iPhone 16e drops below ₹50,000 during Vijay Sales Apple Days: should you buy?

The Vijay Sales Apple Days are back, bringing offers on various Apple products like MacBooks, iPads, Apple Watch and iPhones. Among the top discounts of the sale, however, is the iPhone 16e, the entry level iPhone which can be availed at an effective price of under ₹50,000.

iPhone 16e price cut:

The iPhone 16e was launched at a price of ₹59,900 for the base 128GB model during its launch earlier in the year. However, during the Apple Days sale, Vijay Sales has listed the device at a discounted price of ₹50,990.

To sweeten the deal further, the retailer is offering a flat ₹4,000 instant discount for customers using eligible bank cards which takes the effective price of the iPhone 16e down to just ₹46,990.

The electronics retailer is also offering up to ₹9,000 exchange bonus on the purchase of iPhone 16e when exchanging an Apple device.

iPhone 16e specifications:

The iPhone 16e features a 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR OLED display with a resolution of 2532x1170 pixels and a pixel density of 460ppi. The screen comes with a typical brightness of 800 nits and a peak brightness of 1200 nits. It is protected by Apple's Ceramic Shield.

Under the hood, the handset is powered by the 3nm Six-Core A18 chip along with a 4-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine. The A18 chip, which is the same SoC on iPhone 16, means that the iPhone 16e is the cheapest device that is eligible to run Apple Intelligence features like Genmoji and Image Playground. While the phone comes with iOS 18 onboard, it is also eligible for the latest iOS 26 upate with the Liquid Glass UI.

For photography, the iPhone 16e sports a single 48MP wide-angle lens with an f/1.6 aperture. It supports optical image stabilization (OIS) for video and offers a 2x Telephoto mode via the Photonic Engine.

On the front, there is a 12MP TrueDepth camera with an f/1.9 aperture and autofocus.

The smartphone is IP68 rated for dust and water resistance, meaning it can handle being submerged in up to 1.5 meter of water for up to 30 minutes. The iPhone 16e comes with 5G support, LTE, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.3, and NFC.

Should you buy iPhone 16e?

If you are an Apple fanatic and limited by budget, iPhone 16e could be a goood choice for you at this price to try out Apple Intelligence and iOS 26 features. However, if you can upgrade your budget by around ₹10,000, iPhone 16 at an effective price of around ₹57,000 is a very good option at this price.

On the Android side of things, there are a few compelling options in the sub- ₹50,000 price range like the recently launched OnePlus 15R, OnePlus 12, Oppo Reno 15 and Vivo X200 FE.