Apple iPhone 16e review

Super Retina XDR, stuck at 60Hz

The iPhone 16e uses the same screen as the iPhone 13 and iPhone 14 - a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED with 2,532x1,170px resolution (or 460ppi density). It has a large U-shaped notch, supports only 60Hz refresh rate, and is protected by a Ceramic Shield glass.

The panel supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision video streaming.

The display supports additional various niceties like wide color gamut, True Tone adjustments, and Night Shift. It is advertised for up to 800nits of maximum brightness and up to 1,200nits of peak brightness.

Our display measurements confirm those claims - we got 800nits of maximum brightness in both manual and auto control. These numbers are about the same as those on the iPhone 13, suggesting this might really be the same type of display panel. The iPhone 16's panel will go as high as 1,708 nits, which is a lot more.

On the other hand, the minimum brightness we measured on the iPhone 16e with a white text patch was 2 nits, which is excellent.

The screen on the iPhone 16e has a standard refresh rate of 60Hz. It is not an LTPO panel and does not feature always-on display functionality like the Pro models.

It does support HDR10 and Dolby Vision video. Apple does its HDR video playback in a very flexible way since it's not necessary for the content to be displayed fullscreen for HDR to work. It can just work on the portion of the display that has the video playing.

Apple iPhone 16e battery life

The iPhone 16e is powered by a 4,005mAh battery - 25% higher than the capacity of the original iPhone 13 (3240mAh), and 12% more than the 'regular' iPhone 16 (3,561mAh). For context, the Galaxy S25's powerpack is also 4,000mAh, while the Pixel 9 is treated to a larger 4,700mAh cell.

Despite the extra capacity, the 16e does consistently worse than the 16 in our testing, and we have the older display to blame for the on-screen tests, while the shorter call time can probably be attributed to the new modem.

Either way, the iPhone 16e doesn't last nearly as much as others in gaming - among iPhones and Androids alike. Video playback is also behind the curve, though not by as much. The web browsing result, on the other hand, may be shorter than on the iPhone 16, but it's better than direct competitors from Samsung and Google, so there's that.

All things considered, we got an Active Use Score of 11:53h on the iPhone 16e - a classic case of 'not great, not terrible'. The Galaxy S25 and a Pixel 9 scored a little better overall, while an iPhone 16 will likely bring you a more tangible longevity improvement.

Our new Active Use Score is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four test activities. You can adjust the calculation based on your usage pattern using the sliders below. You can read about our current battery life testing procedure here. For a comprehensive list of all tested devices so far, head this way.

Charging speed

Surprising no one, the iPhone 16e ships without a charger. Also, Apple being Apple, the phone's specs don't exactly say how much power it can take - you get the usual promise for "up to 50% charge in 30 minutes with 20W adapter or higher".

We tested with a brand-name third-party 100W USB Power Delivery adapter with PPS support (up to 80W over PPS) - not the 30W Google unit pictured. The 16e maintained a good 23-24W draw for the first 17 minutes of the process, then gradually dropped to 18W, with gradually ramping down the power a few more times along the way to 100%.

At the 15-minute checkpoint, we were looking at 31% in the battery indicator, going up to 57% at the 30-minute mark. It's not super-fast, but it's no worse than the Pixel or the Galaxy - the iPhone was even marginally quicker to reach these 'test milestones'.

Getting to a 'full' state does take a lot longer than on competitors - you can go ahead and round it to 2 hours (it depends a little on whether you'll take the phone's word for it, or look at the power meter to see when the power drops below a certain level). Just Apple things.

Now, it's easy to see the 16e's specsheet missing 'MagSafe' and conclude there's no wireless charging, but that's actually not the case. The phone doesn't have the alignment magnets and it's not rated for the 25W maximum power capability as the MagSafe-compliant models, but it does support wireless charging - albeit at up to basic 7.5W and you'd be responsible for getting the alignment right. Of course, optional magnet-packing cases could help with that too, but the power rating will remain capped at 7.5W. We reckon it's good enough for overnight charging but not for quick top-ups.

Speakers

The iPhone 16e has the traditional hybrid stereo speaker setup we've gotten used to experiencing on the recent iPhones. The dedicated bottom-firing speaker handles one channel while the other is serviced by the amplified earpiece, pulling double duty.

Bottom speaker • Top speaker/earpiece

The speakers support spatial audio and Dolby Atmos. We know we've said this before, but the output sounds exactly as promised - less directional and more spatial than other phones.

Both speakers sound incredibly well in real life with deep and balanced audio.

The iPhone 16e scored a Very Good mark on our speaker loudness test. The setup offers outstanding quality with deep bass, great vocals, and rich high-frequency presentation.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.