Reginald Guessing Trousers and his merry team of Apple Rumourmongers made another announcement this week. There’s going to be an iPhone 17e. Perhaps very soon. Which is no great surprise. But Trousers also parped out key info about this new iPhone: its display will be rubbish. Which is also no great surprise. Because ever since Apple unleashed a budget (by Apple standards) iPhone, it’s followed a pattern. Fish an old design out of a dusty drawer. Inject a binned chip. Add the odd upgrade to mollify grumpy people. Then sit back and watch the money roll in.
We had this with the iPhone SE, which in 2016 gave us 2013’s iPhone 5s with the guts of 2015’s iPhone 6s. Last year, the iPhone 16e arrived, claiming to be a full-fledged member of the iPhone 16 family. “Sorry I’m late,” it gasped. “And please ignore me looking very much like an iPhone 14 and lacking features every other iPhone 16 has, like Dynamic Island, a Camera Control button, and MagSafe charging!”
But people did not ignore these things, not least given that 2019’s iPhone 11 was the last standard iPhone to lack MagSafe. Fortunately, Apple was on hand to put everyone in their place, telling Daring Fireball that “most people in the 16e’s target audience exclusively charge their phones by plugging them into a charging cable”. And Apple knows more about its audience than we do. So there.
So assuming the 17e will soon be a real boy, Apple will surely take the iPhone 15’s skin, stuff an A19 chip inside, and make compromises that allow the company to hit a $599/£599 price while still making profits that enable Apple shareholders to spend their lives swimming in pools full of money.
Scream time
According to Mr Trousers, the screen is the main area in which the 17e will lag behind its siblings. Last year, Apple upgraded the standard iPhone display, which now uses the same panel as the Pro. It’s a key reason I thought – still think – the iPhone 17 was the 2025 iPhone to buy. The 17e, though, will reportedly get Dynamic Island but remain stranded on 60Hz.
This is a pity. Android blowers in this price range – the Pixel 9a, Samsung Galaxy A56 – have had 120Hz displays for a while. And the iPhone 17e may stick around long enough to feel increasingly uncompetitive. To be fair, ‘120Hz’ isn’t the entire story: cheaper Android device displays often go up to 120Hz, but not always down to 1Hz like ProMotion. Still, that gives Apple a chance to get ahead in the mid-range and position the 17e for where rivals might head over the next few years.
Apple won’t do this, because it wants clear water between the 17 and 17e – especially since the iPhone 18 reportedly won’t arrive until next year. Hence: if you want a decent screen, pay more.
It’s not all bad news, though. Rumours point to the 17e gaining a magnetic ring for MagSafe charging. Because, apparently, while the 16e’s intended audience mostly exclusively charges their phones by plugging them into a charging cable, the 17e’s intended audience – which you’d think is basically the same – mostly wants MagSafe! Or something.
Maybe I’m ensconced in a tech bubble or have hallucinated plentiful cheap MagSafe chargers in recent years, and only Apple knows that 2026 is the year wireless charging finally comes good. Or perhaps it’s just spin again, much like we’ll discover about that 60Hz display – “Most 17e users don’t want ProMotion!” – right up until it inevitably vanishes with the 17e’s successor.
- Now read: Every Apple iPhone ranked in order of greatness
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