iPhone 17e review: Better specs and great performance elevates Apple's ‘budget’ iPhone

The iPhone 17e is the sixth time that Apple has made a non-flagship smartphone in the company’s 19-year phone-making journey. Every time before, the results have been mixed, and Apple hasn’t quite had an all-out bestseller in hand when it comes to the iPhone 5c, three generations of the iPhone SE, and the iPhone 16e. This year, the company is hoping for a better run, and it may just enjoy a strong run of sales—wars permitting.

Launched last month, Apple’s iPhone 17e is the second of its kind, promising buyers the essentials of an iPhone minus the extra specs of the standard and the ‘Pro’ models. This year, Apple has addressed two major missing features from the iPhone 16e: MagSafe for wireless charging and snappy accessories, and a ‘proper’ Portrait Mode instead of one that felt like a very obvious compromise.

What’s equally important is that Apple has also increased the minimum storage of the iPhone 17e to 256GB—likely a move to optimize production lines. In India, this means that buyers have to pay at least ₹5,000 more for the least-expensive new iPhone. Combining credit card discounts brings its effective price down to around ₹60,000—approximately what the iPhone 16e initially cost with 128GB storage. Buyers in india, however, will likely feel a tinge of regret as Apple kept the iPhone 17e’s base price unchanged in the US.

Who, though, is it really for?

No extra gloss

The spartan iPhone 17e feels like a showcase of all the essentials that give an iPhone its reputation. It features an updated A19 processor, which is interestingly of a newer generation than the A18 chip in Apple’s also-new MacBook Neo laptop. The 17e also gets a 6.1-inch Oled display panel that is half the refresh rate (60Hz) and less than half the maximum brightness of the standard iPhone 17’s 6.3-inch display. While the slow refresh rate is noticeable, the lesser brightness does not really bother in the real world.

The iPhone 17e also gets only one camera, which in comparison appears to be the same as the 48-megapixel image sensor that powers the ultrawide camera of the iPhone 17. By definition, this may suggest that the iPhone 17e is not as good at photography as the standard iPhone 17, or even the iPhone 16.

Yet, when the comparisons are kept aside, the iPhone 17e does well enough just by itself. The full-feature portrait mode makes the phone feel normal, and not a compromise. And one must bear in mind that the A19 chip powering the iPhone 17e is among one of the best processors in the industry. It handles playing even the heaviest of games with ease. Running AI applications with multiple layers of heavy image editing does not stress it out much. A simultaneously heavy workload of three social media applications, three browsers with multiple tabs, music streaming, navigation, and two AI image and video editors can all run locally without the phone breaking a sweat through the day, although intermittent jitters are fairly common.

The latter are to be blamed on the slow display, rather than on the iPhone 17e’s performance chops. This is one of two areas where the iPhone 17e’s compromise shows, but to be sure, most everyday work is smoothly operational. The jitters mostly become visible during heavy, prolonged gaming. Apart from this, the iPhone 17e is enough for work that involves emails, texts, a lot of socials, and content streaming.

The camera is where buyers may feel the constraints of not having an ultra-wide camera unit, as well as a very limited amount of wiggle room for zooming into photographs. Nevertheless, the iPhone 17e produces excellent warm shades and balanced cooler hues. It also produces accurate colours in low light, and the portrait mode works like it should always have.

The lack of camera versatility, such as when videographing a drive, or attempting to zoom in at a concert. Barring this, the iPhone 17e’s Dolby Vision HDR and 60fps 4K videos are exactly what is expected from a flagship phone.

On top of that, the iPhone 17e’s battery lasts a full work day even with heavy loads, and the stereo speakers are good enough for watching videos. Adding MagSafe, finally, is an underrated victory, and makes the phone recommendable for all—especially frequent flyers.

Enough iPhone for everyone?

The design of the iPhone 17e, however, is soon going to be nearly four years old, resembling the iPhone 14 from the front. The lack of the more modern dynamic pill notch makes the phone look dated, although thankfully, the black borders around the display are not as obviously heavy-handed as in the Google Pixel 10a.

While the iPhone 17e is good enough in real-world usage, the design and the increased base price could be its biggest challenges. In fact, for Apple, the iPhone 17e’s main buyers won’t be Android converts, but those upgrading iPhones after at least four years. Such buyers are likely to want a cosmetic overhaul.

Such potential buyers may find the design and the limited camera range to be key compromises, and instead look for an iPhone 16 or iPhone 17 instead. But, given that the latter is nearly ₹20,000 more expensive today and with discount offers evaporating from the market in face of price hikes, the iPhone 17e may just be a prudent choice.