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iPhone 16e beats Apple’s more expensive iPhone 16 in one big way

The newest member of the iPhone family is the iPhone 16e, a new model that packs many of the capabilities of the existing iPhone 16 models but at a lower price and with some feature compromises. The more budget-friendly iPhone 16e, though, actually has one big advantage over its more expensive sibling.

Battery life on iPhone 16e is a big feature advantage

Apple’s iPhone 16 comes with a variety of advantages over the new 16e model, such as the Dynamic Island, Camera Control, MagSafe support, and more.

However, there’s one key spec where the iPhone 16e has an advantage.

Battery life on the cheaper model is actually significantly better than the already strong iPhone 16’s performance.

Per Apple’s website, here’s the expected battery life for each model:

  • iPhone 16e: Up to 26 hours video playback
  • iPhone 16: Up to 22 hours video playback
Battery life

Video playback is one of Apple’s standard ways to measure battery life these days. It doesn’t necessarily mean your device will run that long, since we all do a variety of different things on our iPhones that drain the battery to different degrees.

However, this benchmark at least shows how the new iPhone 16e gets nearly 20% better battery performance than its more expensive counterpart.

Apple attributes this gain to the iPhone 16e’s new C1 modem.

This Apple-design 5G modem is “the most power-efficient modem ever on an iPhone.” Thus, Apple is able to get better battery life in its testing than the iPhone 16 gets, despite the two models having other comparable components.

Battery life is one of the most important features on an iPhone, so it’s nice to see the more affordable iPhone 16e be so strong in this area.

Are you surprised by the iPhone 16e’s battery life beating the iPhone 16? Let us know in the comments.

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Avatar for Ryan Christoffel Ryan Christoffel

Ryan got his start in journalism as an Editor at MacStories, where he worked for four years covering Apple news, writing app reviews, and more. For two years he co-hosted the Adapt podcast on Relay FM, which focused entirely on the iPad. As a result, it should come as no surprise that his favorite Apple device is the iPad Pro.