KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 — Affordable and Apple as concepts are far apart.
Apple’s positioning as a premium brand means that the “cheapest” Apple product still feels pricier than any of the competition.
Then the iPhone 17e comes along and is surprisingly priced similarly to Samsung’s own “value” phone, the Samsung S25FE.
Value is not the same as budget, understand.
This segment belongs to phones that might not pass for the highest-end model in the range, but instead offers enough features to not feel like you’re missing too much.
Like Samsung’s FE or “fan editions” and the iPhone SEs.
This isn’t low-end
But ‘Erna, isn’t that just a midrange phone?’
No, midrange phones are the dullest phones, generally.
Better than entry-level but unexciting.
While the iPhone 17e is the cheapest iPhone, it doesn’t feel cheap and that’s what makes the difference.
The iPhone 17e is what the 16e should have been—with MagSafe support and starting at 256GB storage.
With mobile operating systems growing in size, the previous 128GB starting storage would be inadequate.
As a successor to the iPhone SE, the 17e still feels premium in the hand without the heft of the larger iPhone models.
While you will need to surgically detach the iPhone 17 Pro Max from my wrist, I find that for a lot of people the 17e would be “good enough.”
Examining your aspirations
“I don’t actually take that many photos with my phone,” my friend said, saying that the 17e was what he was likely upgrading to once he retired his current iPhone.
Apple knows that many people don’t or won’t take advantage of Pro features—the best camera, the best battery (on the Pro Max), more GPU cores.
The average person will use their phone like this: discussing where to eat for the upcoming birthday in the family WhatsApp group chat, take pictures of the event’s attendees and the receipt or if you’re my mother, reply my WhatsApp messages the next day.
Her phone, I think, exists solely to forward me WhatsApp or YouTube links.
With phones it has come down to whether you prefer Android to iOS but that aside, most people won’t need a Pro; they just want one.
What you should know
The 17e has a more durable display thanks to an upgraded Ceramic Shield but if you want to slap one on anyway, iPhone 13/13 Pro and 14 screen protectors will fit just fine as they share the same 6.1-inch screen dimensions.
You will have a slightly better gaming experience on the 17e as it uses the A19 chip that is also used in the iPhone 17 line though its chip has a 4-core GPU as compared to the Pro models’ 6-core GPU.
Now the camera—it comes with a 48mp wide rear cam with 2x zoom and a slightly improved 12MP TrueDepth front camera.
Since I’m in Kota Kinabalu for a week, I’ll be writing an update dedicated mostly to said camera, which had just one main shortcoming for me… which you’ll find out next week.
My review unit is in the shade Soft Pink, a nice alternative to the current black and white shades the 16e came in.
It’s a very delicate pink, think blush rose pink, that will appeal to those who like their shades muted, their tones not-so-garish.
(I still think a hot pink iPhone Pro could have emptied out shelves during Barbie year but that’s another story.)
Stay tuned for next week where I decide whether this phone is “not bad” or “spend more money on the 17 instead.”
