This Week at Mark Ellis Reviews

👉 iPhone 16e thoughts, my definitive best headphones list and a OnePlus Watch 3 review that puts the Apple Watch to shame!

Before we start, I’d like to welcome all the new readers who signed up from the 200K subscriber giveaway which opened this week! It’s great to have you with us. If you still haven’t entered yet, please do so by clicking here! You could win an M2 MacBook Air, Apple Watch Series 9 or iPad 10th generation!

TOP STORY

The iPhone 16e Is Here – But Who Is It For?

The iPhone 16e has caused quite a stir in large part due to the absence of MagSafe charging. This is made all the more baffling by the fact that it is in fact still wireless charger compatible. That means Apple made a very deliberate choice to remove one of their most distinctive, and useful, features.

Could this save that much money to justify the exclusion? We’ll have to wait and see once I’ve used it. What’s more concerning is that price tag. $599/£599 for 128GB of storage and a 90Hz display is Apple, let’s say, pushing their luck when contextualised amongst the range of excellent mid-range smartphones out there.

Will the iPhone 16e sell bucketloads despite all this? You bet!

Best Headphones: Worn And Reviewed By Us

Headphones are highly subjective, but the team and I have put our heads together to compile a guide to the best headphones for a variety of budgets and use cases. I won’t reveal my overall pick here (read the article to find out!), but here are some of the other category winners:

• Best Budget Headphones: OneOdio Focus A5

• Best Sound Quality: Sonos Ace

• Best Headphones For iPhone Users: Beats Studio Pro (that’s right, not AirPods Max!)

Agree with my list? Let me know in the article comments section!

Time to Ditch the Apple Watch?! OnePlus Watch 3 Review!

I’ve used a lot of smartwatches now and the common conclusion I reach with them is that the Apple Watch simply isn’t the best smartwatch you can buy. In fact, I can think of multiple watches I’d rather use. The OnePlus Watch 3 has been added to that list.

Here’s what I love about it:

• Five days battery under normal use

• It looks beautiful (I love circular watch faces)

• There’s health tracking to match pretty much any competitor

There is one tiny stumbling block. You can’t use it with an iPhone. Ah…

Essential Tech News

OPINION

Let’s talk honestly about the iPhone

I’ve just finished writing a piece for Medium entitled ‘Is the iPhone Getting Worse?’. I hated writing it - genuinely. It’s also the kind of content that is going to do nothing for my chances of getting iPhone review units early. But I needed to write it because that’s my job and I have incredibly strong feelings about the direction in which Apple is headed with its smartphone.

Things aren’t good. My creator mates feel similarly disillusioned about the iPhone and a few of them have actually switched to Android. And, no, not in the annoying fake YouTubery ‘iPhone user switches to X’ videos in which we’ve all partaken (me included). They’ve actually done it. Even my dad was less gushing about Apple when the topic came into conversation last weekend, and he’s a huge Apple fanboi.

Something isn’t right with the iPhone. Mine is a case in point; it feels sluggish, and the camera system doesn’t excite me in the way it used to. Apple Intelligence has also left an extremely sour taste in my mouth; I find how it was marketed so heavily during 2024 deeply unsettling - misleading, even. More worryingly, I’m simply enjoying using the iPhone’s competition far more. Phones from Oppo, Vivo, Samsung, OnePlus, and others are just more interesting, have better battery life, and aren’t unfairly hamstrung with features that are deemed ‘pro’ only.

By the time you read this, we’ll also probably have a new iPhone SE. I’m going to pre-empt Apple’s announcement and say that it’ll have FaceID, an Apple Intelligence-compatible chip, and a slightly refined design. But it won’t have a high refresh rate display, and that’s what everyone will leap on. Was I right?

TOP FINDS

What I watched on YouTube this week

My YouTube watch history is full of bullet journalling stuff this week because last week’s Peter McKinnon video tempted me - again - to pick up a real pen and notebook. The good news for you is that I watched some other stuff, too.

📒 A notebook to save you from infinite scrolling (Reysu) - Of the three billion journaling videos I watched last week, Reysu was my favourite creator. Down to earth, simple filming techniques, and genuinely inspiring advice.

👂 PowerBeats Pro 2 Review: Still Better than AirPods! (Marques Brownlee) - I’d seen a few comments left against my Powerbeats Pro 2 video that suggested my review was more in-depth than what was published by the godfather of tech reviews. So, I watched his. It’s great. But we definitely went into more detail. An unashamedly proud moment.

✍️ This pocket notebook is (slowly) replacing my phone (Austin Schrock) - Another journaling video, but this time including masterful storytelling. I’m not sure why Austin doesn’t have more subscribers.

💾 I tested the $2000 RTX 5090 Graphics Card (Mrwhosetheboss) - A brilliantly relatable breakdown of how far Nvidia has come in terms of graphics performance over the last ten years.

☎️ 2015 vs 2025... Has Tech REALLY Changed? (I know I have...) (The Tech Chap) - One of the UK’s finest and longest-running tech channels - and one of the key reasons I started Mark Ellis Reviews. I’ve also met Tom on a few occasions and he’s a lovely chap. He even helped me film some stuff at Apple’s UK HQ, which was lovely, but weird.

‘GRAM OF THE WEEK

The £99 Huawei FreeArc!

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Until next time,

~ Mark