The iPhone SE Review
by Brandon Chester on May 16, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone
- iPhone SE
Display
The display on the iPhone SE is one of its selling points, but not due to its specs. The iPhone SE takes the place of the iPhone 5s in Apple's iPhone line, and like the 5s it has a 4-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1136x640. While there's no way to confirm whether or not it's the exact same panel, you'll see in a moment that the characteristics are similar enough that it's probably safe to assume that it is. To evaluate the iPhone SE's display I've run it through our standard display test bench that examines peak brightness and black levels, along with the accuracy of greyscale shades and both color saturations and color mixtures.
Apple rates their iPhone displays for a brightness of 500 nits. There's always some degree of variance, but it's always the good sort where you're getting more than you paid for. In our iPhone 5s review we saw that it had a peak brightness of around 500 nits, while the iPhone 5c reached nearly 600. This iPhone SE is similar, with a peak brightness of 598 nits. I wouldn't expect this on every unit, but it's just interesting to note because I've never encountered an iPhone 6 or 6s that was so far above the spec.
The black level on the SE at peak brightness is quite high. Part of this is due to the fact that the screen has a bright backlight, but ultimately even with the high peak brightness the contrast ratio is well behind what you get on other phones, and even compared to our 5s unit it's quite low. It's important to note that Apple only ever rated the 4-inch iPhones at 800:1, but when you put the phone side by side with modern IPS displays on devices like the iPhone 6s, and the LG G4, the black ends up looking more like a dark grey.
The iPhone SE does quite well in our greyscale test. As usual, there is a degree of blue shifting, but it’s not too severe and the CCT average is below 7000. The gamma is quite straight, and in the end there aren’t any shades of grey with a DeltaE greater than three, which is generally the goal. With an average DeltaE of 1.87 there’s really not much more you can ask for.
The iPhone SE renders primary and secondary colors with a high degree of accuracy. The DeltaE for many colors is below one, which means the error cannot be perceived by the eye even with the colors side by side with the true reference color. In the absolute worst case you get saturations with a DeltaE of 2 which is quite impressive. With an average DeltaE of 1.24, there’s really not much that Apple could improve here.
Given that accuracy with color mixtures is just a function of saturation accuracy and greyscale accuracy, it’s not surprising to see the iPhone SE perform well here. There isn’t a single DeltaE error over three, and in general most are between one and two. The overall error is 1.46, and there’s little improvement that Apple could actually make to the accuracy of color mixtures.
Ultimately the iPhone SE ships with a solid IPS display. At 1136x640 it’s definitely not the highest resolution display on the market, but Apple does give you best in class color accuracy, and at 326ppi it’s still high enough resolution to not have really obvious aliasing. Apple was definitely not going to move to 1704x960 on their $400 4-inch smartphone, and a boost in resolution will likely come with whatever Apple’s next 4-inch iPhone is.
Given that Apple is in the process of moving their devices to the wider DCI-P3 color gamut and likely moving the iPhones to a 3x scale resolution, it’ll be interesting to see where the iPhone SE’s display stands relative to the next generation of iPhones. With sharpness and color accuracy being equivalent between the SE and the 6s, the only significant difference in quality right now is the lower contrast ratio on the SE. Apple most likely plans to keep the SE around for two to three years, and so that gap will widen as time goes on.
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Impulses - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
Ehh, there's other places you can place a fingerprint sensor and have it be just as effective... The on screen button argument is valid tho, but it's kind of subjective... For video, where they hide away, they're a better choice, for general use it's less advantageous, etc.The biggest rationale for a physical home button continues to be that it allows you to easily wake up the phone while it lays flat, IMO... Though tricks like the "knock on" pioneered by LG can offer an alternative to that.
Let's be honest tho, Apple AND Samsung probably just stick to their guns on the buttons at this point as a sign of pride and/or because it's a recognisable design. They sued the stuffing out of each other in large part over the button and how it ties the design together!
name99 - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
I suspect the way Apple gets away from the home button (and the area it consumes) is by copying ideas from the Apple Watch.IF they can get ultrasound based fingerprint detection to work well (so that it can work anywhere on the screen) that's REALLY helpful in terms of making the various lockscreen swipes work so much better --- right now it's kinda lame that you swipe on a notification or text message or whatever but then have to go through the unlock screen.
So if they can solve the "no need for a fingerprint button" problem, then, IMHO, the logical way to move forward is to adopt ideas from the Apple Watch. These ideas could include (along with screen lights up on orientation) having a crown sticking out the side of the phone. I don't know how well that would work --- maybe it would be too fragile? --- but it seems like it could be useful in a number of ways, and the sort of UI element that Apple could (at least attempt to) patent the hell out of and fairly aggressively and accurately claim that no-one had done anything like that until they implemented it. If you had a crown like button, apart from the rotating to scroll like on the watch, it could also (like on the watch) act to
- light up the screen
- bring up springboard
- bring up Siri
- bring up the list of previous apps (on watch, at least right now, just the last app) used.
Doing something like this would allow the iPhone to kinda reset. Apple could get off the naming treadmill (so like Macs new ones get released when they are ready, and have names like "iPhone late 2018"), and even change other things they might want to change (maybe it's worth actually switching to USB-C?). Like I said, a reset allows for lotsa things to change all at once, and allows the inevitable bitching and "I'll never buy an Apple product again" idiocy to flame out over one glorious three month period of non-stop internet ranting.
Ratman6161 - Wednesday, May 18, 2016 - link
"So if they can solve the "no need for a fingerprint button" problem". Well, on my Galaxy Note 5 fingerprint recognition works great. And it has a button too. And the ratio of overall size to screen size is better too. All it took to do that was to have an oblong button instead of a big round one. What's the big deal.Ratman6161 - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
I guess I'll have to hold an SE in my hand to see how they feel relatively speaking. But 12.4 mm Vs 12.7 mm = a difference of .3 mm in height. Same math, .6 mm different width and .13 mm in thickness. From the numbers, its hard for me to visualize there being any significant difference in real world feel. And 4.2 is still > than 4.0, though I guess it all depends on what's important to you.To me, overall the form factor seems essentially the same and as with all these endless debates, in the real world it comes down to personal preference.
name99 - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
I use both (6 vs 5) frequently. The difference in height, and the difference in edge curvature, are both noticeable, but I would not call one worse or better than the other (though I suspect the width of the 6 with hard edges would be noticeably unpleasant).For me at least, as a guy with big enough pockets and hands, Apple made the right call with the size of the 6. I remain curious as to whether the primary draw of the SE if the smaller screen size (or, more precisely, the smaller area for pockets and handbags) or the lower price --- I've never seen anything definitive either way.
qap - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link
Thickness stopped being a limiting factor (for users, not for designers) some time ago. Thicker phone can even be more comfortable in hand. So there is no point in comparing volumes.That leaves footprint and 10% difference means they are direct competitors. In fact (as an example) I am thinking about buying one of them as they are closest to my ideal phone.
Iphone SE is perhaps closer, but display and everything about display is really off-putting. You can fit 4,5" in the same footprint. Even 4,3" and it would be in my pocket already (it can be done - you can look at galaxy s4 mini). But 60% screen-to-body in 2016? And by 2016 standards it's not even a good display (low res, poor blacks).
Eden-K121D - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
They didn't even post a S7 review part-2 which was released much earlier than the iPhone SE yet the SE review comes first.Yawn. It has nothing new.michael2k - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
The review they did was sufficient to show you how much faster the SE is than the S7:http://www.anandtech.com/show/10120/the-samsung-ga...
Impulses - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
Different writers tho, IIRC, not that it's an excuse but it's not like they're purposely prioritizing the SE.whiteiphoneproblems - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link
I love mine! Only (minor) issues are a rattling power button, and a funky auto-brightness that doesn't like turning on to lowest setting in a dark room (never had that problem in an iPhone before).