iPhone 16e is a FRANKENSTEIN Phone...? Teardown + Magsafe

Metatube

We got our hands on the iPhone 16e and tore it down to see what’s inside. But we didn’t stop there—we upgraded it to have MagSafe and tested its compatibility with older iPhone parts. Turns out, Apple made some interesting choices with this one…  Repair Tools ( Regularly Updated - With Soldering Tools ) :  https://www.phonerepairguru.com/tools  Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCOrp7GPgZA8EGrbOcIAsyQ/join  Dubbing Software Used : https://try.elevenlabs.io/zumjc7ild6l7  Thank you for watching! Buy My BLUE Mat: https://a.co/d/h3iPG3i Website ( Contact/Tools/Merch/Short Video Products/ Articles): https://www.phonerepairguru.com/ Ask a Question (Join the Subreddit): https://www.reddit.com/r/PhoneRepairTalk/ PROMO INQUIRIES: prg@prettygoodagents.com  Social: Check us out on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealphonerepairguru/?hl=en Or on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@phonerepairguru?lang=en Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/phonerepairguru Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealprg?lang=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/phonerepairguruu/  (The Following  contains affiliate links)  My Repair Tools : https://www.phonerepairguru.com/tools  Filming Gear: Lumix GH5 https://geni.us/PANASONICLUMIXGH5 Rode HS2 Headset Microphone https://amzn.to/3UdzOos Rode Wireless Go Mic https://geni.us/RHODEWIRELESSGO Rode VideoMicro https://geni.us/RHODEMIC Studio Box Lights https://geni.us/STUDIOLIGHTS Studio LED Lights https://amzn.to/4bRaTvO Spinning Thing https://geni.us/ROTATINGDISPLAYSTAND  Support The Channel By Shopping On Amazon/Aliexpress Through These Links: https://amzn.to/3W8xu1n https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DnEBxV1   Phone Repair Guru assumes no liability for any damage caused to your phone as a result of any of the information contained in this video.  Do not attempt unless you are open to the possibility of further damaging your device.

Transcript

00:00Apple just dropped their most affordable iPhone in years. Affordable to who?

00:05No one knows. To hit the price point of a very affordable $600 phone, they made

00:11some interesting choices. No magsafe, no ultra wideband chip, and this? A 60 Hertz

00:16display? Bruh. What exactly is the iPhone 16e? A budget phone or a Frankenstein mix

00:23of past models? Today we're opening this guy up to see what parts Apple reused,

00:29what they removed, and since there's no magsafe, well, we might just fix that

00:34ourselves. This just feels weird. We're back to having the notch and the one

00:38camera. I can see this being popular with corporations or just the average

00:42consumer, but for me, well, I probably would never use a phone like this. The

00:47iPhone SE was a fan favorite and actually affordable. This one, not so much.

00:52The A18 chip, though, will guarantee the longevity of this device and Apple also

00:57snuck in a teardown sneak peek, so it's likely this uses the same battery

01:01removal tech as the 16 and probably some other components from past generations.

01:05Let's cook the iPhone 16e. If this opens up anything like the iPhone 14, it'll

01:11open from the back, meaning we need to cook the rear end. The iPhone 16e is done

01:16cooking. This screen on the front here looks almost identical to the iPhone 14

01:21screen and in past generations, the SE has had interchangeable parts, so will

01:26that be the case this time around? We're gonna test that out a little bit later.

01:29We'll take our screwdriver and the pencil bit and hit the iPhone 16e with

01:35an unscrew. So the fact that this is named 16e suggests that there might be a

01:3917e or an 18e. Who knows? We'll slap that in our display or back glass remover and

01:45there we go. While applying some heat, we can just pull up on the screen. Oh, now we

01:51can go ahead and take a plastic prying card and pry in between the frame and

01:56the back glass. Now we'll remove the phone. It looks like we can now open it

02:02up and that is the iPhone 16e. Right off the bat, this looks very similar to both

02:09the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 15, aside from the rear camera. It's strange to see

02:15one camera in an iPhone nowadays, but here we are. We also have a massive

02:20battery. This is so much bigger than what I'm used to, so by removing the camera,

02:25they were able to add a bigger battery. Is that a good trade-off? I'm not sure.

02:29It's really up to you. Let's go ahead and unscrew this plate here to get that back

02:34glass removed. Before we disconnect the back glass, I forgot we have to

02:38disconnect the battery obviously. So we're gonna go ahead and do that and

02:41disconnect the battery and we'll disconnect the back glass. Now we can

02:46remove it and there it is. In all prior SE versions, back glass wasn't a thing

02:52you could remove. It was glued to the actual frame, but going forward, Apple

02:57seems to be adopting this new model where the back glass can be removed,

03:00which I'm grateful for. It's good to have removable back glass because it makes

03:05the device more repairable. On the back glass, we obviously have the wireless

03:09charging coil here, which is now 7.5 watts. A bit of a downgrade and honestly

03:13wireless charging will be painfully slow with this device, but I still want to see

03:17if we can add the MagSafe magnets, so that's something we're gonna explore in

03:20a little bit. But for now, let's take a look at that battery. The battery life on

03:24this phone is really good and that's partly because of the new C1 chip, but we

03:28still don't know how many milliamp hours this battery is. We're gonna basically

03:32use this tool, which runs a current through the electrically activated

03:36adhesive and the battery should come right off just like that. That was

03:41incredibly easy and if you want any tools that I have, including this one,

03:46they're all available on my website. I've posted the links to everything. Now let's

03:50remove the alligator clip and let's turn this guy around. So on the battery, it

03:55says it has a rating of 3.88 volts and 4005 milliamp hours. Obviously, the actual

04:04rating will probably be a little bit less, but 4005 milliamp hours is

04:09significantly larger than any other iPhone this size. We'll compare the iPhone

04:1416e to the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 14, because so far, this looks like a

04:20Frankenstein mix of this, this, and even the iPhone 16 with the battery. So right

04:26off the bat, I can see that the front cameras don't look like the iPhone 15.

04:31Obviously, they look like the iPhone 14, but the earpiece speaker underneath

04:36likely the same as the iPhone 15 and the same thing with the loudspeaker down

04:41here. They're literally the same size. Also, the same thing with the Taptic

04:45Engine. The board layout is very different and pretty much all the

04:49changes in this phone revolve around having that bigger battery and that

04:52singular camera. We're gonna do some tests later and see what components work

04:56with the 16e, but for now, let's go a little bit deeper. We'll go ahead and

05:01unscrew the motherboard. Something a lot of people don't factor in with this

05:04device is that using older parts means cheaper repairs and cheaper repairs

05:10means an overall more affordable device because everything breaks at one point

05:14or another. If this device uses older parts, well, you can expect to pay less

05:19for repairs, which is always a perk and makes this phone more repairable than

05:23other iPhones. Now, we can go ahead and remove the motherboard. We know from our

05:28friends at Rewa that the A18 chip and the C1 chip are within the board. It's a

05:33sandwich board and within the board, there we go. That's the A18 chip and that

05:37is the C1 chip. The A18 chip is actually a 6-core CPU and a 4-core GPU. It's been

05:45binned, but it has a 16-core neural engine, so you're still gonna be able to

05:49use Apple Intelligence as you usually would. We're gonna go ahead and remove

05:53all the other small components and see if any of them resemble components from

05:58prior generations. Yeah, I've been kind of busy. I tore down the iPhone 14, the

06:06iPhone 15, the 16, and obviously the 16e, and what I found was kind of weird. So,

06:11the iPhone 16 has no compatible parts with the iPhone 16e, but the iPhone 14

06:17and 15, well, that's where it gets weird. So, the iPhone 14's front camera fits in

06:21the 16e, but doesn't work at all. The 14's Taptic Engine, or vibration motor, fits

06:27and works, while the 15's only seems to fit, but just doesn't work. The 15 loud

06:32speaker, on the other hand, works with the 16e, while the 14's doesn't. None of the

06:37batteries fit in the 16e, which I expected, and the sim reader of the 14

06:42seems to work, while the 15's doesn't. Then comes the wireless charging coil. Both

06:48the 14 and the 15's wireless charging coil fit on the iPhone 16e and work, but

06:55the flash doesn't. And I know what you're thinking. Does it charge faster with one

06:59of the other coils? I'm still not a hundred percent sure, but according to my

07:03amp meter, it doesn't. Having these installed also causes the phone to

07:07restart, but there's a way around this I might try in a short video. Now for the

07:12screen. I went ahead and put everything back together. Now it's time to remove

07:16the display, so that we can test out whether the iPhone 14 display works or

07:20not with this device. We'll go ahead and use our suction cup, and we're going to

07:24use alcohol, as well as some heat, to get this thing off smoothly. I'm always

07:30scared to burn an OLED display, because they're made of organic material, and

07:33they can burn. And you can see the display's coming off pretty easily. So if

07:38the iPhone 14 screen does work, then that means screen replacement costs will be

07:43significantly cheaper, and there's already parts available. Every time a new

07:47iPhone comes out, we have to wait for parts to become available. It takes a bit

07:50of time, but if this works, then we can fix these right away.

07:54Disconnect the display. There we go. And we'll grab our iPhone 14 display. This is

08:00actually an aftermarket display. It's not even an original display. Let's go ahead

08:04and install this. Boom. It's now clicked in. So let's see if we get a display. We'll

08:10plug in the battery. Now we'll go ahead and press and hold the power button, and

08:15see if we get a display. And we have the Apple logo. So the iPhone 14 display does

08:20seem to work, but we still don't know if touch works. Let's uh, let's see if it

08:24does. So I have gloves on. There we go. It looks like touch is working. That means

08:30you can use the iPhone 14 display to fix an iPhone 16e, and most likely a vice

08:36versa. This is huge for repair. Let's upgrade that wireless charger by adding

08:41the MagSafe magnets, if we can. So obviously there's graphite film covering

08:46the wireless charger. We're going to have to remove that, and to do that all

08:50we have to do is apply some heat. Now we can take some tweezers, and we're going

08:55to come in at a corner here. It looks like this is copper film, not graphite

08:59paper. And it looks like I'm peeling off the freaking wireless charger with it.

09:03Interesting. Not necessarily a bad thing, just not really what I was expecting. Now

09:09we can take our MagSafe magnets, and I hope this works. We're going to place

09:14them right over here, like that, and stick them down. It's not the cleanest fit, but

09:20there is enough space here beside the battery, so this shouldn't really push

09:24the back glass out any more than it usually is. Remove the peel, and place the

09:30wireless charging coil back on. We'll go ahead and put everything back together

09:34and see if this works. If it does, it's something literally anyone can do at

09:38home. Really easy to apply these magnets. And the moment of truth. Is there gonna

09:43be a bit of a bulge? And it seems like it's sitting flush. I don't really see

09:49anything abnormal here. We'll grab our wireless charging puck and slap that on.

09:55Boom. Wireless charging at 7.5 watts. Still excruciatingly slow, but faster

10:02than without the magnets, because if it's misaligned, it wouldn't charge as fast.

10:06Anyway guys, thank you so much for watching. This has been the iPhone 16e

10:11Teardown, and I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.

Category

Transcript

Recommended