- Apple has announced the new iPhone 17e
- The new mid-range iPhone gets an A19 chipset
- The iPhone 17e also costs the same as its iPhone 16e predecessor
Apple has announced the iPhone 17e, a new mid-range iPhone that’s expected to be the first of several new launches this week.
The iPhone 17e replaces last year’s iPhone 16e, which replaced the iPhone SE as the entry-level model in Apple’s lineup. As expected, the new model is a pretty minor upgrade with new features including an A19 chipset and MagSafe support.
While the changes are minimal, the good news is that the iPhone 17e costs the same as its predecessor (in the US, at least). The Apple Intelligence-ready phone starts at $599, and we’re just confirming international pricing. Here’s everything else we know.
A new chip and internal upgrades
The key upgrade in the iPhone 17e is its new A19 chip. Apple says its CPU is up to twice as fast as the A13 Bionic chip in the iPhone 11, although it didn’t provide comparisons to the A18 in the iPhone 16e, suggesting that the gains there might be minimal.
The A19 is the same chip as the one you’ll find in the iPhone 17, meaning the iPhone 17e is current with the latest generation of iPhones in terms of power. That means if performance is a key metric for you, it could be a tempting option.
That said, if you need the most raw power you can get, the iPhone 17 Pro and its A19 Pro chip will be more up your street.
Elsewhere, you’ll find the Apple-made C1X modem, which is twice as fast as the C1 in the iPhone 16e, Apple says. The company has also eliminated the entry-level 128GB storage tier, so the iPhone 17e now starts with 256GB of storage without an accompanying price rise.
And Apple has upgraded the device’s wireless charging, bringing its own MagSafe standard into the mix. While the iPhone 16e was limited to Qi charging at up to 7.5W, the iPhone 17e’s MagSafe allows for 15W of wireless power and is compatible with MagSafe cases, wallets and more.
As for the camera, this is largely the same as the iPhone 16e, albeit with the addition of Apple’s “next-generation portraits with Focus and Depth Control.”
A handful of design changes
The core design of the iPhone 17e has not changed from that of last year’s iPhone 16e. You get a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display with an aluminum chassis and the Action button on one side, for instance.
However, there are a few notable adjustments. Apple has upgraded the front glass protection to the second-generation Ceramic Shield, which the company says brings “3x better scratch resistance than the previous generation and reduced glare.”
There’s a new color, too, which Apple dubs a “soft pink.” It supplements the white and black shades from the iPhone 16e.
The limited external changes reveal that this is an update mainly focused on internal components, and so is not a groundbreaking change compared to the iPhone 16e. There are reasons to be interested in the iPhone 17e, but existing iPhone 16e users likely won’t notice a huge difference.
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