Apple and the Expensive Budget Phone

A few months ago I was thinking of getting a new iPhone SE and then I read that it would go up in price by at least 50 USD and that it would have an Apple modem and more and I lost interest in upgrading. For me the niche served by a budget phone is that it is affordable. By affordable I mean below 500 CHF to buy new, when it’s current. I saw that some phones are available for 100 CHF second hand,

Old, Cheap, but Obsolete Sooner

You could get an iphone 11, 12, 13 and so on for 100-200 CHF but the chance that you can keep updating it diminishes with time to the point where the phone will have a shorter shelf life.

Imagine that you buy a 400 CHF phone, such as the Fairphone 4. It is meant to be supported until 2028 so if you buy it in 2024 you have four years of use, at 100 CHF per year. If you buy the iPhone 16e you would expect for it to last 7 years, if you count 100 CHF per year.

Usable Life Span

The anticipated support like according to Le Chat is 5 years for regular updates and 7 years for security updates. This means that you’re paying 200 CHF more than the theoretical useful life of the device.

Part of the reason for this device being so expensive is AI and other features that are not budget options. The result is a phone that is two to three hundred francs too expensive, for what it is. With the 16e Apple have given up on having an affordable budget phone.

5C and SE

The iPhone 5C was a cheap phone but the iPhone SE was a cheap but high spec phone. The 16e is labelled as a budget phone but has the cost of a luxury phone. It has features that we do not need. AI is already available off-device. Face recognition is a gimmick when thumb prints work well. Battery life depends more on apps, and user habits than on the actual battery, and who isn’t in the habit of carrying an external battery in 2025?. In reality I lost the habit. I usually charge my phone before going for my afternoon walk.

And Finally

The iPhone 16e is not a budget phone. It has features that are not needed. Whilst AI might be nice to have it is not needed. We have apps that do the same thing. The proprietary modem is likely to have teething problems. By raising the price by 50-100 CHF per year Apple is becoming too expensive for some users. A budget phone should be affordable on a budget. Android budget phones are from 200-400 CHF.