Key Takeaways:

• Features: Apple might include MagSafe on the iPhone 17E.
• Release date: Possibly as soon as February.
• Price: There have been no leaks about price increases, which is good news at this point.
• Design: Could get the Dynamic Island and look more like an iPhone 15.

Apple might be continuing its lower-cost iPhone line, with an iPhone 17E reportedly releasing early this year. If that’s true, the sequel to last year’s iPhone 16E has a lot of room to step up. 

Some rumors point to improvements borrowed from Apple’s iPhone 15, such as Dynamic Island and MagSafe. If these are true, it could make the lower-cost iPhone 17E a compelling value option with fewer trade-offs needed to hit a lower price.

Apple’s $599 iPhone 16E was a bit of an oddity when it was released last year. It replaced Apple’s $429 iPhone SE, effectively retiring the older iPhone SE design that included a home button with Touch ID. Apple’s new “budget” device was a pricier amalgamation, featuring the body of an iPhone 14 with a display notch. It also had the USB-C port from the iPhone 15 and the A18 processor from the iPhone 16 to support Apple Intelligence features. 

To save money, Apple scaled back on features by including only a single 48-megapixel main camera and omitting Apple’s MagSafe clip-on capability (though it kept standard wireless charging). While the iPhone 16E is a solid starter iPhone, I found these omissions to be confusing, especially given that Apple increased the price of this entry-level iPhone from $429 to $599. 

An iPhone 17E could follow a playbook closer to Samsung’s Galaxy S25 FE. It would have many of the same features as the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17, like the smaller screen notch and an A19 processor, along with smaller stepbacks to the hardware that might be less noticeable. 

Apple hasn’t confirmed whether an iPhone 17E exists yet, but we’re keeping an eye out. Here are the rumors we’ve heard so far, with features that could help or hinder the more budget-friendly iPhone 17E.

iPhone 17E release date: February 2026

The iPhone 17E could be announced as early as February, according to a Mashable report citing the Digital Chat Station Weibo account. The phone is said to be launching in the first half of the year. This would align with the iPhone 16E’s February 2025 announcement, establishing winter as Apple’s preferred launch window for cheaper iPhone models. 

There are even rumors suggesting the base iPhone 18 will launch in the first half of 2027, but let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.

iPhone 17E design: Gets a Dynamic Island

One aspect that made the iPhone 16E stand out was Apple’s new design, which featured the iPhone 14’s body, a USB-C port and a single camera. 

The iPhone 17E, however, will allegedly look more like 2023’s iPhone 15, with a smaller Dynamic Island cutout, according to the same Digital Chat Station Weibo post. The iPhone 17E is rumored to have a 6.1-inch display with a cutout, including dynamically sized notifications for timers and app alerts, such as Uber pickups.

This design is corroborated by the Smart Pikachu Weibo account, which also notes that the iPhone 17E will have a 60Hz refresh rate screen rather than the 120Hz one seen across the iPhone 17 line and the iPhone Air. It’d be nice to see a 17E with a 120Hz display, dubbed ProMotion by Apple. But this is one area that could be less noticeable to people coming from a former iPhone SE or an older base model like the iPhone 14.

While Apple’s ProMotion displays have been available on Pro models for years — as well as on almost every Android phone that costs $300 and more — the smoother animations and always-on displays it provides won’t be as noticeable when switching from a phone that never had them.

iPhone 17E features: MagSafe wireless charging

It baffled me that Apple didn’t include MagSafe with last year’s iPhone 16E. The feature, which allows for sticking magnetic accessories like chargers and wallets without a case, has been on most iPhone models since 2020. It felt like a strange omission, since Apple contributed MagSafe’s charging and magnetic profiles to the Qi2 standard, both of which are on Google’s Pixel 10 phones, HMD’s Skyline, and the upcoming Clicks Communicator.

The iPhone 17E is rumored to have a glass back that supports magnetic wireless charging — likely meaning the phone would gain the ability to magnetically attach to MagSafe and Qi2 accessories, according to a report in The Information spotted by 9to5Mac. This would be a major improvement for someone coming to this phone from an iPhone SE or the iPhone 11, both of which do support Qi wireless charging but do not include magnets for attaching accessories and cases. 

While we would need more details, hopefully the inclusion of MagSafe also means the iPhone 17E’s wireless charging speed would increase to at least 15 watts, matching the iPhone 15.

iPhone 17E pricing

We’ll keep updating this story as more iPhone 17E rumors arrive. While there isn’t much regarding the pricing of the rumored phone, last year’s iPhone 16E starts at $599 for a 128GB model. I’m hoping the iPhone 17E starts at 256GB of storage, like the base iPhone 17. Apple still sells both the 16E and the iPhone 16 at 128GB, with the latter starting at $699.