The iPhone 17e proves MagSafe charging speeds don’t matter

I didn’t have high expectations when I started testing Apple’s new iPhone 17e. Last year’s iPhone 16e struck me as a lopsided mess, and this year’s replacement seems to have many of the same issues: a faster processor and more RAM than is really necessary at this price point, and too many compromises in other areas. But at least one of those compromises is now worrying me a lot less.

One of the main shortcomings of the 16e was the fact that it didn’t have MagSafe at all, and I continue to regard that as a huge pain in the butt. The 17e, fans were relieved to discover when it was unveiled earlier this month, does have MagSafe… but the sting in the tail came when we learned that it’s a slower, older version of the technology, which is capped at 15W rather than the latest 25W. Here we go again, I thought: another e-class annoyance.

Why this makes a difference

To see what effect that has on real-world charging speeds, I completely drained the batteries of both my iPhone 17e review unit and the trusty iPhone 17 I’ve had since September. Then one by one, I placed them on an official Apple MagSafe charging puck, paired with a 67W power adapter to ensure no bottlenecks at that end, and timed how long it took to fill them up again. I won’t sugarcoat it: there was a substantial difference, and the 17 came out on top.

The topline finding is that the iPhone 17e takes just over three hours (3:03) to completely charge wirelessly, whereas the iPhone 17 can do the same thing in a little over two (2:06). To be completely fair I should point out that the 17e has a slightly larger battery capacity, at 4,005mAh vs 3,692mAh, so it has more work to do. But since it doesn’t give you any extra battery life, I’d regard that as the 17e’s problem, and not something we should be expected to make allowances for.

A more relevant metric, however, might be the time taken to reach 80 percent, since it’s better for long-term battery health if you don’t charge to full every time, and those under time pressure probably don’t need to bother with the (much slower) last 20 percent. On that score, the iPhone 17e took roughly 2 hours and 15 mins, while the iPhone 17 managed it in roughly 1 hour and 15 mins. Again, that’s a big differential and a point in the iPhone 17’s favor.

So to be clear, if your priority is to buy an iPhone that can wirelessly charge as fast as possible, the iPhone 17 is definitely a better option than the 17e. But the more I use the 17e, the more I realise that, within reason, wireless charging speed isn’t a big deal.

Why the difference doesn’t matter

What’s the point of magnetic wireless charging? It’s more convenient. Putting a phone on a magnetic puck is a quicker and less fiddly action than either plugging it into a cable or carefully placing it on a non-magnetic puck’s sweet spot and hoping it stays there. When you repeat an action one or two times a day, even small reductions in friction add up. Small conveniences are easy to take for granted, but spending a little time without MagSafe reminds you that it’s worth having.

When do we charge our phones? A lot of the time it happens overnight: my MagSafe puck sits by my bed. So, for this use case, the speed doesn’t really matter. Provided it’s fast enough to charge from zero to 100 percent in seven or eight hours, the technology has done its job. The 17e, with its lowly 15W speeds, does the job in less than half that.

There will, of course, be scenarios where speed does matter: when you’re about to rush out the door, for example, and desperately want to bump your phone from 10 percent to 40 percent or so as quickly as possible. But under those circumstances, most people would choose to plug in. Apple reckons the iPhone 17e can get from zero to 50 percent in half an hour with a 20W wired adapter, which should be plenty fast. (Granted, the iPhone 17 can do the same thing in just 20 minutes if you’ve got a 40W adapter, but that’s nothing to do with the version of MagSafe it has.)

My feelings may yet change over the coming weeks and months, but right now the iPhone 17e’s slower MagSafe strikes me as a non-issue. Of course, it would be nice to have the faster wireless charging speeds, but you can’t have everything at the lower price points, and this is a relatively painless area to compromise. If you’re charging wirelessly, you probably don’t care very much about speed, and if you care very much about speed, you’re probably not charging wirelessly.

Gaining MagSafe is a major upgrade compared to the 16e. Getting faster MagSafe would be a much smaller upgrade, which perhaps we’ll get on the 18e. But for now, this is one less thing for me to complain about in my review.