New in Smartphones: A Budget iPhone, a Samsung Privacy Screen and a Robot Phone

Trying out the iPhone 17e

Perhaps the highest praise I can give the iPhone 17e after testing it for a few days is, well, it’s an iPhone, and a pretty sturdy one at that. It comes in three colors — black, white and pink — and has an aluminum frame and a display protected by a scratch-resistant coating called Ceramic Shield 2.

Powered by Apple’s own A19 chip, the same as the iPhone 17, it runs the latest iOS software and can handle the artificial intelligence features under the Apple Intelligence moniker, though critics point out that Apple generally lags rivals in AI smarts. Among the features is Visual Intelligence, which enables the phone to identify objects it sees, and Clean Up, Apple’s version of a feature that lets you remove photo bombers and background objects that ruin an otherwise perfectly decent picture you’ve shot.

As with pricier iPhones, the 17e is splash- and dust-resistant. And it supports handy MagSafe wireless charging, again just like its siblings, for snapping on magnetic chargers and other accessories. That’s a key feature lacking in the 16e.

It probably says a lot about the customer Apple has in mind, given how the company is marketing comparisons with models long in the rearview mirror. In other words, the folks who have held on to their handsets for years, many, I suspect, among older users.

For example, Apple touts up to nine hours more of video playback time off the battery than the iPhone 11, which debuted in 2019, up to 26 hours, for the 17e. And with 256 GB of storage, it has four times the capacity of 2020’s Covid-era iPhone 12.  

The 17e also has a customizable action button you can press to trigger certain actions, such as toggling between the ring/silent switch or launching the camera.

Other features also found on more expensive iPhones include messaging and emergency roadside assistance via satellite, available when you’re off the grid sans cellular or Wi-Fi. And the 17e can detect if you’re in a severe car crash and automatically summon help if you’re unable to call.

I should also mention that some people will appreciate that this is a smaller, thus pocket-friendly, handset.

But it has trade-offs

Of course, to meet a lower price, Apple had to cut corners somewhere.

So the edge-to-edge 6.1-inch OLED display is nice, but it’s not as sharp or vibrant as the fancier screens on pricier models. It’s a tad smaller than the iPhone 17 screen too. If your eyesight isn’t what it used to be, you may want to gravitate to a handset with a larger screen, which, unfortunately, will cost you more.

There’s no “Dynamic Island” on the 17e for displaying various notifications at the top of the screen, replaced by the black “notch” that covers up the selfie camera and Face ID sensors. That's probably not a deal-breaker.

A bigger trade-off, at least for some users, is the camera. Don’t get me wrong; the camera here is perfectly solid for those of you who will mainly snap pictures of the family, and maybe vacation landmarks. You can still take portraits and shoot at night. And if you are one of those people upgrading a five- or six-year-old phone, you may be impressed by how far cameras have come since those devices were new.

On the rear is a single 48 MP camera that incorporates a 2x optical telephoto. But there’s no separate ultrawide lens as found on fancier iPhones and some of the Androids in this price range.

I tried MacBook Neo too

The price gap is even steeper when comparing the MacBook Neo with the $1,099 starting price of a MacBook Air, the next-least-expensive new laptop in the Mac lineup.

According to Apple, about half of Mac buyers are new to the platform, and I have to assume cost has been a key reason for many of the holdouts. In some ways, at $599, or $100 less if you’re getting an education discount for your college-age kids or grandkids, the MacBook Neo, priced where it is, is even more dramatic than the iPhone 17e. 

You will find many Windows laptops in the $500 to $600 range, give or take, including models from Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo. Many Chromebooks are priced less than that. Quality is all over the map.

The MacBook Neo base model has 256GB of storage, and the aluminum slab comes in four colors: silver, blush, indigo and citrus. You’ll have to pay $699 to double the storage to 512GB and add a Touch ID fingerprint scanner, the latter a bit of a bummer.

While affordable, the Neo doesn’t feel like a cheap computer. It weighs 2.7 pounds and feels more expensive than it is when you pick it up, not plasticky like some budget laptops.

The trackpad’s OK, and I liked typing on the keyboard and quickly adjusted to it, although I have to admit the lack of backlit keys bothered me a bit.

Neo is powered by an A18 Pro iPhone processor — yes, iPhone — and it is limited to 8GB of RAM. Such specs should be adequate for rudimentary computing tasks like web browsing, emailing, watching movies and writing, but you wouldn’t want to lean too heavily on multitasking, or do any kind of robust photo or video editing. Of course, the same can be said for Windows laptops in this price class.

The 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display is decent for the price but duller next to more expensive Macs.

The machine has a pair of USB-C ports, but not the faster Thunderbolt variety. You’ll almost certainly tie one port up for the charger. MagSafe charging is not supported. You may find more ports on comparably priced Windows laptops.

To my ears, the pumped-up sound coming through side-firing speakers when I streamed music on the Neo was impressive enough, though some of you may quibble about the so-so quality bass. I doubt many people shopping in this price range are choosing a product mainly for audio. Still, those of you who know what immersive Dolby Atmos spacial audio is will appreciate that the technology is supported. If you’d rather listen through your own speakers, it does have a headphone jack.

Last but not least, MacBook Neo capably runs macOS Tahoe, the latest version of the Mac operating system. That will tell you as much as anything that Apple has delivered a darn nice Mac laptop — even at $599.