The iPhone SE Review
by Brandon Chester on May 16, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone
- iPhone SE
Battery Life
Our battery life tests have also been upgraded for 2016. Our web browsing test was previously shown in the first part of the Galaxy S7 review, and since that time it has been tweaked to the point that we're happy with the workload it puts on devices. We've also migrated to GFXBench's Manhattan test for examining battery life with a heavy GPU workload.
In our WiFi web browsing test the iPhone SE does quite well. When Apple originally advertised that the SE has better web browsing battery life than the 6s and 6s Plus I saw some confusion from many people, but it's actually not a surprising outcome. The SE is using a much smaller and lower resolution LCD display than the other iPhones, which significantly reduces the total platform power. The boost in battery capacity from the iPhone 5s helps as well. Apple advertises that the SE can last two hours longer on WiFi than the 6s, and in our test it almost meets that target.
Due to a recent move, I'm still trying to find a place with sufficient signal strength that I can use for LTE battery life testing. Until such a time, I'm unable to post LTE battery life results for the SE. In general you can expect LTE battery life to be a couple hours shorter than on WiFi, and Apple advertises that the SE can last three hours longer on LTE than the 6s, so if they get anywhere close to that then LTE battery life should be quite good.
The 4-inch iPhones have never lasted long in GFXBench's battery test. With the new Manhattan test the GPU is doing a lot more work than it was with T-Rex HD, and there aren't any periods of idle. The iPhone SE achieves the lowest battery lifetime of just 1.46 hours. However, the on screen frame rate during the test is hitting Vsync, which is actually concerning because we moved to Manhattan to avoid the problem of devices hitting that cap and then idling in the middle of the test. As I've said in the past, you need to consider both performance and battery life in this test. The iPhone SE is obviously an improvement over the 5s even though it dies half an hour earlier, because by the end of the test the iPhone SE is giving you 6x the performance of the 5s due to the A7 SoC's greater degree of thermal throttling.
Charge Time
Like the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, the iPhone SE ships with Apple's 5W charging block. While this can be quite problematic on a large phone like the iPhone 6s Plus, on a small phone it won't pose as much of an issue as the phone's battery capacity is much lower. Ideally we'd like to see a time to charge that is under three hours, and coming in under two hours is even better.
The iPhone SE charges quite quickly. We've seen improvements to charge time on the iPhone since the era of the iPhone 5s, and with the SE having a smaller battery than the iPhone 6s it makes sense that the charge time would be shorter. I do wonder how long it would take to get to full charge if Apple bundled a 10-15W charger with the phone, although with the current time being under two hours you also need to consider if the potential reduction in battery longevity from quicker charging is worth it.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
138 Comments
View All Comments
name99 - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
So your complaint with the screen is WHAT exactly? What was so bad about the 5/5S screen that reusing it was unacceptable? You want change simply for the sake of change? Have you actually even SEEN the screen in real life?This is the sort of idiotic complaint that makes Apple fans so irritated with the haters, a complaint that is so OBVIOUSLY utterly content-free.
Eden-K121D - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Viewing angles suckname99 - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
"Apple’s A9 SoC is still one of the fastest chips you’ll find in a smartphone"Wow, someone's trying REALLY hard not to praise Apple. Please tell us the names of these other chips of faster to comparable speed...
Because what I see in the reviews is that on single-threaded benchmarks Apple's CPU from three years ago is spanking the best Android can offer today, and the SE has a CPU that's twice as fast as that...
You can obviously buy octacore (or hell, decacore) mobile CPUs which have aggressive parallel performance. But that is not "fast", not by the intuitive definition, and not in terms of pretty much any real world workload.
CloudWiz - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
Haha, first comment I've seen where someone is hating because they're pro- instead of against- Apple on an iPhone review.He says "one of the fastest" because chips like SD820 and Exy8890 have only slightly worse single-threaded performance, significantly better multi-threaded performance, and better GPUs to boot. I own a 64GB SE, but there's no denying that both of those chips are beasts. SD has its optimization problems on the S7 but it looks to perform quite similarly to the E8890.
name99 - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Hard to argue against that claim in the absence of any reliable reviews!The best I can find is this
http://wccftech.com/benchmark-results-show-a9-domi...
which has at least interesting graphs, but I wouldn't especially trust the numbers for 2016 which have god knows what provenance (eg may be released from within Samsung on golden chips to build up S7 buzz), and we have no idea what the throttling characteristics are like.
NA1NSXR - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
It would've been perfect if they stretched the display out closer to the ends of the chassis, making the display ever so slightly bigger than what's on the 5/5s, but with the same size body.csango - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
Great review. Across iOS n Android both there is need for 4-4.5 inches smart phones , manufacturers can't just think that trends n users like phablet so we will only manufacturer 6 Inches slabs n bricks. Let some sensibilities prevail in Android too , public fashion choices are ephemeral but good quality and design is eternal. I hope Motorola and Google are paying heed and Apple too esp on the price point they need to look at making 4 inch phones more affordable so ppl latch onto it and then you would see there will be all of sudden market for 4 inches .... it's all a value vs price game in the end.Che - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Lack of a review of the Galaxy S7 (or any other android of this year) is just pathetic. Really no excuse is reasonable. Yet no problem getting the apple review done.Ian Cutress - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Different reviewer. Check one of the first comments.Che - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Yes, saw that already. Also have been following the comments on the other reviews. So I have heard the school work excuses already. But if that is a problem, you need to find a solution. You can't continue forever with an ever increasing backlog of reviews.I have been forced to look elsewhere for the reviews and info I need. In the past I would wait for the AnandTech review due to its depth (always better than other sites),but better is not better if it takes this long.