Key Takeaways:
Features: Apple might include MagSafe on the iPhone 17E.
Apple might include MagSafe on the iPhone 17E. Release date: Possibly as soon as February.
Possibly as soon as February. Price: There have been no leaks about price increases, which is good news at this point.
There have been no leaks about price increases, which is good news at this point. Design: Could get the Dynamic Island and look more like an iPhone 15.
Apple might be continuing its lower-cost iPhone line, with an iPhone 17E reportedly releasing early this year. If that's true, the sequel to last year's iPhone 16E has a lot of room to step up.
Some rumors point to improvements borrowed from Apple's iPhone 15, such as Dynamic Island and MagSafe. If these are true, it could make the lower-cost iPhone 17E a compelling value option with fewer trade-offs needed to hit a lower price.
Apple's $599 iPhone 16E was a bit of an oddity when it was released last year. It replaced Apple's $429 iPhone SE, effectively retiring the older iPhone SE design that included a home button with Touch ID. Apple's new "budget" device was a pricier amalgamation, featuring the body of an iPhone 14 with a display notch. It also had the USB-C port from the iPhone 15 and the A18 processor from the iPhone 16 to support Apple Intelligence features.
To save money, Apple scaled back on features by including only a single 48-megapixel main camera and omitting Apple's MagSafe clip-on capability (though it kept standard wireless charging). While the iPhone 16E is a solid starter iPhone, I found these omissions to be confusing, especially given that Apple increased the price of this entry-level iPhone from $429 to $599.
The iPhone 16E features a single rear camera. James Martin/CNET
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