Apple iPhone 17e MagSafe on iPhone 16e: JerryRigEverything tortures iPhone 17e and shows part-swapping with iPhone 16e
Apple refreshed last year's iPhone 16e in March with the release of the new iPhone 17e. The iPhone 17e, however, brings few upgrades, including the new SoC (Apple A19), a more durable Ceramic Shield 2 screen protection, and MagSafe charging. The MagSafe charging is arguably the update with the biggest real-world impact, allowing for magnetic accessories and faster 15 W wireless charging. Interestingly, you can get a gimped version of MagSafe on the iPhone 16e.
Serial smartphone torturer JerryRigEverything has put the iPhone 17e through his usual set of punishments. The iPhone 17e passes with flying colors in the scratch, bend, and burn test. In the scratch test, for instance, the display of the iPhone 17e resists hard scratches at a level 6, as the scratches are barely visible.
What’s more interesting, however, is that the iPhone 17e seemingly shares a lot of parts with the iPhone 16e, including the motherboard. This makes it theoretically possible to upgrade the iPhone 16e with the motherboard of the iPhone 17e to get the new A19 SoC.
A less expensive upgrade is the MagSafe system. JerryRigEverything shows that you can simply use the back glass of the iPhone 17e with the MagSafe coil on the iPhone 16e. This allows the iPhone 16e to use magnetic accessories like MagSafe wireless chargers.
However, since the iPhone 16e only supports 7.5 W Qi wireless charging, the phone is software-limited to 7.5 W even if the MagSafe system of the iPhone 17e is capable of 15 W or more.
The same can’t be said about the Face ID unit of the iPhone 17e, as it is tied to the motherboard. So, if you replace the motherboard of the iPhone 16e with the one from the iPhone 17e, Face ID will reportedly stop working.
While it is true that these DIY mods and component swapping are unlikely to ever be carried out by target customers of the iPhone 17e and iPhone 16e, it is good that Apple is allowing these hardware swaps. This increases the pool of available spare parts for the iPhone 17e, which enhances access and affordability of these parts.
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