Why a Cheaper iPhone Is Better For You

So, you're in the market for a new iPhone

while Apple just introduced the iPhone 17e,

and it has a lot of the same features

as the flagship iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro,

but it starts at 599

rather than nearly double the price at 1,099,

so let's discuss the details and get into the specs

and see what you're sacrificing

if you go for the cheaper iPhone.

[relaxing jazz music]

Starting with the iPhone 17e,

this is a smaller, more compact phone.

It is a 6.1-inch screen.

It's still a Super Retina XDR display,

which is shorthand for OLED, and it can get really bright.

It's very sharp, it's colorful,

so you're not really losing a ton here on the display front.

You will notice that there is a single camera here, though.

Now, the camera, Apple calls it a 48-megapixel camera,

and you might think that's almost the same

as the camera on the iPhone 17 Pro.

Its main camera is also 48 megapixels,

but actually, there's different sensor sizes

that aren't quite easily noticeable

if you look at just the specs,

but there are actually kind

of a few differences in the sensors.

So, the sensors on the Pro version is much larger,

so we can take in more light,

your images are gonna be sharper,

and overall much better than the results

from this 48-megapixel camera.

Also, there's more cameras here,

so you can go up to 4x optical zoom

with one of them, and you can do ultra wide

where you just can't really do that here.

The iPhone's cameras have come a long way,

but at the end of the day between these phones,

you're either choosing a single-camera system

or a triple-camera system,

so let's put these to the test

and see what you're really sacrificing

by going with a single system.

[upbeat music]

I have a human subject next to the camera,

and I'm gonna be taking a standard picture

with the 48-megapixel camera.

And now, let's do the same shot with the iPhone 17 Pro.

I just zoomed in on these pictures that I just captured,

and you can tell that the image from the Pro Max

is significantly sharper.

Overall, there's a little bit

of a fuzzy look on the 17e's image,

and that's because it's not the brightest scene here,

and it's struggling a little bit more in that lighting,

whereas you get far more detail in the shirt,

the hair, the face, all around in this picture,

and it's overall just better exposed.

And again, even if they have 48-megapixel sensors,

that doesn't actually mean that the same exact camera.

The Pro Max has a larger image sensor,

so again, it can capture brighter images, more data,

and overall, you should have a sharper, clearer picture.

Now, also, you are getting

those two extra cameras on the back,

so what that enables is the ability to go super ultra wide,

and you can get far more of the scene in the shot,

something you just can't get with the 17e.

Personally, my favorite is the ability to zoom in,

and the iPhone 17 Pro enables 4x optical zoom.

I can zoom all the way in

and get a pretty decently sharp photo

of something really far away, which, you know,

isn't necessarily something for photographers,

but even for, you know, you wanna just capture your kid

accepting their diploma on stage

or your kid at the soccer match.

Interestingly enough, this phone actually can take

8x optical-like quality,

so at 8x, it is technically a digital zoom,

but you're getting a sort of a cropped sensor,

and so the quality should be similar to optical quality,

so let's try that, zoomed of the same subject.

Again, the setting is still relatively dark.

These ultra wide and the telephoto work best

in brighter light conditions,

but you can still get a pretty detailed sharp shot,

whether that's with the 4x optical zoom

or the 8x optical zoom

and still have that little horse head pretty sharp.

So, low light is, again, one area where the Pro camera

will perform significantly better than the 17e.

So, if we can dim the lights,

now let's take the same shot again with the main camera.

At the end of the day, when you look at these two results,

you're still getting much clearer,

nicer skin tones even on the Pro image

rather than what you get with E 17e, which is, you know,

in its own right, still a good shot,

but just not at the level of quality

that you're getting with the Pro Max.

Triple cameras are very important,

but another big part

of why you would want a Pro iPhone

is a wealth of pro-grade filmmaking tools.

This iPhone has features like genlock

and support for advanced filmmaking codecs

and even has ProRAW capability,

and all of that essentially means that this can be used

and has been used to capture films.

For example, 28 Years Later by Danny Boyle

was shot on an iPhone.

We're getting more of

those advanced filmmaking capabilities,

and people are gonna be using those features

to produce better films on a smaller device.

Most people don't need all of those features as the Pro Max,

and you can probably be just fine

with the 4K 60 FPS capability video recording on the 17e.

So, for your everyday video shooting of your kids,

your traveling, all of that still should look pretty good

on this phone.

Just not as good as the Pro Max.

[relaxing music]

They both have the A19 chip,

except the iPhone 17 Pro has the A19 Pro,

so there's more cores for the CPU, graphics, performance.

So, overall, performance will be much better here

than what you get with the A19 on this phone.

However, for most people,

you know, you'll be able to run all your apps,

even some intensive games just fine,

and that should be more than enough

for the vast majority of consumers.

Of course, this is a bigger, bulkier phone.

Apple in this iteration has actually stuffed

some of its biggest batteries on the 17 Pro.

However, this battery is still pretty respectable.

But naturally, the bigger phone,

bigger battery in this thing will mean

that you're gonna get much better battery life

on the 17 Pro,

sometimes even close to two days if you're an average user,

whereas this thing will probably just last about a day.

Overall, there's little things

that you might not really notice

that actually impact the everyday use.

So, for example, both of these phones have USB-C ports.

However, the USB-C port in the iPhone 17e,

it transfers data at a slower speed

compared to what you can transfer with the iPhone 17 Pro.

Also, this phone charges much faster than the 17e.

When you look at durability, Apple uses Ceramic Shield 2,

its ceramic and glass mixture,

to protect the displays on this phone.

However, over on the back,

Apple uses Ceramic Shield,

an earlier version of its glass technology,

to protect the back,

whereas this one's some other version of glass

that just isn't as durable as what you get

on the Pro version.

One of the big new additions of the 17e

compared to its predecessor, the 16e, is MagSafe.

So, Apple has had MagSafe for several years.

It allows you to snap magnetic accessories

on the back of the phone just like that, like a wallet.

Or also, it allows for faster wireless charging

if you use a magnetic charger.

That is just such a necessary upgrade,

and makes this phone match its 599 price

compared to not having it on the previous version

because this ecosystem has so many options.

You can put it on magnetic tripods,

magnetic car docks, bike mounts,

and all of that just makes this a little more versatile.

[lively music]

To do a stress test, we're gonna run a intensive

and demanding mobile game on these phones,

and I have a thermal scanner here

so I can check the temperature.

And let's take a look at what the baseline right now is

for the iPhone 17e.

Currently sitting at around 89 degrees,

so it's a little warmer right out of the gate already.

So, now, let's run the game and take a look what happens

after running that game for several minutes.

So, I'm booting up Genshin Impact on this iPhone 17e.

Obviously, the more you do in the game

when you're actually playing,

the more it will use up that processor.

So, this game has been running for 15 minutes,

so let's do another temperature check on the 17e.

Overall, it's about 95,

and when you get closer to a specific hotspot,

it's closer to 97, 100.

Let me also just pick up the back of the phone

and just also feel.

It is warmer.

I can feel it.

And you can also see one particular part

of the phone is very, very hot.

It's likely where the processor is.

Pointing it more close to that area,

we're looking at 99 degrees.

That is significantly warmer than what we checked before.

The baseline right now is, for the iPhone 17 Pro Max,

around 76 degrees.

All right, let's try the same game, Genshin Impact,

on the 17 Pro Max, and let it sit for 15 minutes

and see how the thermals fare over there.

So, it's been about 15 minutes.

This iPhone actually feels significantly cooler

than the other one when I picked it up earlier,

so let's do a little temperature check.

Surface here is reading about remarkably 77.

We can see a little bit of more warmth

towards the top of the phone.

We're sitting around 79 to 83

on the back of the phone.

If you compare that to the 17e,

which was operating at about 95 to 100 degrees,

that's a pretty big difference.

This phone feels much cooler,

so you already are getting the benefit of just not having,

you know, your fingers really sweaty

by holding a really hot phone,

but also that cooler performance means

you can play the game for a much longer period of time

and still enjoy a pretty smooth experience.

Whereas on the 17e, the longer you play,

the phone will get hotter,

the chip will start to throttle itself a little bit,

and that'll induce some stutters

and maybe some lag that you'll see as you play,

which will then affect the performance over time.

[relaxing music]

Over on the front, you'll notice that this iPhone

goes for the very old style notch design,

so the face ID camera here is cut out like a literal notch

on the phone, and it doesn't necessarily look super modern,

whereas Apple has Dynamic Island on the iPhone 17 Pro,

and that is sort of a newer technology

where it just makes the entire phone

look a little more sleek.

But also, Dynamic Island adds a couple of new capabilities,

so when you have live notifications, for example,

if you called an Uber and you're waiting for the Uber,

you can actually tap on the Dynamic Island,

and it'll show how far your Uber is away

rather than having to hop into the app.

That functionality just doesn't really exist on this phone,

which has the notch.

Also, the screen refresh rate

is a big thing that is an underrated feature.

Apple has 120 hertz on the screen on the Pro models,

and that actually allows for the display

to refresh 120 times per second.

Now, the iPhone 17e has a 60-hertz display,

so that's only refreshing 60 times per second,

you're only seeing 60 images per second,

which means everything on the screen just feels

not as smooth and fluid as it does on the Pro Max.

[upbeat music]

Ultimately, what you're looking for

in a smartphone greatly depends on your preferences.

I know a lot of people who don't really care

about the camera experience of the phone.

They just want a really good baseline iPhone

that can run their apps and maybe a couple of mobile games.

And for those people,

I would say something like the 599 iPhone 17e

is a really great place to start.

There are also the people on the other end of the spectrum

who want all the bells and whistles.

They want the design, they want the higher end materials,

they want that triple-camera system,

maybe the larger screen.

All of those capabilities will draw people

to a device like the Pro Max or even the iPhone 17 Pro.

And don't forget, there is also the standard iPhone 17,

which has a few extra capabilities over the 17e

and has a little bit of a middle-ground price point.

I also do wanna mention that if you don't care

whether your phone is an Android or an iPhone,

most people do,

we do have another device that I think

has a little bit better value.

This is the Google Pixel 10a.

It also recently just came out,

and this phone starts at 499,

and you get many of the same capabilities

as the iPhone 17e,

except it can go a little bit further in some ways.

So, for example, it has 120-hertz display

versus the 60 hertz on the 17e.

It does have a dual-camera system with an ultra wide,

so that adds a little more versatility,

but at the end of the day,

you're gonna choose what ecosystem you want,

whether that's Android or iPhone,

and they're all still pretty good phones.

So, if you're looking for a way

to not break the bank and save some cash,

the iPhone 17e is available now.

[soft futuristic music]