Monday, October 06, 2025
Saturday, October 04, 2025
Friday, October 03, 2025
Thursday, October 02, 2025
Two newly discovered comets will be visible in October
Two newly discovered comets will be visible in October
“Two comets, C/2025 R2 (SWAN) and C/2025 A6 (Lemmon), will be visible in October. SWAN can be seen in the western sky after sunset, while Lemmon is near the Big Dipper in the eastern sky before sunrise.
Have the binoculars or a telescope on hand to see two comets this week
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - Two comets are visible in October. All you need is a drive away from light pollution and binoculars or a telescope.
The comets that will be visible are the C/2025 R2 (SWAN), and C/2025 A6 (Lemmon). They both were discovered in 2025.
To see the comet SWAN, face west and look up 23 degrees (as of October 1) in the sky after sunset.
Comet Lemmon can be seen close to the Big Dipper through much of October. Look to the eastern sky just before sunrise.
According to NASA, comets are leftovers from the beginning of our solar system, around 4.6 billion years ago. They consist mostly of ice coated with dark organic material. This is why they’re often referred to as dirty snowballs.
Most comets originate from the Kuiper belt or the Oort cloud region, a zone far beyond Pluto’s orbit.
When they heat up due to solar radiation, they enter the outgassing phase. This effect causes dust and ice particles to fly into space, creating the dust and ion tails
Every comet has a main body that is called the nucleus. The dust and gas create the coma around the nucleus. The type of gas present will give the coma its color.
The comets are labeled with the year they were discovered and the name associated with an aspect of the discovery.
For instance, the Comet Lemmon was named after the Mount Lemmon Survey - the automated sky survey that was conducted at the Mount Lemmon Observatory, where the comet was discovered.
The Comet Swan was named after the swan instrument on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft. Swan stands for Solar Wind Anisotropies camera.
The next comet to watch for in November is C/2025 K1 ATLAS.
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Friday, September 26, 2025
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Which iPhone Should I Get?
Which iPhone Should I Get?
“The iPhone 17 is recommended for those needing an upgrade, offering a Pro-like experience with a bigger display, higher refresh rate, excellent cameras, and a powerful processor. The iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max offer even more power, better cameras, and a new design, while the iPhone 16e is a budget-friendly option with a bright screen and good performance. Upgrading is not necessary if you are happy with your current iPhone, as older models still receive security updates and new features.
Brenda Stolyar is a writer covering consumer technology. Her beats include smartwatches, tablets, and wearables.
If you have an iPhone that you’re happy with, keep it. We don’t think you should upgrade just because Apple has released new phones.
But if your current phone is running too slowly or is damaged, or if you’re simply ready for an upgrade and you want a new phone now, we recommend the Apple iPhone 17. It offers an almost Pro-like iPhone experience, with a bigger display and a higher refresh rate, excellent cameras, lengthy battery life, and a powerful processor.
Top pick
The iPhone 17 now comes with features once reserved for Apple’s Pro models, including a bigger and brighter display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, a higher-resolution front-facing camera that takes better selfies, and long-lasting battery life.
The Apple iPhone 17 looks similar to its predecessor but offers a few vital upgrades. Its bigger, brighter 6.3-inch screen supports Apple’s ProMotion display technology (for a refresh rate up to 120 Hz) and an always-on display mode — two features that were previously exclusive to the iPhone Pro models. Apple has also updated the camera systems, with an 18-megapixel selfie camera and a 48-megapixel rear ultrawide camera. The iPhone 17 runs on Apple’s new A19 chip, which not only delivers snappy performance but also helps prolong battery life.
Upgrade pick
The iPhone 17 Pro has a brighter screen than the iPhone 16 Pro, a more powerful chip, an updated front-facing camera, and a triple 48-megapixel camera system. It also has a new internal vapor-cooling system to prevent overheating during gaming and other intensive tasks, as well as to extend its battery life.
If you want an even bigger screen, the best battery life, and the highest storage configuration, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is the way to go — if you’re willing to pay the price.
The 6.3-inch Apple iPhone 17 Pro and 6.9-inch Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max ditch the titanium frame and matte-glass back of their predecessors for a new aluminum design with a horizontal rear camera bump (or “plateau”) that makes these Pro models look and feel much different from the base iPhone 17. The redesign isn’t for everyone, but beneath the new look lie some big internal upgrades, including a new thermal system that better disperses heat and a faster, power-efficient A19 Pro chip that’s more capable of handling gaming and video editing. The camera systems have also been improved — alongside a rear 48-megapixel main camera and ultrawide camera, Apple upgraded the telephoto lens to 48 megapixels with 4x optical zoom and 8x optical-like zoom. And the front-facing square 18-megapixel camera is a big improvement. Either Pro model is a great choice if you want an iPhone that packs the most power, delivers the highest-quality photos, and has the best battery life of all the latest iPhones.
Budget pick
Apple’s most affordable iPhone stretches the boundaries of “budget” with a price tag that’s $170 higher than the cost of the discontinued iPhone SE. But it’s a good phone, with long-lasting battery life, powerful performance, and a camera that produces decent results.
While we wish the Apple iPhone 16e were cheaper, its bright, 6.1-inch screen and lengthy battery life represent big upgrades from the now-discontinued iPhone SE. It can also charge quickly via USB-C. But it has only a single rear camera lens and lacks MagSafe compatibility.
When should you upgrade if you have an older iPhone?
Our general philosophy about upgrading (as described by Wirecutter’s founder) is that if you’re happy with what you have, you don’t need the latest and greatest. Last year’s iPhone or the one before that (or even the one before that) should continue to serve you well. New phones tend to offer incremental upgrades — they’re not revolutionary products that change the experience. Apple still issues security updates to older devices, and iOS 26 still supports every iPhone from 2019 on, so even six-year-old phones are getting new features.
If you have an older phone that’s beginning to feel slower, you may want to check the battery’s health before you decide to replace it completely. Power-conservation features in modern iPhones can slow down phones whose batteries’ capacity is depleted. If the iOS Battery Health screen shows the status “Performance management applied” or “Battery health degraded,” having Apple replace the battery (which can cost up to $119 out of warranty) is a lot cheaper than buying a new phone.
The best all-around package: iPhone 17
Top pick
The iPhone 17 now comes with features once reserved for Apple’s Pro models, including a bigger and brighter display with a 120 Hz refresh rate, a higher-resolution front-facing camera that takes better selfies, and long-lasting battery life.
Apple continues to make its affordable flagship the best value in the iPhone lineup, as the Apple iPhone 17 comes with upgrades across the board. Pro-level features, such as a 6.3-inch ProMotion screen that supports an adaptive 120 Hz refresh rate as well as an always-on display for viewing notifications and widgets at a glance, no longer require you to pay a Pro price. The cameras have also been upgraded: The dual-lens camera setup on the back now has a 48-megapixel ultrawide sensor for higher-quality photos, while the front camera has been upgraded to 18 megapixels with support for Center Stage and Dual Capture video mode (more on those later). The iPhone 17 also runs on Apple’s new A19 chip, which delivers smooth performance and excellent battery life. This model is not a necessary upgrade if you’re coming from the iPhone 16, but if you have an older iPhone, you’re likely to appreciate the new features.
It has a bigger, brighter display with a higher refresh rate. The iPhone 17 has a 6.3-inch OLED display, the same size as that of the iPhone 17 Pro. It’s an increase from the iPhone 16’s 6.1-inch screen; though that isn’t a major difference, we’ve always thought the standard iPhone model was a little too cramped in this era of giant phones. With a peak outdoor brightness of 3,000 nits, the iPhone 17’s screen is also brighter, up from 2,000 nits on its predecessor. This makes it easier to see even in direct sunlight.
Apple’s base-model iPhone 17 also offers a lot of the same features that Apple previously reserved for the Pro iPhones. With ProMotion, the display’s maximum refresh rate has increased from 60 Hz to 120 Hz for smoother scrolling and graphics. It’s adaptive, which means it’ll kick in when you’re using the phone and then dip to 1 Hz when the phone is idle. The iPhone 17 also has an always-on display, so you can easily glance at the time, notifications, or widgets on your lock screen without having to tap to wake the phone each time.
It has an upgraded front-facing camera with some useful selfie features.Apple has upgraded the front camera on the iPhone 17 from a 12-megapixel sensor to an 18-megapixel one, which results in higher-resolution images. In our tests, compared with images from previous models, selfies came out even more crisp — we could make out every detail (breakouts included) even in low-light images. The sensor is also now square and has a wider field of view.
With the Center Stage feature, found in the newest iPads and now built into the iPhone 17 line, the front-facing camera’s field of view expands automatically to fit more people in the frame while you’re holding the phone vertically. This means you don’t have to manually rotate your phone for wider group shots using the front-facing camera. The feature works as advertised, too: I used it during a birthday party, where many selfies were taken, and whenever someone else stepped into the shot, it would quickly zoom out to fit them in. However, the muscle memory that people have built after years of rotating their phones to snap selfies with friends may take some time to fade.
Center Stage also kicks in on video calls to keep you in frame while you’re moving around. I found this feature helpful while I was FaceTiming a friend from my desk, as I was able to move between using the iPhone and typing on my MacBook without having to manually adjust the phone each time.
The iPhone 17 also introduces the Dual Capture video mode, which allows you to use the front and rear cameras simultaneously to capture more footage at once. This is a feature we’ve been waiting on from Apple for a while — it’s been available on Samsung Galaxy phones for years now — and before the iPhone 17, we would use a third-party app such as Instagram or Snapchat to flip back and forth between the front and rear cameras to capture dual points of view. Using Dual Capture on the iPhone 17 was both fun and simple in our tests. Once you enable the feature, the front camera’s video is in picture-in-picture mode, and the center of the screen shows what the rear camera records.
It has a better ultrawide camera than the iPhone 16. The iPhone 17 has Apple’s new Dual Fusion cameras. The name refers to the 48-megapixel main camera’s ability to double as a 12-megapixel telephoto camera, plus the 48-megapixel ultrawide camera’s ability to double as a 12-megapixel macro lens. The main sensor continues to deliver vibrant, sharp photos with strong dynamic range and little to no visible noise. But the iPhone 16 also has a 48-megapixel main sensor — the upgrade here is to the ultrawide lens. We compared the two and found a few differences: In our tests, the iPhone 17 consistently delivered colors that were more subdued and natural, with lower contrast, delivering more evenly lit, true-to-life images. It also proved to have better distortion control. The iPhone 16’s images, on the other hand, looked more saturated and appeared slightly more warped.
Like last year’s version, the iPhone 17 uses a combination of software and hardware to shoot 2x optical-quality zoom, but it still delivered strong results that looked almost identical to what we got from the iPhone 17 Pro. It also has support for up to 10x digital zoom, but in this regard its images weren’t as sharp or clean as those from the Pro model; although the photos were somewhat usable, they exhibited a noticeable loss of details and blurriness.
You also have the option to take full-resolution 24-megapixel images (the default) or to switch to 12 megapixels; the camera system switches to the latter when you’re taking photos with night mode, macro flash, or Portrait Lighting. The 24-megapixel option is better for capturing the most detail, while the 12-megapixel mode is ideal for capturing low-light images. Note, however, that images captured with the 24-megapixel option will occupy more space, so if you plan on using the iPhone 17 to take a lot of images, we recommend upgrading to the higher storage configuration.
The A19 chip is faster and more efficient. The iPhone 17 uses Apple’s latest chip, the A19, which includes a 16-core neural engine, a six-core CPU, and a five-core GPU. The A19 is designed to power features such as ProMotion, the always-on display, and Apple Intelligence more smoothly. During our time with the iPhone 17, its performance was great. Though we didn’t notice a huge difference coming from the iPhone 16, opening apps and switching between them did feel snappier. The higher refresh rate also allowed for a much smoother experience while we scrolled through social media and played a few rounds of Alto’s Odyssey.
The iPhone 17 is more durable than past iPhone models. Apple introduced Ceramic Shield 2 with the iPhone 17 lineup. It’s the latest version of Apple’s proprietary glass, which the company claims has three times better scratch resistance than the previous version. Unlike the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air, the iPhone 17 doesn’t have the Ceramic Shield coating on the back. But it retains the same IP68 dust- and water-resistance rating as Apple’s more expensive phones.
It has longer battery life than the iPhone 16. Apple claims that the iPhone 17 offers eight more hours of video playback in comparison with the iPhone 16, for a total of up to 30 hours. In our testing, the iPhone 17 lasted for longer than a day and a half of heavy usage on one charge. The extra battery life can be attributed to the addition of both ProMotion, which has an adaptive refresh rate that swaps between 120 Hz and 1 Hz, and the A19 chip, which is designed to be more power-efficient. And Apple claims that the iPhone 17 can charge up to 50% in 20 minutes on its 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max. Using the Dynamic Power Adapter, we charged the iPhone 17 from 9% to 53% in about 25 minutes.
The base model has more storage. Having officially dropped 128 GB storage configurations, Apple now starts the base iPhone 17 model at 256 GB of storage (without raising the starting price, as it did on the iPhone 17 Pro). If that’s not enough, you can choose 512 GB for an additional $100.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
The design is a bit stale. In comparison with the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, the iPhone 17 seems uninspired these days. It would’ve been nice to see some more substantive changes, such as a redesigned camera module similar to that of the iPhone Air.
It lacks a triple-camera system. While the triple cameras are typically reserved for the iPhone Pro models, it’s tough not to criticize Apple for including only two cameras on the iPhone 17, especially considering the base models of both the Google Pixel 10 and the Samsung Galaxy S25. Those Android flagships both come with a main sensor, an ultrawide sensor, and a dedicated telephoto sensor. At this point, Apple seems to be falling behind the standard set by its competition.
Center Stage selfies aren’t the perfect solution. Although it’s a nice feature to have on hand, taking selfies with Center Stage looks and feels awkward. Since it zooms out to capture everyone in the frame, it produces an ultrawide selfie that made our arms and torsos look really long. We preferred sticking to the standard method of rotating our phone and snapping a more cropped-in shot.
The best cameras: iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max
Upgrade pick
The iPhone 17 Pro has a brighter screen than the iPhone 16 Pro, a more powerful chip, an updated front-facing camera, and a triple 48-megapixel camera system. It also has a new internal vapor-cooling system to prevent overheating during gaming and other intensive tasks, as well as to extend its battery life.
If you want an even bigger screen, the best battery life, and the highest storage configuration, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is the way to go — if you’re willing to pay the price.
Sporting complete redesigns (which can be polarizing, depending on who you ask), the Apple iPhone 17 Pro and Apple iPhone 17 Pro Max look nothing like their predecessors. Apple has abandoned the titanium bodies of the iPhone 15 Pro and 16 Pro models in favor of aluminum, which is better than titanium for dispersing heat, and the company has also given the iPhone 17 Pro models a new vapor-chamber cooling system to help with heat management. Both Pro models have a triple 48-megapixel camera system, including an upgraded telephoto lens, and also add a new 18-megapixel front-facing camera (up from 12 megapixels). In addition, powered by an A19 Pro chip, the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max deliver excellent performance and the longest battery life of the iPhone lineup. Deciding between the Pro models really depends on what size you prefer — a smaller, 6.3-inch display or a massive, 6.9-inch one.
The Pro models are fully redesigned and more durable. Rather than sticking with the titanium body of the iPhone 15 Pro and 16 Pro, Apple chose aluminum for the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max. This change is supposed to help with thermal management, as Apple says aluminum is 20 times more conductive. On the back is a redesigned camera module that Apple calls the “plateau”; this module houses the camera sensors, making extra space for a larger battery.
The iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max also come with Ceramic Shield 2, the latest version of Apple’s proprietary coating, which is three times more scratch-resistant than the original version. For the first time, both Pro models have Ceramic Shield on the back as well, which according to Apple is four times more resistant to cracks. Although we still recommend putting a case on such an expensive phone, it’s nice to see added protection on both the front and back of the device.
Both Pro models have new internal cooling systems to better prevent overheating. It’s no secret that Apple’s iPhone Pro models have suffered from overheating throughout the years. To help combat this problem, the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max use a new vapor-chamber-based cooling system that is laser-welded into the phones’ aluminum bodies and is designed to draw heat away from the A19 Pro chip much more efficiently. This system is ideal if you’re planning on using your Pro model for heavy-duty gaming or for photo and video editing.
Although we mainly used the iPhone 17 Pro for basic tasks, including scrolling through social media, making phone calls, sending texts, and jotting down notes, we never felt it get warm. But even on a night out with the iPhone 17 Pro Max, where we constantly reached for it to take photos and videos throughout the evening for hours on end, all while using multiple apps such as Google Maps, Uber, and Spotify, it felt cool to the touch the whole time.
The new A19 Pro chip packs plenty of power and delivers the best battery life yet. The iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max are powered by Apple’s new A19 Pro chip, which has a six-core CPU, a six-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine. Apple claims that the A19 Pro is up to 20% faster in CPU tasks and up to 50% faster in GPU performance than the chip in the iPhone 15 Pro. In our tests, the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max delivered great performance throughout our time with them, handling hours of scrolling through social media, photo editing, and light gaming with ease. Based on processing power alone, either Pro model is certainly the iPhone to get if you’re planning on using yours for more power-intensive and graphics-heavy tasks.
The A19 Pro chip also helps to optimize battery life, which was especially impressive in our testing. Apple claims that the iPhone 17 Pro delivers up to 33 hours of video playback (up from 27 hours in the iPhone 16 Pro) and that the iPhone 17 Pro Max provides up to 39 hours (compared with 33 hours from the iPhone 16 Pro Max). We used real-world testing to put these phones through their paces: We took the iPhone 17 Pro off the charger at 3:40 p.m. one day and didn’t have to plug it back in until 10:40 p.m. the next day, for a total of 31 hours. The iPhone 17 Pro Max didn’t last as long, but that’s also because we used that model continuously throughout the day for shooting images, navigating with maps, and taking multiple FaceTime calls. We took it off the charger at 4:45 p.m. and didn’t have to plug it back in until 10:30 a.m. the next day, for a total of nearly 18 hours. We must emphasize, though, that we barely put the 17 Pro Max down during our time with it, and on a typical day we’d be able to stretch it for much longer.
The iPhone 17 and 17 Pro Max have slightly improved rear cameras. Like the iPhone 17, the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max come with a Fusion camera system. But in addition to the 48-megapixel main camera and 48-megapixel ultrawide camera, Apple upgraded the Pro and Pro Max’s 12-megapixel telephoto lens (which had 5x optical zoom), replacing it with a 48-megapixel lens with 4x optical zoom and up to 8x optical-like quality. The new lens also delivers up to 40x digital zoom.
In our tests the main sensor and ultrawide camera did an excellent job in various lighting conditions across standard photos, portrait-mode shots, and night mode. The photos were vibrant and crisp, and they also allowed for balanced contrast and accurate colors even in dim environments.
The telephoto lens was equally impressive at both 4x and 8x zoom, where we noticed no loss of detail or blurriness. At times it struggled a bit when zoomed in at 8x, but the problem wasn’t noticeable to the naked eye; we picked up on it only when we pulled up the images on an external monitor and zoomed in, as certain details in the background came out a bit fuzzy or seemed a little out of focus, while the subjects were consistently sharp.
However, it particularly faltered on images we took beyond 8x, specifically at 40x digital zoom — an area where competitors such as Google’s Pixel 10 Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra excelled. Those phones use a mix of optical and AI-enhanced digital zoom to create sharp, crisp images, even at a long distance. Most of the images we took on the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max at 40x appeared fuzzy and grainy.
The iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max come with more storage. Like the iPhone 17, the iPhone 17 Pro now starts at 256 GB of storage, with the option to max out at 1 TB. Meanwhile, Apple increased the larger model’s maximum configurable storage to 2 TB. Note that, with the base-storage increase, the starting price of the iPhone 17 Pro is now $100 higher than that of its predecessor. And while the base-model iPhone 17 Pro Max costs $1,200 with 256 GB, the 2 TB model comes out to a whopping $2,000.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
The color options are limited, and many people will hate the two-tone design. Apple offers the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max only in orange, blue, and silver. If the company couldn’t offer a wider range of muted colors, as it did with last year’s iPhone 16 Pro lineup, then we would’ve at least appreciated a black color option. The two-tone design that Apple incorporated on the back is also a strange choice: It’s less noticeable on the blue version, where it blends in better, but it’s worse on the orange version, where the tones are a stark contrast from each other. The worst of them all is the silver model, which has a white square on the back. This design choice takes away from the premium, sleek, monochromatic look of previous iPhone Pro and Pro Max models, making the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max somehow look a little cheap.
The iPhone 17 Pro is more expensive than last year’s model. While the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Max remain the same in price, Apple increased the base storage and thereby the entry price of the iPhone 17 Pro by $100, bringing the total up to $1,100 for the 256 GB base model.
A more affordable option: iPhone 16e
Budget pick
Apple’s most affordable iPhone stretches the boundaries of “budget” with a price tag that’s $170 higher than the cost of the discontinued iPhone SE. But it’s a good phone, with long-lasting battery life, powerful performance, and a camera that produces decent results.
At $600, the Apple iPhone 16e isn’t exactly cheap, but it is Apple’s most affordable iPhone, and it does everything you might need an iPhone to do.
The iPhone 16e replaces the now-discontinued iPhone SE, and although it’s significantly more expensive than that phone (by $170), it also feels more like a higher-end iPhone than the SE did. Apple has ditched the home button and Touch ID in favor of a large, 6.1-inch screen and a Face ID notch. The iPhone 16e charges via USB-C and delivers lengthy battery life. It lacks MagSafe compatibility and has just a single rear camera lens, but otherwise it’s a perfectly fine iPhone. We just wish it were cheaper.
The iPhone 16e delivers excellent battery life. While the most noticeable features of the 16e are its notched cutout for Face ID and its single camera lens, the real standout is its lengthy battery life. Apple fit in a larger battery; that component, combined with the power efficiency enabled by the company’s custom C1 modem (for connecting to the internet) and A18 chip, allowed the 16e to last 36 hours even with extremely heavy usage in our testing.
A travel day is the ultimate stress test for a phone’s battery life, so I charged the 16e to 100% at 5 p.m. on a Sunday in anticipation of my flight from San Francisco to New York at 7 a.m. the following morning. I hailed an Uber, streamed music and podcasts, responded to Slack messages and texts in-flight, chatted on the phone after landing, navigated my way around Queens and Brooklyn using Google Maps, and FaceTimed with my partner before bed. When I awoke on Tuesday, the 16e still had enough battery life left for me to get through my morning meetings. The difference in battery life will be most noticeable if you’re upgrading from an older iPhone, such as an iPhone 11 or one of the iPhone mini models, but the iPhone 16e’s battery even outlasts that of the pricier iPhone 17.
It can charge quickly via USB-C. The iPhone 16e’s predecessor, the third-gen iPhone SE, charged over Lightning, and with that model’s discontinuation, Apple is now all in on USB-C. The 16e also supports fast wired charging with a 20 W USB-C adapter, charging from completely dead to 47% in 30 minutes in our testing. It can also charge wirelessly with any Qi charging pad, but it doesn’t support MagSafe, so magnetic chargers or accessories can’t attach.
It's future-proofed with Apple Intelligence support. Apple’s artificial intelligence features, which include writing tools and AI-generated emoji, aren’t necessarily worth buying a new phone for, but a few of them are useful. Apple will continue to release new AI features and improve existing ones, so we appreciate the fact that even its cheapest phone will benefit from them.
It’s basically the same size as the iPhone 16, which Apple still sells, and the screen is almost as good. The 16e is almost all screen, with a giant, 6.1-inch display and a minimal bezel (plus a notch cutout for the Face ID camera). With the iPhone 16e sitting next to the iPhone 16, that notch is really the only way to tell the two apart. Although the iPhone 16 gets a little brighter, up to 1,600 nits, in contrast to the iPhone 16e’s 1,200-nit peak, the cheaper phone is plenty bright. But it’s not as bright as the iPhone 17, which reaches 3,000 nits of peak brightness.
It looks more expensive than it is. The iPhone 16e, like the iPhone 17, has an aluminum frame with a matte-glass back, and it looks more like a new iPhone than the SE did. It comes only in white and black, but you can add a case for a pop of color.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
It’s more expensive than its predecessor. The third-gen iPhone SE was $430, and a $170 jump in price is a tough pill to swallow. The 16e does offer a slew of features that the SE didn’t have, but for a “budget” phone, we wish the price were a little lower.
The single camera is fine, but other iPhones take better photos. The biggest differentiator across Apple’s phones is their cameras — spending more allows you to capture better photos. The iPhone 16e has a single 48-megapixel rear camera lens, in contrast to the iPhone 17’s two lenses and the 17 Pro’s trio of lenses. It’s capable of switching between a standard angle and what Apple calls an optical-quality 2x telephoto, and the resulting images were good in our tests. But if you want to capture a nighttime shot of, say, the Empire State Building at 10x zoom, you’ll be disappointed in the extremely grainy quality.
The absence of MagSafe is annoying. The iPhone 16e can charge wirelessly, but it doesn’t support MagSafe, so Apple’s magnetic charging pads and other MagSafe accessories can’t stick to the back of the phone. A MagSafe charger can still charge the 16e, albeit slowly, and third-party case makers are already releasing MagSafe cases for the 16e, so you can attach MagSafe accessories to them. But the lack of MagSafe in light of the phone’s higher starting price is annoying.
The competition
In addition to the iPhone 17 lineup, Apple also announced the $1,000 Apple iPhone Air, its thinnest iPhone ever. Although it represents a nice departure from the chunkier iPhones we’ve grown accustomed to, its slimmer profile makes some trade-offs. It offers a large, 6.5-inch display, but it has just a single rear camera lens, a single speaker, and a battery that barely lasted us 12 hours. Unless all you care about is the design, we think it’s too expensive for its lack of features. For details, read our full review.
Apple still sells the Apple iPhone 16 and Apple iPhone 16 Plus but reduced the price by $100. The now-$700 6.1-inch iPhone 16 has a smaller screen than the iPhone 17 and lacks support for ProMotion and an always-on display. The $800 iPhone 16 Plus has a larger, 6.7-inch screen but also lacks advanced display technology. The front-facing camera on both models is 12 megapixels (in contrast to 18 megapixels on the iPhone 17) and lacks new features such as Center Stage and Dual Capture video. We suggest buying the iPhone 17 instead — its screen size lands between those of the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, and it offers some display and camera upgrades you can’t get on the older phones.
Caitlin McGarry contributed additional reporting. This article was edited by Caitlin McGarry and Arthur Gies.