Some people may care a little extra for an ultrawide lens and spending more for the cheaper iPhone 16 with 2 lenses of regular + ultrawide is enough for that. Don't have to get the more expensive Pro model.

The Pro model adds a 3rd lens for optical "true" telephoto instead of digitized "fake" telephoto and increases the resolution on the ultrawide.

It's also not clear from from the Apple press release if the 16e has a macro mode. The regular iPhone 16 (not Pro) has macro.