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The best new tech heading your way

1 IPHONE 16E

In a most decidedly un-Apple move, the Cupertino company has retooled its budget phone offering into something that doesn't - at least at release time - feel like the pauper's alternative. The throwback Touch ID button (and resultant chin) of the prior iPhone SE range is gone, replaced by a full-face 6.1-inch OLED screen with Face ID functionality, for a start. Look at this from the front and it's very much a current-gen iPhone, at least if you discount the notch that sits in place of the more modern Dynamic Island.

A glance at the black or white back does reveal one big deviation from the main line, in the form of a single camera. There's some hand-waving happening around it, of course, to explain that away: we presume this is the exact same 48MP main camera sensor as featured in other iPhone 16s, and Apple pointedly calls it a 2-in-1 camera which means you can tease a 1x and 2x telephoto view out of it. Only an ultra-wide lens (and, we suppose, the true telephoto of the Pro models) remains out of reach.

Your takeaway should be this: this is really, really good for a budget iPhone. It's not even really a budget iPhone, more of a new baseline. Those that opted for the stock iPhone 16 because they didn't need Pro features may now be kicking themselves that they didn't wait. There's nothing missing from the 16e that you actually need - everything else is just a nice to have.

COOL CONNECTIVITY

So far, so similar to what we've seen, but it's not all carefully retooled stuff. The iPhone 16e marks the debut of Apple's first in-house cellular modem, the C1. It's 5G-enabled, as you would expect in this day and age, but also features the same satellite connectivity options as other iPhones.

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