Now that Apple has announced the iPhone 17e, buyers are weighing whether the upcoming 17e is likely to be the best-value option or whether it will still be worth stretching to the standard iPhone 17 for stronger long-term value retention.
Budget phones often look like the smartest buy at launch, but resale performance over the first year can tell a very different story. To test that assumption ahead of the 17e, an analysis from SellCell, a site for buying used smartphones, compares the manufacturers suggested retail price (MSRP) against resale values for today’s closest equivalents — iPhone 16e versus Pixel a-series and Galaxy FE — and benchmarks those results against the standard iPhone 16.
Here are the main findings from the SellCell report:
°The iPhone 16e (128GB) launches at $599 and averages about $291 after 12 months, retaining roughly 48.6% of its original price.
° The Pixel 8a (128GB) launches at $499 and averages about $238 after 12 months — roughly 47.7% retained.
° The Galaxy S24 FE (128GB) launches at $649.99 and averages around $236 after one year, retaining roughly 36.3%, the lowest retention among devices compared.
° Across storage tiers, the iPhone 16e averages about 51.5% depreciation after 12 months, compared with Pixel 8a at around 52.8% and Galaxy S24 FE at roughly 63.5%.
° The standard iPhone 16 (128GB) launches at $799 and averages roughly $476 at 12 months, retaining about 59.6%, creating an approximate 10–11 percentage-point retention gap versus iPhone 16e.
° The difference between iPhone 16e and Galaxy S24 FE retention reaches roughly 12 percentage points at the one-year mark, while the gap between iPhone 16e and Pixel 8a remains close to one point.
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