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This latest smartphone from Apple looks to serve up many of the key features that make iPhones desirable, all while operating at a much lower price point that other models from the technology maker.
"Hello everyone and welcome to another Gamereactor Quick Look.
Apple held quite an unusual event in New York a couple of weeks back where they unveiled a ton of new products, but critically, I think, personally, are the new affordable ways in which you can engage with the Apple ecosystem."
"So that would be the MacBook Neo, which we're hoping to get here on the desk, but also the brand new iPhone 17E.
It is a little unclear what the E means, like some would say that it's like less expensive or something like that, or the Pixel A. Is that affordable?
The point is that the E has, in some ways, before it was known as the SE, been known as the cheaper way to get into the Apple ecosystem by paying for a compromised experience."
"At least in the sense that you are knowingly giving up some pro or sort of power user features in order to just gain access to the most important parts of what makes an Apple product, well, good, coherent, connected, all of these things.
And if there's one thing that's sort of been true for the past five years, it's that you actually don't need a lot of the core power user features in order to engage with the Apple ecosystem."
"So the few things that are here are, in most cases, the most important things.
So the body is actually very reminiscent of an iPhone 14.
There are some differences, but we'll get to that.
But the main thing that it retains from that is actually the notch, meaning no dynamic island here whatsoever."
"It's really difficult to see because the screen is turned off, but take my word for it, no dynamic island.
So you may think that that doesn't really matter because, you know, it's a portion of the screen that's being taken up by something."
"But the point is that the dynamic island is a intentional cutout, which is utilized by the software to, for instance, float notifications for third-party apps to operate in a certain way.
But the notch doesn't really do that."
"So it's kind of like a little bite of the screen that's being taken instead of being offered this very intentional software experience.
So that is one key takeaway.
But beyond that, most of what makes an iPhone an iPhone is here and for a much lower cost than if you were, for instance, thinking about the 17 Pro or even the regular 17."
"So what is here?
Well, first and foremost, it's IP68 dust and water resistant.
It has ceramic shield, meaning that it'll be really, really like rugged when you drop it."
"You have 15 watts of wireless charging and yes, thank the Lord, through MagSafe, meaning a particular round sort of like a round shape of magnets, meaning that this will just fit on any MagSafe accessory that you have.
That's an important part because that has become an ecosystem all on its own."
"All of the MagSafe stuff that you have, your friends have, that you might buy in the future, well, you can just use it outright now, whereas the 16E from last year somehow couldn't.
Now inside, we find the Apple A19 chip, which is good.
I don't really think it makes a ton of sense talking about benchmark results on an A19 chip in an E version of an iPhone."
"Those are not the customers.
What you need to know is that this will not hang up on you.
This will not slow down, regardless of whether you're playing Pokemon CCG Pocket, you're looking at reels on Instagram, you're texting your friends, you're doing whatever it is that you do on a regular smartphone, unless you're like a power user, well, then you're not going to buy this anyway."
"It does start now at 256 gigs storage on the base model and you get 8 gigs of RAM.
So again, this should stay snappy, many software iterations down the line.
So the one key thing that I talked about before, which this does not have in common with the iPhone 14, is this singular camera lens here on the back."
"It is one 48 megapixel fusion sensor, and it has a 2X optical zoom.
Now, that does not sound great, but as is the case with, let's say, the Pixel, like the Pixel A cameras, is that it utilizes the same post-processing envelope that the pros use."
"Sure, the optics are inherently inferior and in some settings you will see that, but the point of the matter is that you would be freaking shocked how capable, particularly this cheaper iPhone and the cheaper Pixel is once it takes the image and puts it through its post-processing envelope with all the bells and whistles that go into that."
"This is not the Pixel, like, fakey fake image suite that we've come to see where you can insert people that aren't there, turn the sky a color that it wasn't.
I'm talking about simply bringing up highlights, eliminating anti-aliasing and jagged edges, basically correcting for bad optics."
"So this has taken much better images than I initially thought.
The same with the newest A phone.
These are just so good now that it's uncanny.
The one thing beyond the sacrifice of Dynamic Island that I will not make excuses for is the screen."
"It's 6.1 inches, like an iPhone 17 Pro.
It is a Super Retina XDR OLED, good, at I think 2530 by 1170, so resolution-wise, good.
It has a slightly lower nits peak brightness, but I didn't find that to be problematic, but it's 60 hertz."
"And I know the granddad, the mom, the whatever it is, whatever case that you might come up with theoretically to envision what kind of person goes into a store and buys this next to, let's say, a newer 17, or even an older Pro or older regular.
Do they care about a lower hertz refresh rate?
I would start to think that this is more a principle thing than a pragmatic thing."
"60 hertz on a phone, which is not cheap, just cheaper in 2026, it's just not a good fit.
We're at the point now where every single conceivable competitor will offer 90 or 120 hertz and can do that in the battery envelope that this should be able to do it with.
There's no reason anymore."
"This is both for longevity's sake, for smoothness' sake, for, well, playing an occasional game in that frame rate's sake, this is just, it's ludicrous to ship a phone like this with a 60 hertz panel in a year like this.
So, but beyond that, all of the stuff's here."
"I mean, the camera button isn't here, but are you really missing it?
All of this stuff is really great.
I think it looks great.
It's well-built."
"So, it really is a strong case for your next budget phone, particularly if you don't really care about dynamic island, that kind of stuff.
So, this is the iPhone 17E.
I wholeheartedly recommend it to the customer that is looking for this particular set of compromises and strengths."
