The iPhone SE (2020) Review: A Reinvigorated Classic
by Andrei Frumusanu on April 24, 2020 6:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Apple
- Smartphones
- iPhone SE
- Apple A13
- iPhone SE 2020
Battery Life - Matching the iPhone 8
In terms of battery life, the iPhone SE is said to perform similarly to the iPhone 8. Apple here employs a much newer and more efficient SoC in the form of the A13, while retaining the same battery capacity and display panel as the older phone. In essence, what we’re testing here is merely Apple’s calibration of the iPhone SE’s A13 chip in terms of its performance vs energy usage. Naturally of course, the new SE will have a more efficient cellular and WiFi chip as well which will contribute to the efficiency of the device.
In our web browsing test that we were able to run overnight, the iPhone SE confirms Apple’s claims of it matching the iPhone 8, and we’re essentially getting near identical results at 10.7h vs 10.4h, only a few minutes apart difference between the two devices.
We had noted in our iPhone 11 review that Apple’s battery life marketing claims oddly matched the results in our web test, and this again is the case for the new iPhone SE.
Whilst the iPhone SE isn’t able to match the longevity of the iPhone 11’s, it’s still a reasonably good result considering the battery capacity and size of the phone.
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hechacker1 - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Buy an Apple or third-party battery case to solve your issue? The phone is cheap enough to afford a case to double the battery life.GC2:CS - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Yes that is strange. teardown makes it look like the displays are so similar they are interchangeable. Has Apple gone so cheap they did not even bother to remove 3D touch layer ?Still original SE had battery almost the size of an 6S. This is 60% of 11.
Teckk - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
I couldn't get used to the limitation that is iOS so, back to Android, but that battery life is really good. Especially when comparing S9+ and Pixel 4XL with bigger batteries.That battery capacity on Android phones won't be fun at all.
Speedfriend - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
The reason that battery life is good is that iOS kills background apps. I do day trading and on my iPhone it stops the prices updating in the background so when I switch to it quickly to check prices, it is totally wrong. I have to manually shut it and reopen it to get it to work. So I use Android for my main phone because you can customise app killing.Featherinmycap - Monday, April 27, 2020 - link
That is not really true. Go into settings/general/Background App Refresh and select if you want your stock app to keep refreshing in the background. By default it is usually enabled. So, yes, like Android, you can "customize" app killing.cha0z_ - Thursday, August 6, 2020 - link
You can customise a lot on ios, but people love to bring that argument without really having any clue what they are talking about. :)cha0z_ - Thursday, August 6, 2020 - link
That's your trading app issue, not ios.sorten - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Wow, double the GPU performance of the iPhone 8, which is faster than my 7. Not sure what I'd use it for though since I don't bother with phone games.This is a brilliant phone in terms of value and perf., but only an iPhone SE sized device would have caused me to upgrade early.
Quantumz0d - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Only company which can make anyone fool - Apple.The design, 2008 OG iPhone and 2020 SE same bezel width. Just perfect.
IPS LCD 720P, I bet it costs them cents at this point.
AL frame, recycled again massive profits.
Probably their SoC R&D already had a massive break even and TSMC as well so again with that SoC, next level profits.
A13, the BAU case of AT's uber fast SPEC measurement means it's faster than a 9900K and SD865 is waste because it's sooo fast and Qualcomm is so behind as it takes many years to catch. But in real life UX, it's the same and sometimes even loses to the Android, wonder where did all that performance go.
But it's just $400+tax, so it's the best of the best smartphones on the planet because it's the best phone evaar. And ofc you do not get any 3.5mm jack as usual because space is not there I guess.
Apple is the most successful company because of their marketing edge, which is not possible to beat by any company, even the company which lives on Ad revenue itself failed so hard.
The utter shame is it runs on an OS which doesn't have a filesystem open to user for access but rather a ball and chain ecosystem utopian system.
Kudos tho. I hope this breaks the retarded mold of the Android phones esp Chinese ones and Samsung, Sony get their shit pricing corrected by selling $1000+tax phones planned obsolescence with sealed battery technology.
hlovatt - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
You are probably trolling, but in case anyone else is reading your Comments the file system app omen to the user that is part of iOS is called Files.