The iPhone SE Review
by Brandon Chester on May 16, 2016 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- Mobile
- iPhone
- iPhone SE
Final Words
It’s really not difficult to come to a conclusion on the iPhone SE. It’s clearly the best 4-inch smartphone on the market, and you can ignore all of the specs when making that assessment because it achieves that by virtue of being the only offering at this size. For the sake of comparison, you can take a look at some Android devices that are larger than the SE, but smaller than your average Android smartphone.
As I said earlier in the review, Android manufacturers have essentially given up on making small smartphones, and most of them haven’t actually made a top tier smartphone at the 4-inch size in about four years. By 2012 things had moved to 4.5 inches or more, with Samsung also introducing the original 5.3-inch Galaxy Note near the end of 2011. Today’s idea of a compact Android phone is something like the Xperia Z5 compact, where the screen has a size of 4.6 inches, which is just a bit smaller than the screen on the iPhone 6s. Getting an even smaller screen means moving to truly low end smartphones like the Moto E, and at that point you’re discussing two entirely different parts of the market.
Even when you consider the smallest high-end devices from the Android manufacturers, it’s not hard to see that the iPhone SE comes out on top. Apple’s A9 SoC is still one of the fastest chips you’ll find in a smartphone, and it goes without saying that the Snapdragon 810 SoC in a smartphone like the Xperia Z5 Compact really isn’t comparable in the slightest. Based on my experience, the camera is also unmatched at this size and price. It’s certainly a step behind the best Android phones and the iPhone 6s Plus, but bringing the sensor from the iPhone 6s to the SE allows for some really great photos, and the best 4K recording video you’ll get on a phone.
The 4-inch IPS display on the iPhone SE has great calibration, and in general the resolution is sufficient to avoid aliasing, although it’s obviously not as sharp as what you’ll get on many Android smartphones. My main complaint about the display is the low contrast ratio and high black level, which is definitely noticeable in real-world use when you compare to more modern LCD displays or any AMOLED panel. Apple definitely intends to keep this phone around for at least a couple of years, if not three, and it’s not going to take remotely that long for the SE’s display to fall quite a few steps behind the market. As far as future-proofing goes, the display is probably the iPhone SE’s one weak spot, although right now it’s still a nice IPS display.
Finally, we have the design of the phone. It’s really unchanged from the iPhone 5s, and some may consider that a bad thing, but I think it’s a good thing. The design still holds up, and there’s absolutely no reason to arbitrarily redesign a product every cycle. The products that are used as examples of good design are often ones that have kept the same design for many years, and in some cases many decades. I can definitely understand those who wanted a device that was more like a small iPhone 6s, but for me the aesthetics of the iPhone 5 era design come out ahead.
Ultimately, the iPhone SE is the upgrade that Apple’s 4-inch iPhone has needed for a while. Considering that it’s been over two years, it’d be hard to not improve, but the fact that you get the same performance, camera, and display calibration as the iPhone 6s is quite appealing when the phone costs $250 less. Battery life is better or worse than the 6s depending on the situation, but it’s definitely improved overall from the 5s. Faster LTE and much faster WiFi are nice improvements too, and you also have Apple Pay thrown in. There’s not much more than Apple could have included without further cutting into their margins and making it really hard to explain why the 6s is significantly more expensive. Even with the things you lose out on, I still find myself asking whether the 6s is truly worth that $250 premium.
While I’ve used the iPhone SE as my daily driver for a month, I expect that I’ll be going back to the Nexus 5X and iPhone 6s. The smaller display is just not for me, but when Apple can sell thirty million two-year-old 4-inch smartphones in a year there’s clearly demand for a smaller smartphone with high end specs. The iPhone SE delivers that, and I think users who have been holding on to an iPhone 5 or 5s should seriously consider it, because it’s the phone that they’ve been waiting for.
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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).