CHENNAI: The iPhone 17e has just dropped and it is a step up from last year’s 16e. That’s likely to please most consumers considering their first ‘bite’ of the Apple experience. Does the 17e pack enough appeal to be a serious option for average users looking at a dependable smartphone that draws strength from the Apple ecosystem and the seamless blend of hardware and software experience?
Apple has dabbled with entry-level phones before; this includes its earlier generations of SE smartphones. The 16e marked a new beginning of sorts for the iPhone; the 17e might just be the smartphone that fine tunes Apple’s baseline iPhone. Comparisons with the iPhone 17 are inevitable but it’s important to consider the Rs 18,000 premium (the iPhone 17 starts at Rs 82,900) while pitting these devices against each other. The first thing that impressed us with the 17e is the form factor. It’s a delight to hold and weighs about 170 gm. This is a device geared for one-handed navigation and comfortable to hold even through those long texting marathons. It’s built for everyday rigours thanks to its IP68 certification. Apple has added Ceramic Shield 2 to the ‘front cover’ for enhanced scratch resistance.
The iPhone 17e features a 6.1-inch OLED display (2532 x 1170 pixels) that hits a peak brightness of 1200 nits. The notch remains and there’s no 120Hz refresh rate but we didn’t miss this in most everyday scenarios. Colours are punchy on this Super Retina XDR display with excellent visibility in all lighting conditions. One of the headline features of the 17e is it’s processing power. This one’s driven by the Apple A19 chip with a 4-core GPU, that also powers the iPhone 17. It brings improvements in everyday tasks like computational photography and also adds a suite of Apple Intelligence services. The device was ultra-smooth in our tests, the A19 chipset also adds to the device’s long term appeal along with Apple’s support for OS updates. Apple has bumped up the storage of the base variant to 256GB (up from 128GB on the 16e) that sweetens the deal.
Rear camera duties are handled by a 48MP Fusion Main Camera that also offers 2x telephoto. There’s no ultra-wide lens in the mix though. The primary lens offers a similar experience as the iPhone 17 with sharp portraits and useful video tools like Audio Mix that allows you to edit videos with multiple modes like Cinematic. We enjoyed snapping 2x telephoto portraits with the 17e. The other big win for the iPhone 17e is battery life. Apple claims 26 hours of battery playback, the 17e delivers one of the best battery experiences on any iPhone we’ve checked out recently. The other big update over last year’s 16e is MagSafe support. Not only does it offer faster, 15W wireless charging but also allows you to hook up the phone with a wide range of MagSafe accessories. Apple has upped its game with the iPhone 17e, making it a great option for users upgrading from older iPhones or looking to make the switch to Apple.
(Rs 64,999 onwards)