Apple’s recently announced iPhone 16e hit store shelves yesterday morning. It serves as a new entry point to the iPhone lineup, and replaces the iPhone SE family. While the iPhone 16e has a number of big upgrades over the iPhone SE 3 that it replaced, there are some smaller ones that might’ve slipped under the radar.

iPhone 16e starts at $599 with 128GB of storage. It brought a 6.1″ OLED display, Face ID, USB-C, Apple Intelligence, the action button, and much more down to Apple’s entry level iPhone. It’s a flashy new phone with a number of great upgrades over its predecessor. However, I’d like to focus on the smaller ones.

Satellite connectivity

Introduced with the iPhone 14 lineup, iPhone 16e now supports Apple’s full suite of satellite connectivity features. That includes Emergency SOS via Satellite, Roadside Assistance via satellite, and Messages via satellite.

These are features that ideally you’d never have to use, but if you do – it’s incredibly handy to have. iPhone SE 3 never supported this feature set.

With the purchase of an iPhone 16e, you receive 2 years of free satellite connectivity. Unfortunately, we still don’t know what it’ll cost after the free trial period. Apple opted to offer an additional free year for those who purchased an iPhone 14 early on.

Crash Detection

Continuing the theme of “just in case safety features that you’ll hopefully never need to use” – iPhone 16e also supports crash detection. Thanks to the high-g accelerometer, Apple can now tell when you’ve been in a car crash, and call emergency services for you if you’re unresponsive. This feature can save lives.

Water resistance improvements

iPhone 16e features IP68 water resistance, allowing you to use your iPhone underwater up to 6 meters deep for 30 minutes or less. This is a vast improvement over the iPhone SE 3, which only supported IP67. With IP67 water resistance, you could only use your iPhone up to 1 meter underwater for up to 30 minutes.

Optical zoom support

iPhone 16e equips an all new 48MP sensor. Ever since Apple introduced the first 48MP sensor on iPhone 14 Pro, its supported a feature to take 2x optical zoom photos with the main sensor.

Essentially, Apple crops in on the middle 12MP of the larger 48MP sensor, allowing for each pixel to be properly represented in a photo. You may disagree on whether or not this methodology should count as optical zoom, but one way or another, it’s a lot better quality than a normal digital zoom photo, which would ordinarily be under 12MP.

Night mode photography

Apple debuted night mode with the iPhone 11 lineup. This allowed users to take better photos at night, thanks to a longer processing algorithm. Despite the second and third generation iPhone SE‘s debuting after the introduction of this feature, they never gained support for night mode.

iPhone 16e does support night mode though, allowing Apple’s latest entry-level iPhone to take much better photos when its dark out.

Source: 9to5Mac