Should you buy the next ‘budget’ iPhone?

The iPhone 17e has the same single rear camera as the iPhone 16e and the iPhone Air, but it’s a great snapper with excellent results in all lighting conditions.

Low-light images were sharp, while images under preferred lighting conditions delivered plenty of detail and excellent colour accuracy. From the single sensor, you can get an equivalent 2x zoom, too, and while it’s not the 8x zoom of the iPhone 17 Pro, it’s great for close-ups of your pets.

The iPhone 17e also includes what Apple calls ‘next generation portraits’, and that applies to both the front and rear cameras. This feature allows you to adjust both focus and depth control after you’ve taken a shot, so if you want to add background blur to a picture of your dog after the fact, you can, and it works well.

The one complaint I do have, however, is that the iPhone 17e lacks Apple’s new ‘Centre Stage’ front camera that launched on the other iPhone 17 models. It’s an 18-megapixel square sensor that allows you to switch between portrait and landscape selfies without rotating the phone, but the iPhone 17e retains the same 12-megapixel front camera as the iPhone 16e.

It still takes a decent image, and if Apple added all the good stuff to this entry-level model, it would make the iPhone 17 redundant, but it’s still a shame not to see it here.

I’ve compared the iPhone 17e to the iPhone 17 to help you see what you get for the extra £200 in terms of specifications. Here is how the two compare, on paper.