Apple iPhone 17e review

6.1-inch, 60Hz OLED display

The iPhone 17e uses the exact same panel as last year's 16e, which in turn used the one found in the older iPhone 13 and 14. It's a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED panel with 2,532 x 1,170px resolution.

Unlike the premium iPhones, the 17e settles with an OLED screen with a refresh rate at 60Hz, instead of 120Hz, which is quite underwhelming. At least HDR10 and Dolby Vision HDR standards are supported, along with neat features like True Tone color adjustment depending on the ambient lighting conditions and Night Shift.

Another big drawback in our eyes is the huge, clunky notch and the thick side bezels. From a practical standpoint, this shouldn't matter, but it looks outdated for a 2026 release.

iPhone 17e

We are not particularly impressed with brightness either. In both manual and auto brightness mode, we got a little over 800 nits on a 75% white surface, and the numbers didn't change on a 10% white patch either.

With the added anti-reflective coating, the legibility outside on a bright sunny day isn't bad per se, but brightness still feels lower than it should, even for a more budget-oriented device.

Battery life

The iPhone 17e relies on the same 4,005 mAh battery as its predecessor, but the newer Apple A19 chipset is touted as more energy-efficient, which could explain the unexpected battery life gains.

The iPhone 17e scored better in almost all tests compared to its predecessor and earned a respectable 15:30h Active Use Score. At least compared to other phones equipped with a battery with a similar capacity. It even managed to beat the vanilla iPhone 17, and it's certainly breathing down the iPhone 16's neck.

The 17e had a strong showing in the screen-on battery tests across the board. There's also a notable improvement over the iPhone 16 and 16e in the LTE call runtime, which is probably a direct result of the newer C1X modem, which Apple claims to be more efficient than the previous generation.

Charging speed

Apple usually doesn't go into much detail when it comes to charging specs, but the European retail box tells us we can expect a 26W peak charging power. Apple promises 50% battery charge in 30 minutes using a 20W Power Delivery charger or higher. That's just about the same as last year, but we were left surprised.

Since Apple doesn't ship the phone with a charger, we just used a compatible, third-party 100W charger supporting PPS profiles. The results we got are slightly better than last year. The iPhone 17e edged out the 16e at the 15 and 30-minute marks and posted significantly faster charging time to 100%. According to our test, the iPhone 17e can charge from 1 to 100% in 1 hour and 34 minutes, which is about 16 minutes faster than before.

We also measured the charging power, and we are happy to report the phone maintained about 25W for quite some time before dialing down to around 18W for the better part of the test. These figures aren't much different compared to last year, but it does seem like Apple went for a more aggressive charging curve, tuning the 17e to stay a little longer at its peak charging power.

Now, while these subtle improvements in the charging curve are more than welcome, they are not enough for it to overtake the iPhone 17 or the Galaxy S26, for example. The handset is also far behind other similarly priced Android phones.

Still, it seems to be roughly on par with the Pixel 10a, for example, and it can beat the iPhone 16 to the finish for what that's worth.

When it comes to wireless charging, Apple has finally upgraded the 17e to support MagSafe. As a result, the maximum charging power rating has also increased from 7.5W to 15W. While the bump in power is not huge, we well appreciate the option to attach magnetic accessories to the back of the iPhone 17e.

iPhone 17e and MagSafe accessories

Even though the iPhone 17e isn't the fastest-charging device around, Apple has included a toggle to limit the charging to around 80% and complete the full charge just before you pick it up. It's a smart charging implementation, of sorts.

Speakers

The iPhone 17e features a standard hybrid stereo speaker setup with the top one acting as an earpiece, while the bottom one is a full-fledged loudspeaker.

Additionally, the speakers support spatial audio and Dolby Atmos. In person, it does feel less directional and more spatial than other phones.

While the iPhone 17e's speakers seem a notch quieter, earning a "Good" -26.7 LUFS loudness score, we hear no significant difference in the tuning.

The iPhone 17e still sounds excellent with clear vocals, balanced high-frequency sounds and prominent bass that makes music tracks sound warm and full. Definitely one of the best speakers, if not the best, in their respective price bracket.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.