Apple’s latest iPhone SE may be a surprise cut-price marvel that revives a classic iPhone design and trounces every other mid-range phone within the process.
The Apple iPhone SE £419 takes the important bits of the iPhone 11 – the processor and software – and shoehorns them into the body of an iPhone 8 from 2017.
You get a phone design largely unchanged from the iPhone 6 of 2014, with the traditional home button, but the performance and longevity of a fresh Apple phone for £310 but an iPhone 11.
It’s a tantalizing proposition, competing on price with a load of mid-range Android smartphones, including Google’s Pixel 3a, but with top-level iPhone performance and repair.
The iPhone 8’s design was tired in 2018 and it's no different today. The 2020 iPhone SE’s 4.7in screen is small by today’s standards but the phone’s body isn’t, because it eschews the fashionable all-screen design in favor of the old large bezels and chunky chin and forehead.
Simply put, there are tons more phones than the tiny screen suggests. Those trying to find a very small phone like the previous generation 4in iPhone SE are going to be disappointed.
The dimensions and materials are a particular match for the iPhone 8. Glass front and back, aluminum sides, slightly ID fingerprint scanner within the home button, a Lightning connector within the bottom but no headphone socket nor Face ID.
At just 148g, the iPhone SE is super light – only 1g heavier than chief rival the Pixel 3a – and little by latest metrics. The iPhone 11 is considerably bigger, at a full 12.5mm longer and eight .4mm wider and weighing 194g.
Still, the iPhone SE feels as solid and well made as other iPhones, and that i can comfortably use it with one hand.
The iPhone SE doesn’t support 5G.
Specifications
- Screen: 4.7in Retina HD (LCD) (326ppi)
- Processor: Apple A13 Bionic
- RAM: 3GB
- Storage: 64, 128 or 256GB
- Operating system: iOS 13
- Camera: 12MP rear camera with OIS, 7MP front-facing camera
- Connectivity: esim, LTE, wifi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5, Lightning, and GPS
- Water resistance: IP67 (1m up to 30 minutes)
- Dimensions: 138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3mm
- Weight: 148g
Same top performance as an iPhone 11
This iPhone may only cost £419, but it'll beat practically everything else in raw processing power. Sadly that performance comes at the worth of battery life.
The iPhone SE lasts 27 hours between charges, making it from 7 am on day one until 10 am on day two – enough to reliably see the phone reach bedtime before wanting to be plugged in. That’s one hour longer than the iPhone 8, but eight hours in need of the iPhone 11.
Three hours of the 27 was spent on 4G, the remainder connected to wifi. The screen was on for 3 hours, including a half-hour of video, plus four hours of Spotify via Bluetooth headphones and about 20 photos.
Charging the iPhone SE with the included 5W charger is seriously slow, reaching just 55% in an hour and taking two hours 45 minutes to hit 100% from zero. With the £29 18W USB-C charger and £19 USB-C to Lightning cable that ships within the box with the iPhone 11 Pro, the iPhone SE hits 80% in an hour and a full charge in two hours quarter-hour. Any USB-C power delivery chargers of 18W or higher will achieve equivalent results and maybe had for one-third of the value. The phone has standard Qi wireless charging too.
Apple slows charging to a crawl above 90% meaning that it’s probably not worth trying to charge the iPhone SE much beyond. It’s also worth noting that iOS 13 includes A battery optimization feature, which is meant to find out your habits and only charge the battery past 80% just before you would like it helps to preserve it within the process.
Sustainability
Apple doesn't provide a rated lifecycle for the iPhone SE’s battery, typically 500 full-charge cycles, but it is often replaced for £49. The phone is usually repairable, with the out-of-warranty service cost being £136.44 for the screen or £276.44 for other damage. Repair specialists iFixit gave the phone a repairability score of six out of 10.
The iPhone SE has 100% recycled tin within the solder of its main logic board, 100% recycled rare-earth element elements in is vibration motor, and a minimum of 35% recycled plastic in multiple components. Apple is additionally using renewable energy for the final assembly of the phone and breaks down the iPhone SE’s environmental impact in its report.
Apple also offers trade-in and free recycling schemes, including for non-Apple products.
iOS 13
The iPhone SE comes out of the box with iOS 13.4.1, an equivalent version of iOS running on Apple’s costlier iPhone 11 series and each other currently-supported phone.
The main differences between iOS on Apple’s costlier phones and therefore the iPhone SE is just The shortage of gesture controls. Instead, the iPhone SE has equivalent button-based control as older phones with Touch ID. It’s quite jarring and slow-moving from gesture controls used on practically every modern smartphone back to a home button, but it'll immediately be familiar to all or any those with an Apple smartphone pre-iPhone X.
You get an equivalent dark mode, enhanced quick settings, and enhanced privacy options because of the iPhone 11.
What’s particularly notable during this mid-range bracket is that Apple provides software support for its smartphones for much longer than most, averaging around five years from release. the simplest of even high-end rivals cap out at about four years, but phones during this bracket are often supported for much less. It means you'll safely use the iPhone SE for extended as you'll still get important security updates also as new features via iOS version updates.
Camera
The iPhone SE features a single 12-megapixel rear camera that's essentially just like that utilized in the iPhone 8, but with the processing and smarts of the iPhone 11. the mixture is basically quite good.
In good light, it’s very difficult to inform the difference between photos shot on the iPhone SE and therefore the iPhone 11 Pro – a phone costing quite twice the maximum amount. Images are well balanced, with good detail and color accuracy. In middle-to-low light, noise and grain are more prevalent and pictures are often fairly dark. The iPhone SE lacks Apple’s Night Mode, which may be a shame, but has the firm’s portrait mode for people only. Video at up to 4K at 60fps is additionally excellent, particularly at this price point.
Overall the rear camera is arguably only beaten by Google’s amazing Pixel 3a at anywhere near this price point for still shots, and you've got to spend a substantial amount of cash to beat either one.
The selfie camera is extremely good too, producing highly detailed and well-exposed shots in reasonable lighting, only getting a touch soft and dark in poor light.
Observations
- The haptics on the iPhone SE is simply fantastic
- There’s no headphone adapter within the box, but there's a group of Lightning EarPods
- The stereo speakers are surprisingly good
- You can’t expand notifications through a long-press on the lock screen such as you can with every other iPhone, which is annoying (you can on notification pop-ups though)
- The iPhone SE is just too short for a few wireless charging stands
Price
The iPhone SE is out there in black, white, or red costing £419 with 64GB of storage, £469 with 128GB, and £569 with 256GB.
For comparison, the iPhone 11 costs £729, Google’s Pixel 3a costs £299, the OnePlus 8 costs £599 and Samsung’s Galaxy S20 costs £799.
Verdict
We don’t typically associate Apple with tremendous value, but that’s what the iPhone SE is.
What was tired in 2017 with the iPhone 8 has been revitalized in 2020 with a dramatic price cutting and top-of-the-line processor? the mixture is extremely potent.
You get an iPhone for a way more palatable £419. The tried and trusted design is dated, but perfectly functional and straightforward to manage at this size. You get an honest screen, OK battery life, a camera that’s hard to beat at this price, wireless charging, water-resistance and a build quality second to none.
But the icing on the cake is that the A13 processor and industry-leading software support that ought to see the iPhone SE receive a minimum of five years of software updates. meaning you'll buy the iPhone SE and still be safe using it five years later. Not even Google’s Pixel 3a will manage that.
It’s not perfect, of course: the battery life might be longer, the screen might be bigger or the body smaller, there’s no headphone socket, no Face ID and it takes ages to charge. Lovers of small 4in iPhones like the previous iPhone SE are going to be disappointed by the dimensions. But these issues are very easy to overlook at this price.
The 2020 iPhone SE is that the phone shopping for people that don’t care about phones, who just need a phone to figure well, not be too big and last an extended time. At £419, the most cost-effective iPhone totally crushes the competition. If you don’t want to spend £600-plus, this is often the phone to shop for. Period.
Pros: lowest-cost new iPhone, five-year-plus software support, A13 Bionic, wireless charging, good camera, top performance, easy to handle, water resistance, Touch ID, amazing value
Cons: battery life might be better, no headphone socket, no zoom camera, no Face ID, dated design, very slow charging
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