Apple’s $599 iPhone 16e adds AI, launches February 28

As anticipated, Apple revealed the long-awaited iPhone SE refresh Tuesday.

The fourth generation device arrives three years after the last major update to the budget-minded smartphone. This one arrives with a twist, however. The SE branding has been dropped to keep the device more in line with the company’s flagships. The new iPhone 16e starts at $599 and will begin shipping February 28.

The top line feature is Apple Intelligence, the iPhone maker’s answer to offerings like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. It features small models that can run locally on-device, to provide text summaries, write letters, and generate images.

The 16e is now part of an exclusive group — along with the rest of the iPhone 16 line and iPhone 15 Pro — of handsets capable of running Apple Intelligence. That’s thanks in part to the addition of an A18 processor — the same in-house chip found across the rest of the flagship iPhone 16 line.

Like other iPhones with Apple Intelligence, the 16e lets users access ChatGPT via Siri for free, without an OpenAI account.

The new handset is also the first to sport Apple’s own in-house modem, the Apple C1. The addition arrives as the company continues to lessen its dependence on chipmakers like Qualcomm and Intel in favor of silicon built specifically for its devices.

As it shifts to a more updated design, the iPhone 16e ditches the Touch ID home button in favor of Face ID, while bringing back the iPhone X’s camera notch. The Lightning port is also gone in favor of USB-C, as the company standardizes the connector across its hardware devices.

The handset sports a 6.1-inch OLED display and “the best battery life ever on a 6.1-inch iPhone,” per Apple. That’s up from a 4.8-inch screen on the third-generation SE, which means small phone devotees just lost a real one.

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Apple notes that the device delivers up to 12 hours more life on a charge than previous SEs, a fact due in no small part to the six-core A18. The chip also sport a 16-core neural engine for AI processing and a 4-core GPU — down from the iPhone 16’s five-core graphics processor and the 16 Pro’s six.

There is a single rear-facing 48-megapixel camera, with 2x zoom. The company is positioning this as a “two-in-one” camera, meaning you can also shoot 24-megapixel images. On the front is Apple’s TrueDepth camera, which allows for face unlock.

The new phone arrives at a pivotal time for Apple. The company’s market share recently slipped 11% in China, one of its most consequential markets. Several things are at play here, including the rise of Huawei and other domestic phone makers, coupled with the fact that Apple Intelligence is still not available in mainland China.

Image Credits:Apple

Apple has reportedly had conversations with Tencent and ByteDance in an effort to bring a localized version its generative AI offering to China. More recently, word has emerged that the company has partnered with Alibaba as its local generative AI partner.

The original iPhone SE, which launched in 2016, has been a strong seller for Apple in both China and India, the number one and two smartphone markets, respectively. Unlike the annual flagship iPhone launch, the SE’s release schedule has been irregular, with subsequent releases in 2020, 2022, and now 2025. While the $599 price tag marks a $100 premium over the last last SE, the more state-of-the-art budget handset should help the company regain lost ground in those markets.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 16e open Friday, February 21. The device starts shipping exactly one week later.