I lived the Budget Apple life for a month: $1,000 for iPhone, Watch, and AirPods

What’s a better choice? $1,000 for a single iPhone 17 Pro? Or $1,000 for an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods?

A month ago, I wrote about how the iPhone 16e was silently forgotten. That got me curious, so I picked it up, synced it to an Apple Watch SE 3 to boot, and added AirPods 4 in the mix. That’s exactly $1,000 for a total of three devices that make up the core of the Apple Ecosystem.

So, how was it?

The iPhone 16e experience

What shocked me the most about the iPhone 16e is how smoothly it runs. I’ve spent the past couple of years using phones that 120 Hz (or more) screens exclusively. I fully anticipated that going back to a 60 Hz iPhone 16e will feel sluggish and require getting used to.

Imagine my surprise when I barely registered it.

Apple’s non-Pro iPhones took years to get 120 Hz screens. In fact, it’s only the latest iPhone 17 — released in 2025 — that got the 120 Hz ProMotion that iPhone Pro models have flaunted for years.

And, throughout all these years, us reviewers that were writing about these non-Pro models kept saying that “iOS is so smooth and quick, that you don’t feel the 60 Hz lockdown as much as you do on Android phones”.

Now that 120 Hz is nomalized across the board, and I am fully used to it, and came back to the iPhone 16e… I concur.

It also helps that it’s powered by the same class Apple A18 chip that’s in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. 4 efficiency and 2 performance cores. The only difference between all of them is that the iPhone 16 Pro has six GPU cores, the iPhone 16 has five, and the iPhone 16e has four.

So, out of all of them, the iPhone 16e is least favorable towards 3D gaming.

The other purely hardware differences are that the iPhone 16e doesn’t support mmWave 5G, which didn’t touch me as that’s not what my carrier provides. It supports Wi-Fi 6 when other iPhones have moved to Wi-Fi 7 — that’ll only matter depending on what setup you have at home or in the office. And its USB-C port only supports USB 2.0 speeds, which is abysmal, but I do live the wireless AirDrop life, so it’s barely an issue.

Another thing that shocked me is how good the speakers are. They have a lot of meat to their sound — pretty much flagshi-like. Apple put a lot of effort into the things that matter to make these iPhones enjoyable multimedia machine. You can doom scroll Insta Reels, and you can share your favorite new tune with friends with this phone for sure.

No, it’s not like a JBL Flip, but sounds good enough and surprisingly good for its size and price point.

I don’t trust the camera as much as I should

The single camera on the iPhone 16e doesn’t inspire much confidence — not to a reviewer like me that’s been spoiled by the latest that Samsung, Vivo, and iPhone Pro Maxes can offer, for sure.

But that’s not fair.

The iPhone 16e definitely takes good photos. Well above “passable” or “average”, for sure. Apple’s Deep Fusion algorithm is working hard here, pulling the best out of the 48 MP camera.



It also offers some amount of high-quality zoom at 2x. Apple’s “Fusion camera” tech that crops into the high-res sensor to give you what it calls “lossless zoom” does work well for that much.

But, to be honest, it’s not enough for me. I am particularly fond of taking photos with a telephoto lens whenever a scene allows, and will often zoom, crouch, and bend backwards to do so. So, the iPhone 16e left me wanting more in that regard.

Which is why I will ultimately end up upgrading again. But to be perfectly clear — the iPhone 16e camera is fine and dependable for memorabilia.

The lack of a Dynamic Island makes it feel dated

This is another thing you will only notice if you are downgrading from a newer iPhone. iOS 26 is now heavily designed around the Live Activities that you can follow in your Notifications Center or the Dynamic Island. The iPhone 16e only has the Notifications Center when you swipe down or look at the locked screen.

Seeing at-a-glance updates on your food order, timer, or ride is actually pretty nice. But I wouldn’t knock points off the general iPhone 16e experience for that.

Still not seeing a lot of AI benefits, but it’s AI-ready

The iPhone 16e release at a time when Apple was gearing up to full suite of Apple Intelligence, with the smarter Siri with an all-new LLM. That’s why it’s a $600 iPhone that got the latest (at the time) Apple A18 processor. It needed the 16-core Neural Engine.

Since then, we did get some AI features in iOS — mostly the same as other competitors — but nothing groundbreaking.

So, for what it’s worth, you will get the current AI-curated notifications and other Apple Intelligence features, plus the ones that should come out at some point in 2026.

The Apple Watch SE 3 experience

I said it in my review, and I will say it again — the Apple Watch SE 3 is the one to get right now.

To be clear, here’s what you will miss on:

• It looks dated: the Watch SE 3 looks like the Apple Watch 4 from 2018, while the newer models are slimmer and with bigger displays
• It lacks ECG reading
• It lacks a Blood Oxygen sensor
• It only supports the slower 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi

For most people, these features are “nice to have, but not a must”. Especially if you are just now dipping your toes in the whole smartwatch and, more specifically, Apple Watch experience.

What the Apple Watch SE 3 did add in 2025 was:

• S10 SiP chip (same as Series 11)
• Always-on display (not as bright as Series 11)
• Sleep apnea detection
• Temperature sensor (for cycle tracking only)
• On-device Siri health
• Fast charging (0-80% in 45 mins)
• 5G on cellular models

For all intents and purposes, it was a huge upgrade — the jump from Apple Watch SE 2 to SE 3 is much bigger than Series 9 to Series 11, for example. And it put the Apple Watch SE 3 on the board for me.

Granted, I do like the design of the newer models better, of course. But I can live with this one, and it’s giving me the full core Apple Watch experience:

• Remote control for the camera (a big win for group selfies)
• Very good notifications and alarms with the Taptic vibrations
• Answer calls from your wrist
• Vast selection of workouts and activity tracking
• Emergency SOS, fall and crash detection (I hope I don’t need these)

The AirPods 4 - there’s a reason these are so popular

I am among the small subset of people whose ears simply do not play well with in-ear headphones. I will give it to the newest AirPods Pro 3 — their design fits amazing even for me. But, I’ve spent a good amount of years trusting earbuds more than I do in-ears.

So, are the AirPods 4 amazing? To be fair, they are not superb. They do sound surprisingly good for being open-design, and that’s difficult to pull off. So, props to Apple for that. In fact, if you prefer buds that are not in-ear, you don’t have a lot of choices anyway, and Apple’s offering may be the best one you can get, period.

Their bass does overcompensate a bit too much for my liking, but for what they are, they sound pretty clear and dependable.

To be fair, I cheated a bit. The AirPods 4 I have here are the ANC variant, which are a bit more expensive than $129 — they are $179. Their ANC is surprisingly effective, again considering that they are not in-ears, and can come in clutch when the environment in the office becomes too babbly, or the street noises become a bit too overwhelming.

But where the AirPods 4 win the most — and that goes for all AirPods — is their connectivity and convenience. If you have multiple Apple devices, these only need to pair to one. From then on, your MacBook, Mac mini at home, your iPad and iPhone, they will all be able to instantly connect to them. If it doesn’t work as soon as you press “play” on one of the devices, just tap on the AirPods from the Control Center.

Secondly, their stem controls are excellent — pinching on the stems is a much more convenient control than having to tap on a capacitive area over the buds themselves. Unfortunately, you don’t get volume control on the buds themselves.

And, speaking of the stems, these have among the best-sounding microphones as far as Bluetooth earbuds go. Note: most dependable if you are synced to an iPhone.

Conclusion: $1,000 for one iPhone 17 Pro, or $1,000 for these three devices?

I think it goes without saying that buying more stuff for the same amount of money is always better, right?

There are plenty of exceptions to be made here. An old saying goes "Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten", essentially referring to the fact that cheap products may look like a bargain when you buy them, but you will ultimately be more satisfied in the long run if you buy something of superior quality.

However, we all know that Apple doesn’t exactly deal in “cheap”. The iPhone 16e costs $600 which, considering what it offers, is still well above what we would call mid-range or entry-level in the current smartphone market.

But the fact is that it performs well and hits where it matters.

The Apple Watch SE 3 44 mm is $279, which is not cheap for a watch or fitness tracker.

But it has the full core Apple Watch experience.

I think the AirPods 4 is the only “competitively priced” product here, as good-enough in-ears will typically run you around $80-$100. The AirPods 4 are $129.

But they offer arguably the best sound from non-in earbuds and the full Apple connectivity.

The way I see it is this — the iPhone 17 Pro will be a better option for a user that “knows that wants it”. You want the three cameras, you want the extra GPU power, you want the Camera Control button (for some reason). The slimmer bezel and 120 Hz screen with extra brightness is super nice to have, too.

The “budget trio” that I used for a month is a perfect option for the user that wants to get kitted out with the full Apple experience and not spend $2,000 while doing so. At no point did I feel I was being let down by any of the devices. But, to be fair, when I went to my niece’s dance recital a couple of weeks ago, I did bring a phone with a better camera and much better zoom.

See which device serves you best, upgrade that one further down the line.