Apple began shipping the iPhone 16e yesterday, and the $599 device has been dismantled by various teams. A YouTuber took a closer look at the teardown and discovered that the phone uses standard OIS instead of the more advanced sensor-shifted optical image stabilization found on the iPhone 16 and iPhone 15. Additionally, the A18 only comes with a base-level graphite and copper heatsink to help dissipate heat.
YouTube channel PBKreviews found that the display assembly is very easy to remove, requiring only a standard set of tools to unhook the ribbon cable button from the rest of the device. As you might expect, each component of the iPhone 16e is fixed with a large number of screws, and it will take a newbie a long time to completely disassemble it. Removing the battery is a breeze, and while there's no included pull tab, the low-voltage current is enough to help with removal.
We talked about the iPhone 16e battery removal process in an earlier report, noting that a 9V battery, USB-C charger, or any other power source would be enough to separate the battery from the rest of the body. In the video below, we can clearly see that the content creator has a spare 9V battery with an alligator cable connected to the iPhone 16e's battery terminals and the other end connected to one of the screws. The disassembly process takes about a minute and a half, and then the battery can be removed.
We also noticed that the tiny A18 logic board only has graphite film and copper tape to assist with heat dissipation. Although the chipset is designed to handle heavy workloads such as running AAA games, the lack of sophisticated cooling means some performance will be sacrificed. Overall, PBKreviews gave the iPhone 16e a 7.5 out of 10 for repairability, with most of the points being deducted due to the time it takes to disassemble the device and the difficulty of replacing other parts.