iPhone 17e

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/03/apple-introduces-iphone-17e/

by meetpateltech • 5 months ago

322 501 5 months ago

https://www.apple.com/iphone-17e/

Sad it doesn't have the dynamic island, was going to pick up one of these for testing for iOS app development. Everything else looks fine however, as expected.

NetMageSCW3• 5 months ago

I would recommend the base 17 for that.

loeg2• 5 months ago

Or one of the older models? 15/16 have it too.

satvikpendem2• 5 months ago

For just testing I'd rather just get a used 14, 15, or 16.

1970-01-01• 5 months ago

$599 still feels like they're setting whatever price they can get away with. It's been 20 years, why don't we have sub $500 new iPhones yet?

joezydeco2• 5 months ago

It's a luxury brand. You don't sell cheap and risk losing the people that are happy to pay $1400 for a new iPhone.

NetMageSCW3• 5 months ago

It’s not a luxury brand, it is a quality brand. There is a difference.

stephenboyd• 5 months ago

The iPhone SE was only $400.

dmix• 5 months ago

I'd argue that is worth the money if you're going to be using a phone every single day of their life. People will drop a few hundred on fancy shoes and wear them once a month, but they treat phones as cheap commodities.

haritha-j3• 5 months ago

Agreed, but its more the fact that you get a lot more peace of mind tossing around, and otherwise treating without too much care, a cheaper device. Risk of drops, theft, forgetting etc. are pretty high for something that I use every day. But then I'm a broke PhD student, so perhaps my views will change one day.

mrweasel• 5 months ago

Last time I complained about the pricing of the iPhone, people pointed out that inflation included the prices wasn't to far of from the original iPhone.

Still, I don't care that the phones are faster, have larger screens, better camera, FaceID, AI, are thinner light and what have you. The iPhone design peaked in 2015, from there they could just have release the same phone year after year, making it cheaper and cheaper and I'd still be happy with it.

The prices are, in my mind insane, and I'll be buying used, but those are also overpriced.

unsupp0rted• 5 months ago

No, they couldn’t, because then the company would stop existing due to lack of sales.

thebigman433• 5 months ago

Still, I don't care that the phones are faster, have larger screens, better camera, FaceID, AI, are thinner light and what have you. The iPhone design peaked in 2015, from there they could just have release the same phone year after year, making it cheaper and cheaper and I'd still be happy with it.

This obviously isnt relevant generally though, this is not how the general public feels at all.

lenerdenator• 5 months ago

Because they know people will pay it.

ortusdux• 5 months ago

Can mess up the price ladder!

JohnTHaller• 5 months ago

Global crazy tariffs, supply chain issues, and RAM and storage shortages due to AI hype betting. Also greed.

gbear6052• 5 months ago

Taking inflation into account, a $599 iPhone in 2026 would have been $380 in 2007. Given that the actual launch price in 2007 was $499, that's a pretty hefty drop.

thatfrenchguy• 5 months ago

$499 with carrier subsidy too

Dylan168076• 5 months ago

A technology doodad getting 25% cheaper in real terms over 15-20 years is about as far opposite as you can get from a hefty price drop.

tech234a• 5 months ago

At least they increased the base storage to 256GB

layer810• 5 months ago

The first SE in 2016, which wasn’t very far from flagship at the time, was only $399. It was a steal.

HauntingPin• 5 months ago

Accounting for inflation, that's $542. And considering how much everything, including phones, costs nowadays, $600 seems like a steal to me too. I was expecting a much higher price for what I'm seeing on that page.

onesociety2022• 5 months ago

I’m pretty sure they determine the price upfront and then figure out what bells and whistles they can ship without eating into their margins. Their goal is to hit a certain average selling price across their massive user base when they upgrade their old phones. They are not going to jeopardize that by releasing an attractive cheap iPhone.

For the people who really don’t want to spend a lot, obviously the easiest option is to just buy an older iPhone or keep your phone for longer. My partner doesn’t care about having the latest tech. So first I use a phone for 3 years and then they use it for another 3 years. We essentially get 6 years of life out of it (Apple is good about releasing software updates for 6 years).

asdff2• 5 months ago

There is no market for it in US at least since carriers control that selling couple year old iphones for free or close to it.

pibaker2• 5 months ago

feels like they're setting whatever price they can get away with.

This is just a free market for any product works. No?

Why do software engineers ask for six digit salaries? Because they can get away with it — someone is willing to pay for it.

Daz912• 5 months ago

Why do software engineers ask for six digit salaries? Because they can get away with it

No you see it's their RIGHT to demand an exorbitant salary – because that's 'what they're worth' and what the market will bear

Unfortunately they're less charitable when the shoe is on the other foot.

crossroadsguy4• 5 months ago

You asked for it. Now sit back and relish the ripe comments from fruitopologists.

mixmastamyk• 5 months ago

$900 is the new $600 </trump>

jesterson5• 5 months ago

What can sub $500 amount get you nowadays? Just a fancy dinner, or a couple of regular ones.

thoughtpalette2• 5 months ago

Still holding onto my 13 mini. Dreaming of another small form factor release one of these announcements.. :'}

Alifatisk2• 5 months ago

My next upgrade if my 12 mini gives up will be an 13 mini. And from there I will probably just stick to refurbed 13 minis until a good alternative comes out.

mikestew2• 5 months ago

Where are you finding refurb’ed 13 Minis? Apple only goes back to 14s now on store.apple.com in the U. S.

mini13mini13• 5 months ago

I highly recommend hunting down a 13 mini now (with a lot of battery left) so you can switch when you have to. I did last summer and was glad I didn´t have to organize one on short notice. And if you avoid ios26 - make sure the ios18 on the device is updated because now you no longer get updated within ios18

mikestew2• 5 months ago

Maybe the iPhone Fold won’t be two 8” slabs of glass glued together, I think that’s the only hope for those holding out for another Mini.

alpaca1283• 5 months ago

That's true, some foldables like that exist. The problem for me is that I don't want to pay for the folding part, not interested in that.

layer810• 5 months ago

It will be even shorter than the mini, but also wider than the Pro Max. The aspect ratio is different from a normal iPhone. The weight should be in the Pro range, and of course it’ll be relatively thick. Not a mini replacement in my book.

freetonik• 5 months ago

Have you replaced the battery? My 13 mini shows 90% battery health but I can’t use it for the full day (and I don’t game or anything, just light use). I wonder if the battery is really ok and it’s the software that is to blame.

abhikul0• 5 months ago

I got the base 13 at launch day whose battery health now states 86%. While I have noticed degraded battery performance, the stated health has been stuck at 86% for quite a while now.

I guess it's bugged out and would opt for a battery change if you're feeling the battery pains, I'm thinking of upgrading to the new base model this year for the usb c and 120hz display.

embedding-shape• 5 months ago

I still have my 12 Mini, changed the battery in a Apple store a year ago (and they broke the screen in the process so got a new screen too) for I think 99 EUR, now the battery still last ~2 days, easily worth it. Maximum capacity says "87%" right now although I don't know what exactly that's based on.

I'm keeping this phone until either Apple releses a new mini or until Motorola released a GrapheneOS phone, whichever comes first.

francisofascii• 5 months ago

13 mini user here. I have 86% battery health, and it is "okay". I need to charge it about once a day. Also holding out due to the smaller size.

trenning• 5 months ago

I’m down to 75% on my 13mini. I recently picked up a magsafe battery pack that gets me through the day when I’m traveling and can’t charge.

I was considering swapping out the phone battery but this is a better alternative for now.

marc_g• 5 months ago

Just replaced my 13 mini battery this past week which was at 80%. Noticeable improvement. I'm not a very heavy user but did find that I was getting to the 20/10% range at the end of most days. Now its 30/40 and I'm happy! Many more years in the old steed yet.

frereubu3• 5 months ago

My 13 mini on iOS 26 shows 83% maximum capacity but makes it through the day with light-ish use (Spotify (although generally offline playlists because of lossless audio) NYT games, email, messaging, browsing, Instapaper). I do have lots of accessibility settings enabled to stop things like transparency and animations though. See my comment here for more details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45544554

thoughtpalette2• 5 months ago

I did! I ended up buying a kit off ifixit IIRC. It was super cheap and works great! If I did it again, I would splurge for the Apple verified battery as a third party one doesn't work with the new Battery app features.

tambourine_man• 5 months ago

SE 3rd gen here as my daily driver. Small form factor and Touch ID. The perfect iPhone IMO.

Not looking forward to having to settle for those comically large phones with Face ID for my next one.

loeg2• 5 months ago

I'm also a touchID / iphone 8 size fan, but the nice cameras/zoom in flagship models are hard to give up. At least Face ID has improved significantly from the early days of iphone 10 -- it's faster and more reliable than it was on the older models if you tried it back then.

rubee64• 5 months ago

Same. Home button is sooo much better than swiping gestures

frereubu3• 5 months ago

The thing I've come to like about FaceID on my 13 mini is that I can require it for certain apps to open that don't require it - e.g. messaging as opposed to banking which generally require some kind of auth by default - which is much better security in case someone snatches it out of my hand while it's unlocked. It's pretty seamless because I'm generally looking at the device anyway, and it's much less faff than it would be with TouchID.

m463• 5 months ago

I "adapted" to losing the fingerprint reader.

Wow, it has a lot of unexpected downsides.

I've a lot of unexpected behavior from the faceid thing. Lots of unexpected swipe-ups that drop me out of an app and put me on the home screen. Can't unlock in the dark, too close to your face, off to the side, in your pocket. Lots of "I saw your face an unlocked" that I didn't know had happened.

fingerprint sensor unlocked when you wanted it to, with haptics. switching apps was a button operation, not happening when you didn't expect it.

dilyevsky2• 5 months ago

I get that getting rid of touchid haptic eliminates dead space but still blows my mind they couldn't or refused to figure out screen-based touch id as an option at least. Samsung has it...

shusaku• 5 months ago

Me too, but I’m going to have to upgrade. The lack of storage on my phone (64GB) is killing me - every time there is an os update I have to delete almost everything to make room

ho_schi3• 5 months ago

What I don’t like about FaceID is the premature unlocking. If you pass your phone to someone else it can unlock, especially for taking photos. And to allow strangers to make photos is intentional that’s why the camera app doesn’t need an unlock.

Aside from that all the gestures, positions and holding points are annoying. The usage of TouchID is simpler.

Apple could at least fix the security issue by unlocking only after swiping up. FaceID? Isn’t fast enough? Well. Than TouchID is better.

MysticFear• 5 months ago

Wow, I thought I was the only one.. or very few. Bring back small phones please

danielvaughn2• 5 months ago

People make fun of me but I'll never skip a chance to complain about how large these phones are. I hate it so much. I have a standard iPhone, not a max, and it causes real pain in my wrist if I use it too much. Was honestly thinking about downgrading to the last SE model even though it's several years out of date.

devmor2• 5 months ago

I don’t think anyone should make fun of you for it but I’m in the opposite boat. I’m so glad that they make the pro max variants because most smartphones are so small that it hurts my fingers to bend them in the unnaturally inward way it requires to hold and interact with them.

zem• 5 months ago

I switched from a pixel 3 to a pixel 9 pro over a year ago, and I still miss the smaller form factor. the pixel 3 really was the perfect size for me and I am sad I can no longer get a smallish phone with a high end processor.

nomilk2• 5 months ago

Funnily, the large display is the most important thing for me. I find my efficiency directly proportional to display size (which holds for laptops too).

If a 30 second task can be done in just 20 on a device with a larger display, that's absolutely worth it for me.

Also larger device tends to imply longer battery life too.

EduardoBautista• 5 months ago

I have found the iPhone Air much easier to hold than the iPhone 13 Pro it replaced because of how light it is, even though the iPhone Air has a bigger screen.

Telaneo9• 5 months ago

We made fun of phablets, only for them to become the default.

andrewmutz2• 5 months ago

Completely agree. And to make matters worse, I can't even switch to android without losing the ability to reliably send quality video to iPhone users.

Apple suffered for decades from Microsoft's anticompetitive OS monopoly, and turned around and did the same thing to the android ecosystem.

I have no idea why this sub is full of Apple fanboys. I was an Apple fan 10 years ago, but these days they no longer deserve your support.

sephamorr• 5 months ago

The phones get larger and the UI gets less information dense every release. More padding, more offsets, more dead space.

watersb2• 5 months ago

I'm typing this on an iPhone SE (2020).

It runs the latest iOS, although it's likely missing some of the new bits.

I prefer the size, although the screen that spans the entire front surface would be the superior device; I like the iPhone 13 Mini.

drillsteps53• 5 months ago

I dived into a niche world of small phones recently while looking for replacement to malfunctioning Pixel 4a (which is apparently now considered compact phone). There's a few small manufacturers in China making some, with 4 inch or 5 inch screen, like Aiphor or Unihertz. And by "small" I mean "they use kickstarter to fund their R&D" small.

Other than that... Nobody's really bothering with compact phones anymore, in the US or in the rest of the world. Bummer.

SingAlong• 5 months ago

Former small phone person here: I went from a small iphone to a large one just to substitute not having to carry around my ipad. I really wish iphone fold is here sooner.

ghiculescu• 5 months ago

I just bought a refurbished SE. It works great with newest iOS, Liquid Glass, etc. Do it!

Drupon• 5 months ago

it causes real pain in my wrist if I use it too much

LMAO

trvz• 5 months ago

You should look into grips that attach via Magsafe.

RileyJames• 5 months ago

I’m still running an SE2020. I was expecting the latest update (with liquid) to be the death of it. But performance has actually improved significantly! Very unexpected.

It’s been a great phone!

carefree-bob2• 5 months ago

I want to +1 every comment in this thread. Phones are too big now. I don't understand Apple's weird obsessions, first trying to make all the phone so thin you cut your hand holding it, and then making it too big to fit comfortably in your pocket unless you are walking around in camo pants.

You know what I would like? When I tap on the search and type the first few letters of an app on my phone, and the app appears, and I click on that -- I would like the app to open. Only happens about half the time now. UI is getting worse with every release.

brightbeige• 5 months ago

I have a pet theory about increasing phone sizes

Screen size is area (x^2) and battery size is volume (x^3). As battery life is a critical feature, a bigger screen supports (a nonlinear) better battery life.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44588733

pja• 5 months ago

Same. The Pixel 4a was the perfect phone for me: Light, screen exactly the right size to navigate with a single thumb whilst holding the phone in one hand, enough battery life, small enough to fit in my jean pockets comfortably.

But people buy big phones in preference to small ones, so that’s what Google & Apple manufacture. Nobody (from the POV of Apple/Google decision makers) buys these smaller phones.

dncornholio3• 5 months ago

I did downgrade back to my SE (from iPhone 16). Big selling point (aside from its size and rounded corners) is the physical button with fingerprint. I missed that even more than I disliked carrying a big phone around.

lurking_swe2• 5 months ago

my wife upgraded from a 13 mini to an Air and she loves it. She thought she hated the larger size of new phones, but after holding the Air in her hand she realized the weight and thickness was the issue for her!

It’s a tough call though because the Air has a lot of pros and cons! My wife never takes nature photography or macro photography, so she was OK with the 1 camera compromise.

If you truly want a shorter phone, my condolences lol. Apple seems to be ignoring this user segment.

apparent2• 5 months ago

I tried the Air and went back to the mini because of the camera compromises. One big issue for me was losing Cinematic video, which I use all the time.

laweijfmvo2• 5 months ago

for me it's the comfort/ability to put the thing in my pocket.

frereubu3• 5 months ago

Now imagine an iPhone Mini Air. I'd be all over that, camera compromises or not.

conk2• 5 months ago

I moved off the mini to get satelite messaging which I use while hiking. But now that T-Mobile/starlink support satelite on the 13 mini, maybe I’ll go back.

mikepurvis• 5 months ago

I stuck with my 13 mini for a long time, and had recently put a new iFixit battery in it too. I did finally make the jump to a Pixel 10 but sign me up with everyone else who misses reasonably-sized phones.

laweijfmvo2• 5 months ago

Same. This would be an obvious upgrade for me, if the overall size was anywhere close to the Mini. Oddly enough, the announcement doesn't even list the screen size, but I'm sure it's 6" +

smugma• 5 months ago

6.1" vs. 6.3" on the regular 17

layer810• 5 months ago

It’s basically iPhone 14-sized.

Jonovono• 5 months ago

If we could get a 13 mini sized phone with some better battery that would be great

llsf• 5 months ago

Same holding on the 13 mini, love the form factor.

scott01• 5 months ago

Same here, just replaced the battery.

wlesieutre3• 5 months ago

Finally moved on from my 12 mini, but I still have it sitting in my office and when I pick it up I think "wow this feels like a phone from the future."

Wish they made a new mini instead of the Air. A friend bought one of those, and frankly I just don't get it.

The screen is too big to use it one-handed, and thickness is really the only one of the three dimension of the phone that I don't care about how small it is (within reason). They probably spent billions of dollars shaving off half a millimeter and what do we get with that technology? Phone that's too big.

If this keeps up in another 5 years I'll be looking at flip phones and a separate camera.

sbinnee• 5 months ago

I don't get Air either. My guess is that Air is just a stepping stone for a foldable iphone.

joaomoreno• 5 months ago

Just upgraded from a 12 mini to a 13 mini with more storage. I intend for it to last another 5 years.

mrexroad3• 5 months ago

Been thinking of doing the same. My 12 is showing its cycles, but it’s either I have a phone that lives in my front pocket, or I can go phone-less.

I refuse to have a phone I have to constantly carry, hold, or move from back pocket when I sit. This damn thing is in my hands enough, I don’t need to increase the surface area for potential distractions.

subculture• 5 months ago

One can only hope... My 13 mini's performance, especially for the Camera and Safari seem to have hit new lows with iOS 26. I'm sticking with the mini for its size, but also its weight. So far the Air is the only alternative I think I could switch to, but apparently that's also on Apple's chopping block due to poor sales.

CephalopodMD• 5 months ago

They'll pry mine from my cold dead hands!

(Until they release a new human hand sized phone at least)

alpaca1283• 5 months ago

I have large hands but the 13 Mini is roughly the maximum I can use one-handed without doing the weird finger balancing act to shift the phone around. I get why most people like large phones - media consumption - but not everyone is into that.

I don't even mind large phones if they're done right. My favorite phone of all time is the BB Passport which you have to use two-handed, but it was actually designed around that and amazing to use.

sentientslug• 5 months ago

Sorry but if that’s the case you definitely don’t have large hands. If you did you’d be able to use the Pro Max one handed and reach everything except the top left corner by swiveling your thumb (Reachability enables you to reach top left corner)

r0fl2• 5 months ago

It always surprises me that the mini was ~1% of sales and yet the pro mini comments get so many upvotes

lotsofpulp2• 5 months ago

The release schedule was crap, as well as the 12 mini being an objectively bad phone.

Spring 2020, they released the iPhone SE 2020, 4 years after the previous iPhone SE. This satiated a lot of the demand for people holding out for a smaller phone. Then came the surprise with 12 mini in September of 2020, except the battery life and performance sucked, garnering bad reviews.

Then, finally in September 2021, they released the 13 mini, an objectively good, smaller phone. But over the previous 18 months, a lot of the buyers for the 13 mini had already bought the 2020 SE or were burned by the 12 mini.

roughly2• 5 months ago

1% of iPhone sales is more people than live in most countries.

layer810• 5 months ago

It was 3-5%, if I remember the numbers correctly. There are rumors that the Air didn’t sell better.

MagicMoonlight3• 5 months ago

Crazy people fixate. It’s why you get people talking about how 4o was the best AI model ever and crying for it to be brought back. (It had no internal thinking process and would believe you are the messiah without question)

izacus• 5 months ago

"1%" of the massive Apple base is still more phones than sales of iPhone 1, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and many others.

You do understand what a "percentage" means? And that there's a lot of people in the world, right? :)

ho_schi3• 5 months ago

Tenth of millions of devices were sold (somewhere between 20 to 35 Million?). You could build multiple plants for it, with government funding in Europe.

The MBAs at Apple noticed:

    * Big size is a status symbol in Asia. And TV replacement. Their a lot of people in Asia.
    * Due to vendor lock-in people need to purchase anyway. So just sell them the standard phone.

They got the sales anyway. We don’t have a “functional market”. But Apples marketing was weird. They named it Mini instead of Compact or Air. And launched it against the SE? A lot people already refused to move from the SE 1st Gen to the Mini, to due the increased size and missing TouchID.

So Apple assumed people want even bigger Max or Air. The Air which is actually much thicker most other phones. Both seem to fail.

philip1209• 5 months ago

Same. Many developers are "desktop"-native for their work and reading-focused for their media, so they don't value the gauche pocket TV-era of phones.

mrexroad3• 5 months ago

I showed my Costco membership QR code to the cashier the other day, and they suddenly exclaimed, “oh my! What a cute little phone!!”

It took me a second to even process why someone might say such a thing about my case-less generic 12 mini. Most of my close friends have 13 mini’s so I often feel my wife’s “regular” size iPhone is the odd one out.

javier2• 5 months ago

Best phone I ever had, the 12 mini

WD-42• 5 months ago

Still rocking mine

dont__panic• 5 months ago

Still loving mine as well. I held out with the 2016 SE for 8 years. Sadly it's looking like I might have to do that again with the 13 mini! It boggles my mind that Apple thinks it's worthwhile to sell the 16, 17, 17 Pro, and 17e all in basically the exact same form factor. And then the Air and Max in very similar form factors. Vary it up! I don't need a new mini every year, but something in the 5.4" form factor every 3-4 years would obviously have an audience. I don't care if it's a Pro or an SE/e model, I just need something that'll keep me on the latest iOS for security updates.

Sigh. Maybe the Clicks Communicator (at 13cm tall) will get my money.

dgellow2• 5 months ago

Get an SE 3rd gen!

barbs• 5 months ago

I'm on my 8th year of using my 2016 SE. Have replaced the battery and screen a few times over the years. A fair few of the apps I used stopped supporting iOS 15 so I've got old versions of those apps installed, but WhatsApp, Signal and my banking app still actively support iOS 15 so it works well enough for me, for now.

I have an iPhone 13 mini sitting in a drawer for when I need to switch.

apparent2• 5 months ago

Yeah, I wish they would commit to doing a mini every x years. Last year I bought a 16 and this year I bought an Air. I returned both after just a few days. I can't reach across the phone with my thumb, meaning I can't use it one-handed.

The new phones have some neat tricks (satellite connectivity comes to mind), but the on-device AI seems pretty mediocre and I value pocketability and one-handed usability more than the new gizmos.

When I asked myself if I would rather keep the new Air or go back to my 13 mini with an extra thousand dollars in my pocket, it was no contest.

dehrmann• 5 months ago

I wish they would commit to doing a mini every x years

The problem is all the tooling is pipelined for annual releases. You can't just find a team to do the mini; it has to always be there, and parts of it have to always be working on the next one. Your vendors will get grumpy because it doesn't fit their product cycles.

AndrewKemendo2• 5 months ago

I’m exactly there with you with my 13 mini and I did realize that it’s not gonna last as we really get into the era of local LLMs

Running deepseek 6B on the Private LLM app on the iPhone 13 basically set my phone on fire

woadwarrior012• 5 months ago

Running deepseek 6B on the Private LLM app on the iPhone 13 basically set my phone on fire

Hey, I’m the author of Private LLM. I hope you’re joking about the phone catching fire. Btw, there’s no DeepSeek 6B model, you’re likely talking about the DeepSeek Distill 7B model.

anthonyko• 5 months ago

i send them an iphone mini request every once in a while through the feedback form hoping it will make a little bit of difference: https://www.apple.com/feedback/

still holding on to iphone 13 mini hoping they bring back the perfect size. also trying very hard not to accidentally fat finger a ios 26 update.

MagicMoonlight3• 5 months ago

Being the crazy person that spams the feedback form isn’t supporting the argument for a new mini.

If people wanted it, you wouldn’t be faking the feedback.

miki1232112• 5 months ago

You need a passcode to update. There's no way to fat-finger it.

Besides, you can always delete the update (if already downloaded) and turn automatic updates off.

neuroelectron• 5 months ago

It's already starting to get slow too

EGreg• 5 months ago

Literally came here to write this

There are some models that everyone wants but companies discontinue or never make

iPhone 13s was the last one

Another example was the Cadiallac Ciel at Pebble Beach. Only ever appeared in Entourage after that.

calebm• 5 months ago

I've still got my 12 mini. Just got a new battery replacement too. Back in my day, phones were cooler if they were smaller.

_-_-__-_-_-2• 5 months ago

I just eBay'd a 12 mini after my camera started getting blurry. There isn't a viable flagship replacement.

g_delgado14• 5 months ago

curious, did changing the battery make the phone faster under the latest OS?

If find that after the upgrade to the latest iOS my 13 mini has been struggling with framerate and just overall feeling laggy.

randusername• 5 months ago

My iPhone 12 mini is hobbling along. A few rare apps are not usable because UI is clipped, the battery is throttling and making it sluggish, and it overheats all the time as a GPS.

Many mobile websites are unusable.

But I love the form factor and I'm going to keep it going as long as it is reasonably secure.

BSTRhino• 5 months ago

Also still on my iPhone 12 mini. A new mini would be an instant buy for me :)

hedora3• 5 months ago

Are there any androids with a similar form factor?

Ideally, degoogled android, of course. (Or even not android?)

The 13 mini probably still has a few years of security fixes coming, but after that, I’m going to consider jumping ship, and would like something that’s privacy respecting.

HoldOnAMinute• 5 months ago

You're holding it right.

Fezzik• 5 months ago

I stupidly downgraded to a 17 from the 13 mini two-weeks ago and I hate it. It’s the first time I have been earnestly tempted to just get a dumb-phone and be done with it. The constant growth of mobile phones is perplexing to me but I don’t doubt Apple knows what sells.

markstos• 5 months ago

That's a great phone for runners who need to carry their phone. Smaller, lighter, pocket friendly.

FrenchTouch42• 5 months ago

One of us!

bschwindHN• 5 months ago

I just "upgraded" to a 13 mini last year, after being on the original SE for so long. Wrote a little post about it here:

https://blog.bschwind.com/2025/01/11/the-original-iphone-se-...

deaux2• 5 months ago

Still holding onto my 13 mini.

That's why they stopped making them, because the people who buy minis are willing to stick with them for 5 years, whereas Apple wants you to buy a new phone every year.

Every single person I know who uses a phone of more than 4 years old, uses an iPhone 13 mini. Without exception. Now I'm sure there's plenty of HNers who use other 4+ year old phones, but I'm talking about non-tech people.

ajdude• 5 months ago

Every single person I know who uses a phone of more than 4 years old, uses an iPhone 13 mini

That's because they haven't came out with another small iPhone in more than four years.

Half the time when I'm home I still use my iPod touch because it's even smaller than the mini.

sevenseacat2• 5 months ago

*typing this from my iPhone 11 purchased in... early 2021 I think?

vishnugupta2• 5 months ago

iPhone 11 here. Chugging along just fine. Though after the latest liquid glass update the responsiveness has noticeably degraded. They've added lot of animations & moving elements which my poor old 11 doesn't seem to handle all that well.

otikik• 5 months ago

Same! Phablets are ungainly

BatteryMountain• 5 months ago

Worst part about big phones are that fingers cannot reach around the whole screen when using one hand, so you are forced to always use two hands. They also fall out of pant pockets easily and have no holes for lanyards.

gentleman11• 5 months ago

I'd still be using my iphone 5 if the battery didn't swell and if apps still worked with it and updates (sabotages) didn't slow it down so much

OccamsMirror• 5 months ago

Likewise, am still holding on to my iPhone 13 Pro for the foreseeable future. Even with Liquid Glass destroying my battery life.

In fact, if this phone died, thanks to Liquid Glass I would likely go buy an Android phone. Maybe a Graphene OS phone from Motorola.

gr• 5 months ago

Same. And so do many people around me. And many still cling to their 12 minis. Maybe that’s why Apple won’t make them anymore, people like us tend to keep them forever.

fergie• 5 months ago

UPVOTED IN HOPE

cztomsik• 5 months ago

+1 - if there was a new mini, I'd buy instantly

snickell• 5 months ago

I would pay extra to get an iPhone mini, they could sell it as a “pro” feature. Still holding on to my mini too.

lloeki2• 5 months ago

For a whole minute because of the display notch and since all iPhones moved to the island I got my hopes up that this 17e was 13 mini sized.

So much so that I went on to check the specs but no it's 6.1". Damn, so close, what a missed opportunity.

Angostura• 5 months ago

I’m in exactly the same situation. My wife just upgraded from a iPhone 11 Pro to a refurbished iPhone 13 Mini. My daughter just bought a refurbished 13 Mini too.

The second hand market for these phones seems pretty buoyant

duxup• 5 months ago

I abandoned mine for a 16. It’s not so bad but I miss my 13 at times.

zamadatix2• 5 months ago

Seems like a decent deal for what it has and getting the full support lifecycle out of it instead of used. Does anyone know if this gets $50 off with the education discount?

busymom0• 5 months ago

Here in Canada, both the education pricing and regular pricing are at "From $899". So no edu discount.

joshstrange• 5 months ago

I'm glad they added MagSafe with this version, that was my biggest "issue" with the 16e. Thankfully you can add a ring to the back of the device to "give" it MagSafe (the magnets part at least, if not the faster charging).

nixpulvis• 5 months ago

Isn't it nice to have a USB-C port and then use the back panel inductive charging for this?

I don't see why I would want magsafe on my phone at this point.

ocdtrekkie• 5 months ago

The biggest thing for me is not having a fragile connector involved when charging and using it at the same time. A MagSafe puck is super easy to charge your phone while browsing.

stephenr• 5 months ago

I don't see why I would want magsafe on my phone at this point.

I've been charging my 13 Pro exclusively via MagSafe for a couple of years... out of necessity. The charging port has... an issue... and I've yet to get it resolved.

Honestly the only time I miss being able to use the charging port is on flights, where I'm using someone else's charging solution (i.e. a port I can plug in to).

Everywhere else (bedside table, in the car, or even out and about) it's MagSafe.

The only downside to this approach is that you need to be more specific about which case you buy (they don't all support MagSafe) but in terms of convenience it's night and day better.

asimovDev• 5 months ago

I have one of those magsafe multi charger things that let you charge your iphone, watch and whatever you can lie on the base of the charger. I absolutely love it, since it doubles up as a bedside clock for me and it's nicer to snap things on the charger than to fiddle with the cables. I only use USB-C charging for my phone only if I need to charge it fast before leaving somewhere.

dzhiurgis3• 5 months ago

MagSafe is a must for older cars.

Good for bedside table too, but not a game changer.

haritha-j3• 5 months ago

My understanding (and I don't ahve a magsafe phone so maybe I'm wrong), is that a lot of the time, you need to buy a magsafe compatible case, i.e. one with magnets in it, to get it to work (assuming you want a case on your phone). But if so, then adding such a case to a 16e would also add back the magsafe functionality. So technically, having it on your phoneb doesn't actually make a difference right? Or am I missing something? I was considering getting the 16e because its discounted now.

lysace• 5 months ago

No mention of the amount of onboard RAM. (In this press release or in https://www.apple.com/iphone-17e/specs/.)

anshumankmr• 5 months ago

Assuming it has Apple INtelligence, 8 gigs seems plausible?

alwillis7• 5 months ago

Every phone since the iPhone 15 Pro has the minimum 8GB to accommodate Apple Intelligence.

alwillis7• 5 months ago

Going back to the 2007, Apple doesn’t reveal the amount of RAM for the iPhone in their marketing.

Occasionally there’s a feature that requires a minimum amount of RAM like Apple Intelligence but that’s the exception.

BoorishBears3• 5 months ago

I don't blame them, consumers won't exactly follow the nuance of tracing garbage collectors and why iOS can get away with less ram vs Android

wps• 5 months ago

I think the most valuable part of this “e” lineup is the in-house developed modem. The power and security benefits are probably enormous.

jeffbee2• 5 months ago

If the 17e had that chip, wouldn't it have Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6? It has neither of those.

varenc• 5 months ago

From the press release:

iPhone 17e also features C1X, the latest-generation cellular modem designed by Apple

But the 17e iPhone seems to lack the Apple developed N1 chip that provides Wifi 7 + Bluetooth 6. So presumably they're using off the shelf components for Wifi and Bluetooth in the 17e.

alwillis7• 5 months ago

The modem chip (the C series) and the N series are two different chipsets.

For example, the 16e has the C1 modem but the standard Broadcom (or whoever) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chipset.

jesterson5• 5 months ago

Indeed. I have 16e from it's launch and can't be happier. Battery life is incredible while no issues with connections whatsoever (I am heavy traveler so can test it on multitude of telco hardware)

bytesandbits• 5 months ago

do you run two eSIMs when traveling and if so how is stability / battery life?

lxgr• 5 months ago

I really hope this makes it to the Pro line soon.

I couldn't care less about multi-gigabit 5G speeds (my 15 Pro can already practically get ~2 Gbps – who really needs that in a battery-powered phone?!); give me better battery life (my 15 Pro gets warm to the touch doing absolutely nothing in some 5G scenarios) and better security (e.g. carrier-side location tracking prevention) any day.

LoganDark• 5 months ago

It looks like the only changes are 256GB, OLED, MagSafe, A19 and C1X. Anything else of note?

klardotsh• 5 months ago

16e has OLED, the new thing with the 17e screen is the ceramic coating on the glass.

hamdingers• 5 months ago

Pink!

amelius2• 5 months ago

Still no support for "actually owning your device." Disappointing.

flykespice2• 5 months ago

Thanks for saving me a click

brk2• 5 months ago

Considering that no major phone or carrier has embraced that model why would you expect it to suddenly appear here?

amelius2• 5 months ago

Someone told me that this company "Thinks different".

flykespice2• 5 months ago

Oneplus? they consistently give you the option to unlock the bootloader and install your custom ROM

mihaaly• 5 months ago

No Touch ID? Too bad.

conk2• 5 months ago

I really want to like the lower cost e phones, but the lack of ultrawide band support is a deal breaker. Does adding this feature really increase the cost, or is this a calculated move by Apple to ensure those who use this for air tags or keyless entry continue to buy higher end phones.

mattmaroon• 5 months ago

Probably both.

alwillis7• 5 months ago

The conventional wisdom is Apple believes anyone for whom ultra wide-band is an important feature wouldn’t be interested in a bargain iPhone.

persona_reuse• 5 months ago

I really thought the AirTag2 was heralding a watershed moment of UW2 in every model of phone.

paxys• 5 months ago

I'm happy for the existence of the e line mainly because it forces them to bump up the specs on the base iPhone. 17 is so good now that there's very little reason to get the 17 Pro.

alwillis7• 5 months ago

Yes, the baseline 17 has almost all of the features of previous Pro models.

Matheus28• 5 months ago

Except 120 Hz display I believe, which is big reason for me

alok-g• 5 months ago

Genuinely asking -- How about the camera? I keep hearing that camera is much better on 17 pro than 17 base.

The OP article keeps saying camera on 17e is 'stunning', but again, I am waiting to find out how it compares with 17 pro.

wongogue3• 5 months ago

At the moment, the camera is almost the main point of getting the Pro. And battery for the Pro Max.

indemnity• 5 months ago

I had an Air with the same camera system as the 17e, I believe.

Coming from a 15 Pro Max, it was perfectly serviceable if you were happy with the limited zoom options and lack of wide angle shots.

I never realized how much I used those two features, so, regrettably had to go back to the chunky 17 Pro Max.

Maybe one day…

TrainedMonkey• 5 months ago

Apple seems to be pushing for accessibility and volume. Cheaper phones, mac minis, and entry point mac that will be introduced on Wednesday.

mrexroad3• 5 months ago

Tbh, feels like the market is pushing for that and Apple is responding.

kykat• 5 months ago

709 euro in Austria (828.89 us dollars), a 38% increase in price...

rafaelmn• 5 months ago

US prices don't include sales tax so 20% of that is VAT

rahimnathwani• 5 months ago

VAT in Austria is 20%, so only ~16.7% of it is VAT.

Even if you subtract the VAT, iphones seem to be ~10% cheaper in the USA than in, say, the UK.

I wonder how much different factors contribute to this. I'm sure the stronger consumer protection laws are part of it.

beAbU2• 5 months ago

and double the starting storage at 256GB

Is massive storage on a mobile device really still a thing that's important?

I'm saying this as someone with 512GB, but I just checked and I'm using 85GB at the moment, including the OS.

Photos and videos are the likely reason why the phones have so much storage, but these days both apple and google offer decent cloud backup solutions which negates the need for massive on-device storage. I'd rather the storage be smaller, and the savings going toward more battery or whatever.

Am I the only one?

valleyer• 5 months ago

I don't think it's inherently impossible, but Apple at least seems to do a really poor job at local cache management on iOS for Photos and Messages attachments. I am constantly amazed to find my non-tech-savvy relatives deleting stuff from their phones to free up local storage.

brendoelfrendo• 5 months ago

Cloud backups are great for keeping your photos long-term, but if you want those photos on your phone so you can show them to people or share them, you need to download them anyway.

I need storage because Honkai: Star Rail is 32gb and I like being able to have more than one game on my phone.

beAbU2• 5 months ago

I know good network connectivity is not a privilege that everyone has, but on google photos I can scroll back all the way to 2007 when my digital photo collection started (I uploaded everything I had manually), and it's as if all those photos are local on my device.

jb19913• 5 months ago

iCloud seems to work differently. Nearly all of the photos and videos I have are stored in iCloud because my phone is only a 64 GB device. But I can scroll back many years and pull up any photo video and play or view just fine right away. I can swipe right through long sequences of photos from five years ago on a device that doesn’t have them downloaded. I’m not sure exactly how that works.

ljoshua• 5 months ago

I've had at least 256GB on my phones for the last couple of generations after having had to deal with storage issues beforehand, and it's been much nicer.

But I picked up a 16e for my son a few months ago, with 128GB, and yes, we're running into issues with storage space when it comes time to do an OS update. Between local music and photos storage, base storage, and the image for the new update, two or three times now we've had to delete stuff temporarily in order to get the update going. So I'm happy the new base is 256GB, at least that will probably last us a couple more generations before ~~640KB~~ 256GB is enough for everyone.

kccqzy2• 5 months ago

Both third party developers and Apple have increasingly become terrible at respecting the user’s disk space. Recently my iPhone started crashing as it ran out of space. I found that Apple Maps was using twenty gigs. Fortunately the fix is simple as the issue is widespread and it has become the first search result. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256084682?sortBy=rank

If you have 512GB I don’t think you really experience the worst of it. A lot of bugs are just Apple creating humongous temporary files before they are deleted as they age. Unless you check every day you don’t really know how much is really being used. You don’t really experience these crashes, and you have no skin in the game to make an informed comment.

prmoustache3• 5 months ago

Cloud storage do not help you sharing that old photo album with friends spending the night in a cabin far from the closest cell phone coverage.

Also, cloud service typically move your older stuff to colder/slower storage which are painfully slow to retrieve whenever you decides to do it. I realized this when browsing some old pictures before closing a google account I had not been using for years except emptying the gmail inbox every few months.

I personally prefer having a local copy of my files and syncthing them to my NAS at home (which is itself backuped in a storage in the cloud).

jb19913• 5 months ago

The iCloud backup built into the iPhone for me seems quite seamless. As I mentioned in another comment, I have several thousand photos and videos that don’t fit on my phone because it’s only a 64 GB device. It’s been this way for many years. But I can still scroll back and see all the photos. And when I click one I view it instantly. I’ve never noticed any lag or any problems associated with the cloud backup. It feels to me exactly the same as if they were local.

BoorishBears3• 5 months ago

If you've never used an iPhone near it's storage limit, I wouldn't wish it on you.

Performance nosedives, then it starts bootlooping randomly, and eventually you can't even delete stuff because there's no space to delete things.

You resort to randomly trying to remove apps, but sometimes that fails because of the stability issues.

The only reason I replaced my 12 Pro was storage, and I made up my mind never to skimp on storage again.

That phone lasted me 5 years and could easily have gone several more, so I see it as an extremely cheap investment across the lifetime of the phone.

ansgri• 5 months ago

Unfortunately yes. Some mobile games are 30+ GB (and this is probably the major reason for increasing minimum storage), high-res videos take any amount of space and are slow to sync with cloud, in-app downloaded data caches are routinely 2-5 GB each in addition to apps themselves.

BeetleB• 5 months ago

Downloading videos to play without using data. For families on road trips.

jb19913• 5 months ago

I have a 64 GB iPhone and I’ve never come close to using all the storage space in many years. I’ve got thousands of photos and videos but like you say, they are automatically backed up to the cloud and then the local version is optimized away until I need it.

giwook3• 5 months ago

I'd love to have a smaller/cheaper phone but I continue to hold onto my Pro from a couple years ago is for the high end camera, particularly the telephoto lens.

No, I don't need it all the time.

But when you do need it, it's invaluable.

gs17• 5 months ago

I have the same issue with my Pixel. It's nice to be able to use a real zoom when I need it, but that means I can't get the one that's otherwise what I really need.

rootusrootus• 5 months ago

What I would like is a really good single camera. If that's even possible. One thing I find sort of irritating about the multi-camera setup on my iPhone is that using it as a magnifier is often frustrating. Get too close to something and it decides to switch cameras, which then means now you're actually looking at something else entirely. Maybe I'm missing a setting somewhere, I can't be the only person to notice how awkwardly the functionality is implemented.

redundantly• 5 months ago

If they added a lens lock option (like the AE lock) it would fix this problem nicely.

esperent• 5 months ago

The latest Xiaomi has this, they call it continuous optical zoom. It's the first time I've seen it on a phone camera.

csomar• 5 months ago

No, it sucks (16 Pro). I've had lots of issues reading QR codes.

giwook3• 5 months ago

It's hard to get that in a single camera because of the size.

If you consider the size of professional grade camera lenses there's a reason why they produce much better images. But conversely it's pretty impressive what phone manufacturers have been able to accomplish with such a small amount of space. For 90% of use cases camera phones are sufficient.

derencius• 5 months ago

same for me. the quality of photos with my 15 max is great compared to newer and simpler models. waiting to upgrade to a 18 max when available.

and I have a nice portable camera (ricoh gr 3) collecting dust.

aetherspawn• 5 months ago

Waiting for the first pro line phone with both the Apple modem and Apple wifi/BT stack in it. Battery life is always a struggle when the phone gets older.

znpy• 5 months ago

Exactly. I guess it’s time to replace my trusty iphone se 3rd gen. It’s been a great phone though, best one i ever had.

pinnochio3• 5 months ago

Why not replace the battery? It's fairly cheap.

prmoustache3• 5 months ago

The example photos are so bad it is laughable.

shhsshs• 5 months ago

I'm trying to understand what you mean by this. Are you saying they're "bad" in terms of resolution, or artistic value, or something else? They seem good enough (far from "bad") by any definition I can think of.

prmoustache3• 5 months ago

Resolution != quality

A picture with a boring gaussian blur to fake a bokeh effect is low quality regardless if the end result is in high resolution.

varispeed• 5 months ago

Why they don't mention that the phone is essentially a brick when new iOS will require handing over your ID?

brikym• 5 months ago

My mother still has an old iPhone because it fits her hand. They don't seem to get this anymore.

cactusplant7374• 5 months ago

Smaller phones aren't great for older people because of the increased font size that they use. They can barely fit a sentence onto the screen.

fckgw• 5 months ago

Exactly, every older person I've seen has the Plus model (RIP) with screen text turned up to 150%. A small screen for someone with poor eyesight sounds like torture.

Aurornis• 5 months ago

They releasee the iPhone 13 mini for all of the customers who wanted smaller phones

It sold very poorly. Despite all of the YouTubers and social media posts calling for smaller iPhones, the real demand for these is very small.

The older demographics generally prefer larger phones because they have larger screens, which are better for aging eyes.

rgovostes• 5 months ago

I can't believe Apple expected the 13 mini to be a hot seller; most people holding out for a small phone probably would have already bought the 12 mini just a year prior. The 13 mini was an incremental update -- basically just alleged camera improvements that I could not discern myself in a few minutes of testing.

asdff2• 5 months ago

It was cannibalized by iphone 12 mini and also se and older iphones still being sold by carriers. All that going on and it still sold millions of units. If it was any other phone manufacturer but apple they'd be happy with those numbers. In fact if it was apple 10 or 15 years ago they'd also probably be happy with those numbers.

You also have to understand the psychological profile of us "utilitarian" iphone users. We only get one when our hands are forced either hardware failure or forced software obsolescence. The iphone mini came to market and was discontinued all in the time I was still using my SE.

orev• 5 months ago

The 13 mini sold poorly because all of those same influencers just would not stop complaining that it had less battery life than a Max. I mean, of course the battery life wasn’t as good, because it was a smaller battery! But the people who want a mini aren’t influencers who need a phone that can go 18 hours without a break.

It was absolutely this manufactured “range anxiety” that killed it.

hatsix• 5 months ago

"Didn't sell very well" = "Sold better than most Android phones that year"

kittikitti• 5 months ago

Ironic that there are so many iPhones but such little diversity in the design. It went from "Think Different" to "Conformity & Comfort".

klabb3• 5 months ago

What do you mean? With every launch they change the orientation of the camera array so you can tell who has the new model, and thus, is a better person.

jesterson5• 5 months ago

You need to be well versed in the attribution for camera disposition. I am too old for that so getting understanding who is the better person is challenging :)

user39393822• 5 months ago

I actually don’t want a smartphone anymore. The first iPhone was fun, the new one is creepy. I survived for many years without it, I think I can do it.

h05sz487b• 5 months ago

What, if any, mobile phone are you using instead? Even if I would not miss all the features I do not find these feature phone companies more trustworthy. Some are in bed with AdTech companies. Less features does not necessarily mean less tracking.

user39393822• 5 months ago

It’s a nightmare regardless. There’s no trustworthy hardware either, or at least very little. Maybe I’ll build a SIP client from an FPGA.

kmac_• 5 months ago

A 60Hz display in 2026 is quite surprising.

geoffeg• 5 months ago

I doubt the target market for the 17e would notice... or care.

batiudrami• 5 months ago

It definitely is less important / visible to some people. I have a 175Hz screen at home and a 120Hz iPhone, but I use a 60Hz iPad and displays at work and if I am not focusing on it I simply do not notice the difference.

mangogogo• 5 months ago

i absolutely do notice. i just don't care, or need it, personally

bigDinosaur• 5 months ago

Can confirm - I go for the cheapest and smallest iPhones possible (e.g. 13 mini) and could not care less about >60Hz on my phone, although I care about it quite a lot for laptop or desktop displays. 17e will likely be my next upgrade (if I can bear to part with my 13 mini).

WatchDog• 5 months ago

I guess they need something to differentiate it from the 17.

Of the differences, it's the one that would matter most to me.

higgins• 5 months ago

the only thing i search for on these announcements is phone width. bring back the mini

crossroadsguy4• 5 months ago

I learnt it the sad way that no one wants it except very very few people.

patall• 5 months ago

I do not think that is really the case. What actually happens is that smaller phones are often worse, i.e less battery life, worse processor, worse camera. Because there is less space in the device (and manufacturers think that people will buy a slightly thicker phone) and the screen doesn't use that much energy, the battery has to be smaller impacting performance. And users do not accept that. So unless someone discovers that you can make a full feature, big battery phone by increasing depth and weight of the small device, it wont happen / be popular. But once one company makes one, other will probably follow. Which again reduces revenue per producer...

the_overseer• 5 months ago

No. It doesn't sell. You so called mini buyers never showed up except in forums making a lot of pointless noise. If you understand anything about how businesses work you would understand how useless your comment is.

pixelatedindex2• 5 months ago

I’m sure they showed up, but if you compare to the entire market size it’s a small size like maybe 10%. They should have calibrated their expectations, but they didn’t. Also the battery life on them aren’t as good as the regular.

ezst• 5 months ago

Yep, let's drop the pretence that companies churning tech widgets do it for consumers. That's merely an inconvenience in the process of enriching stakeholders.

_-_-__-_-_-2• 5 months ago

give me a monochrome e paper android device, metal case, small like the 12 mini, week long battery life. k thanks bye

crossroadsguy4• 5 months ago

Because they can't sell that to you every year.

internet2000• 5 months ago

You should message the Pebble watches guy.

27thPW• 5 months ago

I'm waiting for the daylight tablet screen to make its way into a phone

mdtrooper• 5 months ago

Some years ago a chinese company released a phone with 2 screens, one typical mobile screen and other side a e-paper screen. But I don't remember what happened, but unfortunately this idea didn't succeed.

wiseowise• 5 months ago

Russians had that like a decade ago. It’s dead.

dwedge2• 5 months ago

YotaPhone. I really wanted to try that but it was way too expensive for a gimmick

jwrallie• 5 months ago

There are also Hisense phones, I had one for a while but having to live with stock firmware severely limited its longevity.

dwedge2• 5 months ago

The Mudita Kompakt, I've been rocking this for 6 months now: https://store.mudita.com/store/mudita-kompakt-global

It's AOSP, not Googled so things like Uber don't work. There's also no app store, but you can sideload F-Droid or Aurora using Mudita software. Case is plastic not rubber though.

jcmontx• 5 months ago

I have an iPhone 13, would this phone be a worthy update?

crossroadsguy4• 5 months ago

If your phone is a problem for you, or is insufficient then any phone in your budget that fixes your problems is a worthy upgrade. Otherwise no phone is.

johanyc2• 5 months ago

4gb ram vs 8gb ram A15 vs A19

Of course it's a considerable upgrade

Aloha• 5 months ago

I wonder if CarPlay will work on that, its still broadly broken on my 17.

gmac• 5 months ago

Must vary by car — not had any problems with my iPhone 17 + Renault.

dheera2• 5 months ago

256GB?

My laptop has 8TB. Why is Apple so stingy?

bigyabai• 5 months ago

Because service profits makes up an outsized portion of Apple's yearly revenue, including subscriptions like iCloud+ storage plans.

Markoff• 5 months ago

iCloud subscription

zamadatix2• 5 months ago

I'm using less than 100 GB of total storage on my phone. I'm not sure how your laptop is supposed to come into that but 256 GB is already plenty for the smallest possible option to select, doubly so since this is the budget variant.

The bogus part with the storage here is instead on needing to pay $200 more just to get to 512 GB.

dheera2• 5 months ago

My 256GB phone is already almost full because of all this app bloat. 6 different parking apps, 17 messaging apps because nobody uses the same thing, 13 different financial apps, EV charging apps, ...

I have one messaging app eating 40GB

On the other hand, a terabyte is cheap, they should just put a terabyte in the phone, it's what we apparently need in 2026

CharlesLau• 5 months ago

The reasons for using a small-screen iPhone will become increasingly compelling with the rise of AI voice assistants.

whizzter2• 5 months ago

Ah dang my typical luck, just bought a 16e on friday since my old 2020 SE broke down (same price as I would've paid for a 17e also since I got the 256gb version).

pinnochio3• 5 months ago

Not sure where you are, but you should be well within the return period?

whizzter2• 5 months ago

Bought from a retailer that has "no returns on phones with broken seals", and honestly with all accounts and everything else setup on the device now, the time taken to go exchange it and setup everything again, I'm gonna lose money by swapping it compared to possibly buying the next phone one year earlier instead.

ho_schi3• 5 months ago

No compact smartphone. Apples MBAs produce just more slight variants of the same phone.

The Google Pixel 10a is superior, same chassis with flat camera. The Pixel 10 doesn’t suffer a camera bump. At least a step in the right direction.

microtonal• 5 months ago

It's a bit of a shame that the 10a introduction price was pretty much the same as the Pixel 10 by that time. The Pixel 10 has a much better SoC and PixelSnap.

10a will be worth it when the price drops down to 350 Euro.

sevenseacat2• 5 months ago

They finally got a phone back under $1000 AUD!

Now discount the iPhone 16 so I can have one in a nice colour :D

alabhyajindal• 5 months ago

I wonder if the Small Android Phone project has moved forward since the last time it was posted here: https://smallandroidphone.com

lente• 5 months ago

I just signed up on their site and got a mail with the following info:

"To catch you up:

We’ve been hard at work over the summer building out a team and searching the globe for a manufacturer to build our dream phone. It’s been a slow process, but we’re nearing completion and expect to be able to kick off this project very soon.

Once we have a manufacturer locked in, we will be reaching out with a full update on the project and our plan to move forward."

brookst7• 5 months ago

Guess they’re southern hemisphere?

gingersnap• 5 months ago

I was hoping for this too, but when I saw that Eric Migicovsky went back to building pebble I lost my hope for it

coldpie• 5 months ago

So... there is a 4" Android phone out there. It's widely available, and from a major manufacturer. It's very usable, and it runs mostly stock Android. I have it, and I like it very much. Brace yourself for the reveal because you're not going to like it.

It's a foldable. It's the Motorola Razr+ or Razr Ultra (I have the 2025 Ultra). The outer screen is 4" and you can use it for almost everything you want to do. I use the outer screen probably 80+% of the time, since I prefer small phones. Every once in a while you run into an app or website that just wasn't built to function on a 4" display, but for almost everything I've tried it works great. You can then also un-fold it into a full-size 7" phablet when you need to do high-detail stuff like Maps.

There are downsides: it's expensive; it's a foldable, so reliability is a concern; and Motorola's OS support promise is not great at only like 3-4 years. But if you're willing to make those compromises, you can get a genuinely very good, small phone, right now today.

Once you get over the shock of having a foldable suggested to you (I was initially skeptical, too), give it a look. It's really genuinely a nice phone for small-phone-likers.

butz2• 5 months ago

How likely, that Motorola Razr will run GrapheneOS?

williamsss• 5 months ago

The weight is an issue for me at 189g. I've been looking for something compact, light weight, secure with a decent OS for 2 years without luck.

Iphone air is tempting at 165g if the screen was smaller. Unihertz Titan 2 Elite may hit the sweet spot if the weight is kept low.

jovial_cavalier• 5 months ago

https://www.unihertz.com/products/jelly-max

Noaidi4• 5 months ago

Are they using binnned A19 chips like they use the binned A18 chips in the iPhone 16e that has a GPU that can’t handle liquid glass? Asking for a friend.

everdrive• 5 months ago

Really hate huge phones. I have an Xr. It's way too big, and you cannot actually fully lift your left while you have it in your front pocket. It restricts your movement. Even though I'm holding onto this phone as long as possible, it's not because I like it. I hate the phone. But I'm going to hate the next phone too, and they cost so much, (I got the Xr for free) and society effectively requires me to own one. So I'm just trying to avoid a phone purchase for as long as possible since the next one will be terrible as well.

ako• 5 months ago

Looking at the specs of this, why would anybody need a more expensive iphone. This has everything a normal phone needs.

Noaidi4• 5 months ago

That’s what I thought when I bought the 16 E, but liquid glass ruined it because the GPU sucks. So buyer beware.

catoc• 5 months ago

Just disable Liquid Glass (transparency, motion). Better UX and better UI

Noaidi4• 5 months ago

Well, that's it. I cannot stand HN anymore. Literally my experience is being downvted and no one commenting on why what I said was negative. And just warning people to wait to by the phone is now frowned on? Nothing but a bunch of capitalist suck up fanbois here I guess.

Same thing happened on a quantum science post. If you cannot express why you disagree with me either you are a schill or your thoughts are not solid enough.

Halan• 5 months ago

Why would anyone buy this over a good as new refurb 16 pro with 100% battery and likely few months of Apple care left? Here they can be found for $650 or less

greenpresident• 5 months ago

They will be bought in bulk by businesses. The same for some of the laptops what you might find in a strange place within the lineup.

ubermonkey• 5 months ago

Interesting but ultimately still not my upgrade target.

I'm on a 14 Pro. It's fine -- plus, it's been replaced twice under AppleCare. Once was a Lightning jack failure, but the second was when it fell off my motorcycle mount and got run over back in October. (Amazingly, the phone part worked fine, but the mishap ruined the camera lenses.)

The upshot is that I have a phone that's only a few months old, and see almost no compelling reason to upgrade to anything else. It _would_ be nice to have USB-C, but that's not worth hundreds of dollars to me. And it also appears there are aspects of the 17e that aren't as nice as my 14 Pro, so ...

g8oz• 5 months ago

There are a lot of foldable options in the Android world now. I wonder when Apple will create an offering of their own. An unfolded screen could be great for reading source code, not that I've tried.

giwook3• 5 months ago

Rumor has it that Apple is releasing it this year.

butz2• 5 months ago

Why is it so hard to make a phone without camera bump? Not each table has a strategically placed depression so the phone would lie neatly on the table and do not wobble.

ivandenysov• 5 months ago

Google recently released a smartphone without a camera bump: Pixel 10a.

volongoto• 5 months ago

I believe at least some versions of Google Pixel don't have a camera bump (if you don't mind using a Google phone).

fmorel• 5 months ago

I don't mind the bump on most Pixels because it goes all the way across the phone. So it's still stable on surfaces.

iPhone 17e

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