The iPhone 16th has just given Samsung and other smartphones manufacturers a big advantage

It’s been almost three years since the launch of the third generation – and now final – iPhone SE, and today Apple has finally unveiled its successor. THE iPhone 16th It is not only an involuntary return to one of the best Samsung phones of the 2010s, it is also the daring strategy of Apple to offer a more affordable iPhone. It is over time of the Imessage machines of less than $ 500. Now, if you want your children, your parents or any other budgetary person in your life to have a iphoneYou will have to pay much more money to get there.

Of course, for your additional $ 170 – it’s a total of $ 600, against $ 430 – you get a fairly massive upgrade. The iPhone 16th combines the design of the iPhone 14, Notch and everything, with more modern elements, in particular, a passage to the USB-C and the Apple SOC A18. Although this is not the exact configuration that you will find in Apple’s iPhone 16 more, it is closer than the iPhone SE. And yet, I cannot help but feel as if this launch gives Android manufacturers a chance to retaliate in the budgetary space, the one they have not had since the first iPhone Apple arrived almost nine years ago.

The iPhone 16th is a really strange product

Some of yesterday, some of today, some of tomorrow

On paper, $ 600 for the iPhone 16th is not a good deal. It is the same price at which the iPhone 14 was marked until this morning, when Apple officially removed it for this new device. There are real advantages to this device compared to those he replaced, including USB-C, a a lot Faster processor, more RAM and (apparently) the same main sensor of 48 Mp seen on the iPhone 16. I do not know if these movements – most of which were inspired by a focus on AI tools, Either the USB -C requirements of the EU – justify a movement up to $ 600.

Although it was easy for Android fans to make fun of the iPhone SE for, in fact, to be a collection of spare parts gathered in a single device, this did not mean that the phones were bad . The former editor -in -chief of the AP, Ryne Hager, reviewed the third generation iPhone in 2022, and there is a reason for which he called it an “easy Android discharge ramp”. Aside from the dated design, the three iPhone models have full full -fledged phones; There is a reason why we have seen on two years of rumors about what his successor could be.

In a post-RCS world, I’m just not sure I see the obvious value on paper here. The iPhone 16th lacks crucial features, including the management of Magsafe, and as the very first product to be shipped with the internal (and controversial) modem of Apple, I would be worried to see how it resists use daily. I am not particularly surprised by the decision to really push the AI ​​here – Apple could even market an device not taken care of after month of Apple Intelligence being the fashionable word of its announcements? – But for the moment, you cannot tell me that the Magsafe support would not be a better feature to add for the type of buyer by considering an “budget” iPhone.

You would not believe what Android can deliver for less than $ 600

I can’t even list everything here

All this is exacerbated by the fact that the Android space less than $ 600 could be the best it has ever been. My colleague AP Stephen Radochia gave the OnePlus 13r a glowing exam last month. Although yes, it is also a smartphone of $ 600, once you take it into this OnePlus will grant you a $ 100 discount for any Smartphone trade, whatever the age or condition, are talking about a lot of phone for only $ 500. It’s bigger – a demotion to some, for sure, but it’s not like the 6.1 inch iPhone 16th little – He has a handful of camera sensors and a massive battery that I am not sure of you can Kill in the space of a single day.

If this $ 100 discount cheat, look at the 8A pixel. Of course, he is a year old, but he is just as capable of performing most AI tasks – in particular given the dull state of Apple’s intelligence at the moment – and it is regularly On sale for only $ 400. Of course, you still do not have a Magsafe support, but you mark two excellent camera sensors, a light and comfortable chassis and some real colors. Sorry Apple, but the black and white options do not cut it here.

The very existence of discounts in fact brews the large open market on the Android side of the fence. Although the iPhones discounts generally do you looking for carrier offers – which often require new lines – the RAZR + 2024 motorcycle is to be won now for only $ 580. It is a modern rocking phone with two excellent screens, including a large 4 -inch outdoor panel, for $ 20 less that the cheapest modern option of Apple.

Samsung has almost too many options of less than $ 600 to choose, the series has massively popular essentially becoming the default experience of the user interface for millions of smartphones users. After the launch of the Galaxy S25, we saw Samsung work to update various models in its range of series A for 2025.

And hey, I would be neglected if I did not mention the 9a pixel. Google’s latest mid -range smartphone could arrive next month, and frankly, I think Google should move forward NOW. Each leak suggests an excellent successor to the 8a pixel and the perfect rival to the iPhone 16th. Two camera sensors, a larger battery, the G4 tensor for all the treatment of the AI ​​that you could wish and – probably – all the AI ​​tools that were originally launched on the pixel 9 the year last. Everything for, if the leaks should be believed, $ 500.

Affordable Android devices are better than ever

It’s time that Google acts like that

Listen, I am not unconscious of the state of the market. The iPhone is massively popular in the United States, and Apple is shocking good to lock its users. There is a good chance that anyone looking at the iPhone 16th would never consider an Android device, whatever the value. The first days of cheap Android equipment did not help here, putting in place the idea that you to have To buy an iPhone to have a good mobile experience, despite how many consumers compared Apple product to $ 200 of TRACFONE devices from 2013.

It is also possible that Apple is the potential price of prices in the price of the iPhone 16th, and that each Android phone would be Having it beat on the price loses if and when these measures come into force. But as it stands, the iPhone that Apple is about to pre-order on Friday is, in the eyes, worse than many of my favorite Android phones of the past year, and with devices like Pixel 9a The horizon, which divides between Android prices and the iPhone, could only deepen.

The real threat here, I think, is the MVNOs who will continue to sell iPhone 14 models (and even iPhone 13) for $ 500 or less. However, I hope that Google – and others, including Samsung, OnePlus and Motorola – work to clearly indicate to buyers what their modern devices offer on the new flagship apparatus of the Apple budget. There is a real opportunity here to rewrite the concept of a “cheap” Android phone. All we need is that one of these brands strikes first.