I've struggled to recommend the iPhone 16e, but this Black Friday discount makes it a no brainer

The iPhone 16e on a gray background. Text reads: TechRadar Black Friday Deals

(Image credit: Apple)

The iPhone 16e has never been the easiest iPhone for me to recommend – despite being our pick for the best budget iPhone, I’ve always felt the 2025 successor to the iPhone SE is just a bit too expensive at full retail price. Luckily, the Black Friday gods have deigned to set things right, and you can now get the iPhone 16e for £499 (~~was £599~~) at Amazon.

• Shop Amazon's full Black Friday sale

This Black Friday Apple deal offers up a much more sensible price for Apple’s budget-focused handset, which both outperforms and lags behind its competitors in various ways. The iPhone 16e can run Apple Intelligence and the best mobile apps and games, but its 6.1-inch display sports a conspicuous notch and runs at a sluggish 60Hz. It’s a pick-and-mix of hardware, but £499 is a sweet enough price to make this a great deal.

Today's best iPhone 16e Black Friday deal

As mentioned, the iPhone 16e is something of an oddball when it comes to hardware specs. It’s got the same 6.1-inch display as the iPhone 14, with the same notch and 60Hz refresh rate, but under that old screen the iPhone 16e has the same hardware as the iPhone 16, namely the powerful A18 chipset and 8GB of RAM. That means this budget-focused handset can run the latest apps and games, as well as the full suite of Apple Intelligence tools.

Additionally, the iPhone 16e comes with just the one rear camera, while competitors typically have two or three. Luckily, it’s a really good one – the iPhone 16e’s Fusion Camera has a wide-angle lens and 48MP sensor that produce detailed and vibrant photos (you can check out our iPhone 16e review for examples). You can also crop into a central 12MP for a lossless digital zoom.

If you’re an Android fan or ambivalent about which mobile operating system you use, then I’d suggest checking our guide to the best cheap phones, or just going straight to the Google Pixel 9a or Samsung Galaxy S25 FE.

But if you’re going to buy an iPhone no matter what and want to keep things on a budget, this deal takes the iPhone 16e from a “maybe” to a “no brainer”, and makes it look like an actual budget option against the mega-value of the iPhone 17.