Apple iPhone 17e Review Southeast Asia Home Amazon Deals Pro-tips by Codashop PC PS4 Xbox One Nintendo Mobile Entertainment EsportsMoreSearch Home More About IGN SEAContactAdvertisePressUser AgreementPrivacy PolicyCookie PolicyRSSIGN Southeast Asia is operated under license by Media Prima Digital Sdn Bhd (199901014126) Change Region United States United Kingdom Australia Africa Adria Serbian/Croatian Adria Slovenian Benelux / Dutch Brazil China / 中国 Czechia / Slovakia France Germany Greece / Ελλάδα Hungary India Israel Italy / Italia Japan / 日本 Korea / 한국 Latin America Middle East – English Middle East – الأوسطالشرق Nordic Poland Portugal Southeast Asia Spain / España Turkey / Türkiye world.ign.com Register / Login Register / Login Login Register iPhone 17e iPhone 17e – Review A good phone for folks who just need a good phone. This post might contain affiliation links. If you buy something through this post, the publisher may get a share of the sale. By Mark Knapp Updated: March 21, 2026, 5:42 a.m. Related reads:MapleStorySEA Celebrates 20th Anniversary With Massive Summer Updates Apple doesn’t release discounted, mid-range devices every year, but this year sees the introduction of the iPhone 17e following hot on the heels of 2025’s iPhone 16e, and it comes with a more appealing package. The price hasn’t gone up, so you’re still looking at a $599 starting price, but Apple has put in more storage, more durable parts, and the latest A19 chip. Those factors make for a very promising midrange smartphone that should handle everyday needs with ease. So let’s have a look at how it holds up. iPhone 17e – Design and FeaturesThe iPhone 17e isn’t a particularly striking new addition to Apple’s lineup. It plays a simpler game, offering little excitement or luxury in the name of being more affordable. Unlike phones with bottom-of-the-barrel price tags, the iPhone 17e doesn’t quite cut everything, though.iPhone 17e (left) vs iPhone 12 (right)Where a discount Android phone might have a lower-quality cover glass and plastic rear, the iPhone 17e still gets a premium bill of materials that hews close to the mainline iPhone 17 devices. It has an aluminum frame, glass back, and Ceramic Shield 2 front, just like the iPhone 17. That’s great news for the durability of the display, with the screen showing no visible blemishes after my time testing it – a fair bit better than the first-gen Ceramic Shield on my iPhone 16 review unit fared. Even with the metal frame and tough glass, I wouldn’t treat this phone like its bulletproof. It’s water resistant, though, and can handle submersion in deep enough water (6 meters for 30 minutes) that recovery would likely be more of a worry than water damage. The front of the iPhone 17e is where you’ll see how it lags behind the latest models. It fits a 6.1-inch display that’s the same as what Apple built into last year’s iPhone 16e and even the iPhone 12 from 2020. It’s a great-looking OLED display that’s sharp and plenty bright, reaching up to 1200 nits. Sadly, it doesn’t bring along a 120Hz refresh rate for smoother visuals. It also lacks the smaller notch for the Face ID and selfie camera that newer models have gotten.The display pairs with stereo speakers. The speakers hold up well when pushed to their limit, letting me listen to a podcast while working out on a rowing machine, doing some dishes, and taking a shower. There’s some harshness at full volume and the bass is meager as is typical on small devices, but the speakers are still a good complement for the display.More like thisOpen Back Headphones: A Sound Experience Like No OtherBy sticking with the smaller display, the iPhone 17e proves a fairly easy phone to hold. It’s still a wider phone than I’d expect from one with its screen size, proving just about as wide as the Google Pixel 10 Pro despite the latter having a 6.3-inch display. Even then, it’s quite light and has a good balance in the hand, never feeling like it’s trying to fall over the top of my grip.The iPhone 17e charges over USB-C, but in a big get over the 16e, it also supports MagSafe for fast wireless charging and compatibility with the wide assortment of magnetic accessories out there. As far as data transfer, though, that USB-C port is stuck at disappointing USB 2.0 speeds. The phone also gets the Action Button, providing a quick shortcut to specific apps, the camera, or different features depending on what you assign to it. I find myself accidentally hitting it instead of the volume, but it’s still nice to see a handy, user-assignable button. You won’t find a SIM card slot on the iPhone 17e. Like Apple’s other phones, this one has ditched it in favor of going fully eSIM. While eSIM can be handy for getting set up on a new network without waiting for a physical SIM card to show up, I’ve found that convenience is mirrored by a fussiness trying to transfer an eSIM from one phone to another – a difficulty I’ve never run into with a physical SIM card.Purchasing GuideThe iPhone 17e is available for $599 with a base 256GB of storage. Apple also offers a 512GB model, but the price leaps up to $799. It comes in pink, white, and black (as tested here).iPhone 17e – SoftwareThe iPhone 17e comes running the latest version of iOS, iOS 26. And while Apple may not be making any specific promises about long-term software support, it has perhaps the best support in the business. iOS 26 is available for devices all the way back to the iPhone 11 from 2019, and the fact that the iPhone 17e comes with the newer A19 chip rather than saving money by going for an earlier chip suggests it will see support as long as the standard iPhone 17.One feature Apple plugged with the new phones was Visual Intelligence, which is one of the features you can assign to the Action Button. I gave it a shot, asking it to help me identify some things, and it was thoroughly wrong, misidentifying a Pixel 10 Pro as a Pixel 8 Pro (at least on brand), a GameSir controller as an aged Xbox 360 controller (at least it had the right control scheme, and an old Nissan Sentra as a Mercedes based on the logo (a logo that clearly proudly said Nissan in the photo). It did correctly identify a case of Icebreakers Sours from a photo of the lid, which had the name in bold print, but I’d hardly say that makes up for its lack of reliability elsewhere. There’s still a lot of room for improvement. iPhone 17e – Gaming and PerformanceThe iPhone 17e may not be pushing boundaries with its design, but it has a lot more to offer in the performance department, particularly for a $599 phone. The phone includes Apple’s A19 chip, much the same as the standard iPhone 17. This means some serious CPU performance. Unfortunately, the 17e gets a trimmed back GPU which has four cores instead of the five in the iPhone 17. General performance is excellent, though. The A19 chip in the iPhone 17e doe
