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
Display Measurement
The screen of the iPhone SE shouldn’t be much different to that of the iPhone 8. It’s still an LCD IPS display, but it’s also one of the best on the market, even though the resolution is quite low.
We move on to the display calibration and fundamental display measurements of the iPhone SE screen. As always, we thank X-Rite and SpecraCal, as our measurements are performed with an X-Rite i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer, with the exception of black levels which are measured with an i1Display Pro colorimeter. Data is collected and examined using Portrait Display's CalMAN software.
In terms of brightness, the iPhone SE comes in at a maximum of 675 nits, which is in line with Apple’s previous generation LCD devices. It’s not quite as bright as the OLED iPhone 11’s and this can be noticeable in bright daylight, but it’s otherwise a very acceptable result.
In terms of greyscale calibration, minus a gamma that’s slightly too high and by a bit off with slightly darker tones, the color accuracy of the iPhone SE is dead-on. Whites come in at 6492K is almost perfect, and in general the color error is below a dEITP of 1.
Saturation calibration is also extremely good, with only a quite larger overshoot towards the higher saturation reds.
In the GMB test, the display is incredibly accurate with a color error of only 0.99 dEITP, only slightly worsened by the very slightly off gamma and darker tones for a total of 2.12 dEITP.
Overall, the iPhone SE’s display is in line with what we’ve seen on the iPhone 8. It’s amongst the best LCD screens in the market, even though by now it’s been outpaced in terms of brightness output and evidently resolution.
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euskalzabe - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Exactly. And not just those who are not geeks/nerds. I'm tired of being one, tired of fighting Android, tired of inconsistency, tired of having to resort to flashing devices because they're not supported. 5 years on Android, and this SE is now the perfect moment to finally buy a good device that's reasonably priced and that I don't have to mess with for the next 4-5 years. Just for that, take my $399.trparky - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
> tired of fighting Android, tired of inconsistency, tired of having to resort to flashing devices because they're not supportedThat was me back when I switched back to the iPhone all the way back when the iPhone 6 Plus was new. Mind you, Android was even worse back then but seeing as how you're saying what you're saying now tells me that Android is still a mess.
We would never support this kind of bulls**t from Microsoft yet here we are accepting it on phones which usually end up being more expensive than a notebook PC. I see something wrong with this picture.
euskalzabe - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
You nailed it. It's been 13 years and they still have not figured out how to update us properly. Project treble was supposed to be the great savior that at least would allow OEMs to give us more updates or allow users to install generic Android images on a new phone. The reality is that only a few of the funds released will allow you to do that, and there has been little to no improvement on the amount of updates users get (certainly not the amount of improvement you would expect for a company that has supposedly made OS upgrades such a priority for the past 3 years). I can tell you that my Moto Z2 play had an Android 9 update readied my Motorola and then they proceeded to not seed it to us users for the next 4 months. Fed up, I decided to force the update manually, for which I had to unlock the bootloader (which is allowed by both Google and Motorola) and somehow the OS lost trust on my device when I did that and so I lost the ability to do NFC payments. Are you kidding me? This is a circus. I refuse to be Google's beta tester anymore. I'm done.Deicidium369 - Sunday, April 26, 2020 - link
Stop buying crappy 3rd world phone, and get a modern Android device.Retycint - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
The average person also most likely won't care about software updates, or will actively avoid updates because "why fix something when it isn't broken". Seriously, this 5 year software update thing had to be one of the biggest circlejerks in the tech community. Both mobile OSes are extremely polished and feature rich at this point, and it literally makes no difference whatsoever whether you're using the latest OS or an OS from 1/2 years ago.Security updates also makes no difference whatsoever because your average person is never going to have data important enough for people to ever bother attempting these exploits, most of which require physical access to the device.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that software updates are bad; 5 years support is always better than 2 years. I'm just saying that it does not matter for the average person at all, because they will probably never make use of any of the new features. And this is reflected in the continued success of Android flagships (anywhere that is not the US, at least)
Oxford Guy - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
"Security updates also makes no difference whatsoever because your average person is never going to have data important enough for people to ever bother attempting these exploits, most of which require physical access to the device."Not everyone is "the average person".
Retycint - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
We are talking about the average person, are we not? Stop trying to shift the goalposts.Deicidium369 - Sunday, April 26, 2020 - link
Yeah, the not everyone is "the average person" is kinda implied.....cha0z_ - Thursday, August 6, 2020 - link
I would argue that even the average user nowdays is actively interested in operating system updates and security + got a tech heavy friend who can ask on the topic for more details + media/youtubers are bringing awareness. So you are wrong.Also no important data? hahahahah today people keep ALL THEIR LIVES on their phones + on top of that credit cards/payments/bank accounts and whatnot! You have no idea what damage someone can do to you if he got access to those things! No matter if interested person who knowns you or total stranger over the internet with criminal intentions!
Also you are wrong that the operating systems are not evolving rofl, I can list a lot with both android and ios! And iphones are receiving atleast 6 years of full support, my secondary 6s from 2015 is on ios 14 beta - smooth as silk and fast too + all the features coming with ios 14 are on my phone! Will be supported fully to atleast September 2021 when ios 15 is releasing and that's 6 years! Security updates you say? Apple support with security updates iphones as old as the 4s from 2011!
Now check the pricing of top android phones and iphones, different picture vs what it was 5 years ago, right?! If they want to copy apple price wise and even surpass them (and that is what happens the last 2 years) - they better also copy what apple does right!
shabby - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
The amount of people who load aosp on their phones is about as much as the amount of people who rebuild an engine in their garage or build a house from scratch by themselves, meaning basically 0.Go tell your parents to install lineageOS on their phone...