Despite the majority of Apple iPhone owners being on the company’s premium range of smartphones, Apple is not a stranger to the sub-$1000 price point with the successful iPhone SE being offered for well under $800 for many years. This morning, Apple announced an all-new iPhone model which will sell for $999.

Chief executive Tim Cook foreshadowed the announcement with a message on X saying they would welcome a new member of the “family” today – that family is the iPhone 16 family because this new phone is called the iPhone 16e.

In reality, Apple couldn’t release a new SE model because of the dramatic shift in their underlying technology over many years now.  There’s no more home button, there’s no iPhone smaller than 6.1 inches (screen size) and with such a big emphasis on AI today, any new phone has to have Apple Intelligence.

And the iPhone 16e fits there perfectly. In fact, it’s not just the cheapest new iPhone, it’s the best value given all it does have inside.

The iPhone 16e has the same form factor as the iPhone 16, it’s the same size, it has the same screen technology and ceramic shield glass, plus it has the same Apple silicon powering it, the A18.

Additionally, this new device is the first featuring Apple’s own chipset for mobile modem, the bit of the phone that allows us to connect to 4G and 5G towers.

What it doesn’t have is the Dynamic Island around the front cameras, instead it has the Notch, just like the iPhone 14 had.

Perhaps more significantly, it has just one camera on the back. This 48MP camera won’t do the ultra-wide photos of the other 16 models, but for most people that won’t even be noticed.

Unexpectedly, this cheaper iPhone does have the “action button” on the side for programming things like mute or other actions for a single click, but does not have the “Camera Control” button of the rest of the iPhone 16 range.

The biggest selling feature of the new iPhone 16e will be battery life. This device has the best battery life of any 6.1-inch iPhone to date, with a 26-hour video playback runtime.

And as noted, this device also supports Apple Intelligence, allowing you to get advanced writing tools, message summaries, email summaries and image generation on your device.

The $999 price point is impressive given in the US it was priced equivalent to a $1049 phone in Australia, but it’s still a big leap for previous owners of the iPhone SE, which it has to be seen this device is replacing, albeit in a different name and larger form.

iPhone 16e goes on sale February 28, and pre-orders start tomorrow.