my desk MagSafe charging stand without even thinking about it.
It doesn’t support the same charging speeds. The iPhone 17 Pro supports 25W MagSafe charging; the 17e supports the older 15W standard. But then again, a vast majority of MagSafe accessories (and unofficial “MagSafe-compatible” accessories) only support 15W, so you’re not missing out on much. MagSafe charging stands are all about powering your phone passively while you’re at your desk at work or overnight while you sleep, so this is hardly a concern.
The simple addition of MagSafe to the iPhone 17e makes its omission from the 16e all the more confusing. Why wasn’t it there to begin with? I was always skeptical of the arguments that it cost too much (when third-party MagSafe stickers are so cheap) or that it couldn’t fit inside (the iPhone Air is 27% thinner and has it).
Annoying all of us in the tech blogging sphere is that, now and forever more, whenever mentioning MagSafe, I’ll have to write: “Available on all models from the iPhone 12 and later except the iPhone 16e.”
Dynamic Island … or lack thereof
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Another sadness from the iPhone 16e was the lack of a Dynamic Island. Keeping an eye on background tasks on your phone is one of those things that makes it feel like a real computer.
And the new iPhone 17e doesn’t have it. It has the same notch as before. Like some kind of static peninsula. It’s crazy how much of a difference it makes. This phone is newer than my regular 16 Pro, but the notch makes it feel a couple years old. Especially with the slightly larger bezels around the edge, too.
The display is probably one of the iPhone’s most expensive components, so it’s understandable. You don’t cut $200 off the sticker price from the ultra-wide camera alone. Maybe next year.
The display doesn’t get quite as bright outdoors as the other iPhone 17 models. You may notice that in peak summertime with clear skies wearing your sunglasses. But indoors, and in Ohio in March, the 1200 nit screen is plenty bright.
Camera
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
The single rear camera is, still, a surprisingly effective shooter. It carries over the the exact same hardware as last year, but with some of the image processing improvements found on the other iPhone 17 models.
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
I mean, it’s an iPhone camera. You’ve seen the pictures it takes already. It’s simultaneously nothing remarkable or novel, and also, absolutely freaking incredible that we all just carry this photographic power with us everywhere we go on the cheapest iPhone Apple makes.
I stared at all the pictures I took, trying to conjure up any sort of feeling, thought or insight, but all I got was, “Yup, that’s a bunch of iPhone pictures.”
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
You could be cynical about it and complain that nothing is new anymore. But we’ve seemingly hit the limits of smartphone camera physics a few years ago. Now, even a budget smartphone can take the same stunning shots as the other latest models — just with one lens instead of three.
The 48 MP sensor gives you up to 2× zoom at full 12 MP resolution, but the resulting images are much smudgier when you zoom in.
You also don’t get the incredible 5× optical lens from the pro iPhones. And over the last two and a half years with my iPhone 16 Pro, I’ve taken a substantial number of telephoto shots.
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
You also don’t have the 0.5x camera. The closest I come to using the macro lens in typical usage is when I’m trying to take a photo too close, it switches to the macro lens automatically, I turn it off and hold the phone a little farther away. The 17e saves me from that whole ritual. Its main lens lets you get slightly closer before it can’t focus any more, nor does it have another lens to switch to.
It now features next-generation Portraits. You can take a picture and convert into Portrait mode and change what part of the image is in focus after the fact. It’s really fun to mess with it on your best shots.
Photographic Styles
Screenshot: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
Oddly, though, the 17e doesn’t have next-generation Photographic Styles, which let you recolor and transform a photo after the fact. It’s like you can re-take the same shot using a different film stock with different properties.
New Photographic Styles are present on the iPhone Air, which has very similar single-camera hardware. I find its loss to be a big disappointment. I really like using the new Photographic Styles when I have a good opportunity, even if it isn’t all that often.
The iPhone 17e uses the old system. You can choose in Settings whether you want to process your photos with a little more saturation, warmth or coolth. It’s much less versatile and the choice is permanently baked into all pictures you take.
No Camera Control
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac
The iPhone 17e also lacks a Camera Control button on the right side. I use the Camera Control to quickly bring up the camera all the time; I really miss having it there. I’ve already set my Action button to run a Shortcut, swapped out the Camera button on the Lock Screen for an Apple TV remote button and disabled the swipe gesture on the Lock Screen. On my iPhone 16 Pro, I know that at any time, I can simply click the Camera Control to bring it up.
I intended to re-enable the Lock Screen swipe gesture, accepting the risk of the camera accidentally getting activated in my pocket again. But I was a bit lazy about it; I just unlocked my phone and opened the Camera from the App Library.
Apple is slowly walking back the complicated swipe gestures and pressure sensitivity on the new phones that have a Camera Control. I wouldn’t be surprised if the iPhone 18 or 19’s Camera Control is just a plain old button. Whenever that change happens, I bet the “e” phone will get it, too.
Miscellaneous improved specs
* It does not.
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
The entry-level model now comes with double the storage, from 128 GB to 256 GB. And if you want the upgraded 512 GB of storage, you now pay $100 less. It’s a very pleasant surprise. Again, there’s nothing you need to avoid when buying this phone.
The 17e has the latest A19 chip. It’s slightly binned with one fewer GPU core, which will probably lead to slightly worse gaming performance, but I doubt it’s anything you’d notice.
The 17e has the same C1X modem as the iPhone Air. It supposedly doubles 5G cellular speeds compared to last year’s C1 modem. It still doesn’t support 5G mmWave, the elusive high-frequency turbo mode that I still don’t think I have ever experienced.
The N1 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip continue to spread across all of Apple’s models. I have a single cheap Wi-Fi router provided by my ISP that sits on the edge of my house where my office is; my bedroom usually struggles to get a reliable connection on my iPhone 16 Pro. But the iPhone 17e handles it without a hitch.
Ceramic Shield 2 claims to be three times as shatter resistant. I wasn’t too keen on testing this claim myself.
Miscellaneous missing features
Photo: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
The 17e also comes with a number of odd missing features compared to the other models.
- The iPhone 17e doesn’t have the 18MP Center Stage front camera that can rotate between portrait and landscape — understandable, as it’s a hardware feature.
- It doesn’t support Dual Capture, which simultaneously records video from the front and rear cameras.
- It can’t record videos in Cinematic mode nor Action mode.
- Other models have a second-generation Ultra Wideband chip, for precision finding AirTags and other devices.
- It doesn’t have a Thread radio for communicating with smart home devices.
None of these are particularly heart breaking to miss out on.
Conclusion: iPhone 17e review
The iPhone 17e combines Apple’s latest processor with an older design and budget feature set. It’s a phone designed to last for years at a low price point. Now with support for MagSafe, it’s compatible with a wide range of charging stands and accessories.
- Most affordable new model
- Latest A19 chip
- MagSafe support
- Only one rear camera
- Older display
The iPhone 17e trims a lot of fat from the feature set. It feels like the most important 90% of the features from the standard models.
The iPhone 17e is a great model to buy for your kid as a first phone. Or a good choice to force on somebody so cheap, that left to their own devices, would probably make do with a free Blackberry from 2009 with a cracked screen picked out of the trash.
It’s not an exciting phone, but it’s still a good phone.
Price: $599
Buy from: Apple
★★★★☆
D. Griffin Jones is a writer, podcaster and video producer for Cult of Mac. Griffin has been a passionate computer enthusiast since 2002, when he got his first PC — but since getting a Mac in 2008, he hasn’t turned back. His skills in graphic and web design, along with video and podcast editing, are self-taught over 20+ years. Griffin has a bachelor’s degree in computer science and has written several (unpublished) apps for Mac and iOS. His collection of old computers is made up of 40+ desktops, laptops, PDAs and devices, dating back to the early ’80s. He brings all of these creative and technical skills, along with a deep knowledge of Apple history, into his work for Cult of Mac.
