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
First Thoughts & End Remarks
This very much has been a light-speed review for a phone that at the time of writing I’ve only received 23 hours ago now, but the iPhone SE is also a phone which many of us should actually be plenty familiar with.
There’s no doubt that Apple's choice of recycling the iPhone 8 design and housing is related to achieving the super low $399 cost of the iPhone SE. This is a manufacturing chain that has been pumping out hundreds of millions of these phones over the years and I imagine that re-using that machinery very much helps the affordability of the phone.
It’s a very familiar design, but it’s certainly no longer a modern one. Besides the actual price of the phone, I can imagine that for some the biggest selling point of the phone is that it’s so a small device compared to other contemporary options. Particularly for people attached to the iPhone and iOS ecosystem, the iPhone SE is the only option going forward if you’re after a small form-factor phone.
The iPhone SE’s display is in line with that of the iPhone 8, meaning it’s an excellent LCD panel with outstandingly good color calibration, although it’s no longer keeping up in terms of brightness and resolution with newer generation OLED phones.
Performance of the iPhone SE is arguably the very best part of the phone, and Apple’s choice to go with the new A13 chipset is an outright disruptive move in the $399 sector. In essence, Apple’s lowest-end phone right now outperforms all other Android flagships on the market, painting quite the stark contrast of the competitive situation of the silicon playing-field.
Camera performance of the iPhone SE was the biggest question mark for the phone, and the new SE delivers on its promises. In daylight pictures, there’s much better HDR and dynamic range characteristics, and Apple here is mostly able to match the compositions of the iPhone 11 in the vast majority of scenarios. Detail-wise, the phone is also extremely strong although slightly lagging behind the class-leading iPhone 11 cameras. Meanwhile colour temperature is still on the warmer side, similar to previous generation iPhones.
Low-light capture, whilst not explicitly tested in this piece today, is significantly improved for the new iPhone SE, massively upgrading the quality of shots compared to the iPhone 8. Whilst it doesn’t quite match the low-light ability of the iPhone 11 series, it’s a very respectable performer here given the lack of computational photography.
Overall, at the end of the day what the new 2020 iPhone SE represents is a $399 iPhone – and that’s a selling point all by itself. It’s a significantly better device than the now discontinued iPhone 8, for a cheaper price. You’re getting the best performance of any mobile device out there on the market – and the compromises in the screen, battery life and cameras are reasonable given the price of the phone.
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trparky - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
And yet if you ask the average person on the street, they couldn't give a rat's behind about having access to the file system. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that if you tried to explain what a file system is, you'd lose their interest in less than five seconds.Outside of the tech enthusiast crowd, most people don't care about this kind of stuff. They just want it to work and that's what iOS does, and it doesn't brilliantly.
trparky - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
> Outside of the tech enthusiast crowd, most people don't care about this kind of stuff. They just want it to work and that's what iOS does, and it does it brilliantly.I hate the fact that we don't have an edit button.
eastcoast_pete - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Thanks Andrei! Here an interesting teardown+rebuild that shows just how similar the iPhone SE and the 8 are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBNdm0XBIfA(in Chinese, but subtitles are available)
euskalzabe - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
I was ready to buy the Pixel 4a, then this SE came out. There is no point paying the same money for a third of the performance, just to stay on Android. I've been very frustrated with the software update situation, stuck on Android 9 on my Moto Z2 Play, and that's after I had to manually force the update (because Moto was inexplicably not seeding it in the US, 4 months after it was ready) which broke the OS's trust in the phone and disabled my NFC payments. This is not serious, no longer acceptable. Google has had 13 years to figure out updating all Android users. I'm done. For $399, the same price of a Pixel Xa series, I deserve day 1 updates for the next 4 years. I'll be damned if I don't choose the phone that has triple the performance over a Snapdragon 6xx/7xx.I was a Windows Phone user from 2010-2015. I've been an Android user from 2015-2020. I guess it's only fair I give Apple the same 5 years now.
Alistair - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
I bought an iPhone for one reason, my 1 year old Android flagship phone stopped working properly with Android Auto, full of bugs (voice control in particular outright stopped working). The manufacturer and Google can't be bothered to keep software working for 12 months (worked perfectly on launch day)? No thanks.Deicidium369 - Sunday, April 26, 2020 - link
That is a short between the ground and the device.Deicidium369 - Sunday, April 26, 2020 - link
Sure you were, sure you were.tipoo - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Apple was vague on the optics used in this, first it was hoped to be the XR sensor, then was said to be identical to the 8 on the sensor and optics, but then this regression is weird. Hope that's just software, because a regression in optics from the 8 would be a letdown on an otherwise great value.NICOXIS - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
I think this will bring much-needed competition to the mid-range market, this probably means we will get features like wireless charging on cheaper phones. The only thing that seems odd it the meager improvement in battery life from the iPhone 8 even though the SE is using an SoC that's built on a much smaller node.Altema22 - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Right phone at the right price, combined with Apple's marketing, will ensure this is a hit.It's ideal for those with an older iPhone that is lagging, like the 6S and earlier.
It also makes a good entry point for those on a budget who want to jump to iOS.
But, aside from the SoC, the SE is a downgrade in everything for someone with a good two year old flagship.