The iPhone 16e marks the daybreak of a brand new period for Apple’s smartphone portfolio. It might not essentially be an ideal period for patrons paying for it, although. The “SE” lineup is retired, colours take a backseat, and a half-baked AI takes the centerstage. There are some iterative upgrades underneath the hood, however probably the most notable one is the 2-in-1 Fusion digital camera system.
That’s simply Apple’s method of claiming that the 48-megapixel rear digital camera on the iPhone 16e — up from the 12-megapixel unit fitted on the iPhone SE — may take 2x zoom pictures. One would ideally be impressed to see that the iPhone 16e is matching the 48-megapixel rear snapper on the iPhone 16.
Whereas that’s technically true, there are a wholesome few options lacking on the iPhone 16e, and it even lags behind in sure areas in comparison with the now-discontinued iPhone 14.
A relic of the previous?
Earlier than we dig into the nooks and crannies of the iPhone 16e’s imaging {hardware}, there’s one other essential change value stating. It comes with a nerfed model of the A18 silicon.
The A18 variant Apple has fitted on the iPhone 16 gives 5 GPU cores, whereas the trim you get on the iPhone 16e comes with 4 GPU cores. At a technical degree, the onboard graphics engine performs a job in pipelines corresponding to encoding, however let’s preserve the dialogue centered on the core digital camera setup right here.
Beginning with the stabilisation stack, the iPhone 16e embraces the vanilla Optical Picture Stabilization tech, which isn’t dangerous. Nevertheless, all mainline iPhones, beginning with the iPhone 13, have been utilizing the extra superior sensor-shift stabilization system.
Subsequent, let’s speak about glorified filters with a reminiscence characteristic aka latest-generation photographic kinds. First launched with the iPhone 16 sequence, Apple has supplied an up to date system that lets customers alter the tone, colour, and depth of every image.
Tagging alongside is a D-pad management system to make the aforementioned stylistic tweaks. Notably, you possibly can change the photographic kinds and fine-tune the images post-capture from throughout the Images app. Inexplicably, the iPhone 16e misses out on this facility, too. I’ve grown keen on Apple’s contemporary tackle photographic kinds, and it will likely be sorely missed on the iPhone 16e.
One other significant perk that the newest inexpensive cellphone from Apple skips, is macro seize. Macro seize lets customers click on detailed close-range pictures with out having to cope with a fussy focus lock and blur artifacts when getting too near a topic.
Skipping the signature iPhone digital camera traits
A working joke on Indian social media is hounding the iPhone-toting pal in a bunch for clicking footage as a result of Apple’s smartphones are thought of the very best, by default. That’s the general public notion in one of many world’s largest smartphone markets.
Apple’s newest doesn’t fairly do justice to that picture, particularly contemplating the sky-high native asking worth. The iPhone 16e doles out a weak hand with regards to bokeh seize, one of many core strengths of Apple smartphones. On all gadgets, beginning with the iPhone 15 sequence, Apple has supplied what it calls next-gen portrait mode with focus and depth management.
Because the identify suggests, customers can’t solely alter the energy of background blur, but additionally change which topic to concentrate on. The digital camera system may routinely acknowledge human and animal topics in stills, and lets customers convert it right into a portrait shot even when the image was clicked in common picture mode.
The iPhone 16e ships with the older portrait system the place you possibly can solely tweak the bokeh depth, however can’t change the purpose of focus inside a body.
Transferring over into the realm of movies, the most important miss is motion mode, which has been a mainstay on Apple smartphones because the iPhone 14’s arrival.
It permits customers to seize easy, jitter-free handheld movies whereas recording shifting topics. This facility is nowhere to be seen on iPhone 16e, alongside help for spatial video recording and macro seize (each time-lapse and sluggish movement) modes.
The QuickTake characteristic, which lets customers document movies from throughout the picture mode and even take snaps throughout video seize, is accessible on the iPhone 16e —however in a watered down format. In contrast to the iPhone 16, you possibly can’t seize such movies at 4K 60fps high quality with Dolby Imaginative and prescient HDR perk.
One other massive omission is help for Cinematic mode video seize, which was first launched with the iPhone 13 sequence. This trick lets iPhones document movies with a depth of area impact, and extra importantly, permits easy focus transitions.
On iPhone 14 and later fashions, you possibly can even edit these movies within the Images app. Apple helps you to play with the depth depth in addition to focus factors in such clips.
A couple of of the aforementioned options are additionally tied to the absence of a secondary ultrawide or telephoto digital camera, which might in any other case carry out depth mapping and allow superior picture and video seize instruments.
It makes little sense
Nevertheless, when one takes into consideration the asking worth of iPhone 16e, the dearth of a secondary digital camera is an enormous reverse pedal within the present market. For a decrease asking worth, the likes of Samsung and Google ship superior imaging {hardware}.
The Google Pixel 8a, Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, and Motorola’s Edge sequence telephones provide a much more versatile imaging {hardware} than the iPhone 16e for roughly the identical asking worth, and even decrease.
Apple is predominantly pushing the iPhone 16e as a car to hawk its Apple Intelligence stack, which remains to be not prepared, and a brand new in-house modem that may quickly seem in different gadgets, as properly.
In case you are contemplating an Apple smartphone for its digital camera chops however don’t essentially have the funds for its “Professional” iPhones, you possibly can safely decide an older-generation machine just like the iPhone 15.
Refurbished iPhones are one other nice choice to get a extra versatile digital camera package deal with superior options at roughly the identical asking worth because the iPhone 16e. And that’s simply the state of affairs within the US market, the place Apple telephones are normally the most cost effective.
In different markets, the upper price ticket makes the iPhone 16e an much more unpalatable deal. In India, for instance, it prices roughly $700, which makes it an clearly worse proposition when much more aggressive telephones such because the Oppo Discover X8 and OnePlus 13R are already on the cabinets.
