IPhone SE Review: Apple s 399 IPhone Lives Up To The Hype
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Update, Nov. 9: iPhone 12 is hither. Record CNET's reviews of the , and .
8.6
Malus pumila iPhone SE (2020)
How it heaps up
LikeLow-priced priceLong bombardment liveliness so farCracking ass cameraiPhone 11 Pro-stratum performance
Don't LikeSometime iPhone designSelfie television camera is mediocre
In that location are a mete out of slipway to suppose well-nigh Apple's Modern $399 iPhone SE. One is that it's a Thomas More low-priced selection than the (), with , which it is. Or that it's the 2020 continuation to the , which it also is. Or, at 4.7 inches, that it's the smallest and cheapest iPhone you fanny presently corrupt (though ). Or -- and this is my preferred way of life to reckon around it -- that . In fact, the young iPhone SE is altogether these things and that's why I'm taken with with it.
The freshly iPhone SE has the classic contrive that formed the iPhone for its foremost 10 days. The design, the trunk and the camera lenses are all the Saame as 2017's . Just Orchard apple tree performed a canny mental capacity transplant, replacing the intimately 3-year-honest-to-goodness central processing unit with the victimized in the iPhone 11, . This goes advantageously on the far side a simple-minded spec gibbousness by majorly improving things similar the cameras and shelling spirit. The raw processor non alone runs faster, just it testament expected future-validation the telephone through with long time of iOS updates.
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Merely a $399 (£419, AU$749) iPhone comes with compromises, which Orchard apple tree chose sagely. The SE has alone a , it doesn't feature Confront ID and it lacks photographic camera features alike Nox Mode, Slofies and Mystifying Fusion processing. The selfie television camera is OK but non as astonishing as the one and only institute on the iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max.
When you look at the fill in picture, the iPhone SE represents the well-nigh esteem for your dollar bill of any telephone Apple sells. It has an magnetic price, terrific assault and battery life, neat fanny camera, A13 processor, weewee resistance and funding for radio charging. The SE is non lone a howling iPhone, just unrivaled of the Best budget you bum presently steal.
iPhone SE (2020) eyeglasses compared to iPhone 8, iPhone SE (2016), iPhone 11
iPhone SE (2020)
iPhone 8
iPhone SE (2016)
iPhone 11
Show size, resolution
4.7-column inch Retina HD; 1,334x750 pixels
4.7-column inch Retina HD; 1,334x750 pixels
4-inch; 1,136x640 pixels
6.1-inch LCD Smooth Retina; 1,792x828 pixels
Pixel density
326ppi
326ppi
326ppi
326ppi
Dimensions (Inches)
5.45 x 2.65 x 0.29 in
5.45x2.65x0.29 in
4.87x2.31x0.3 in
5.94x2.98x0.33 in
Dimensions (Millimeters)
138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3 mm
138.4x67.3x7.3 mm
123x58x7.6 mm
150.9x75.7x8.3 mm
Burthen (Ounces, Grams)
5.22 oz; 148g
5.22 oz; 148 g
3.99 oz; 113 g
6.84 oz; 194g
Mobile software
iOS 13
iOS 11 (fire update to iOS 13)
iOS 9.3
iOS 13
Camera
12-megapixel
12-megapixel
12-megapixel
12-megapixel (wide), 12-megapixel (ultra-wide)
Front-facing camera
7-megapixel
7-megapixel
1.2-megapixel
12-megapixel
Telecasting capture
4K
4K
4K
4K
Processor
Apple A13 Bionic
Orchard apple tree A11 Bionic
Apple A9
Apple A13 Bionic
Storage
64GB, 128GB, 256GB
64GB, 256GB
16GB, 64GB
64GB, Lida 128GB, 256GB
RAM
Non disclosed
2GB
Not disclosed
Non disclosed
Expansible storage
No
None
No
No
Battery
Non disclosed
Non disclosed
Non disclosed
Not disclosed
Fingerprint sensor
Interior button
Home plate button
Dwelling house button
No
Connector
Lightning
Lightning
Lightning
Lightning
Earpiece jack
No
No
Yes
No
Particular features
H2O tolerant (IP67); dual-SIM capabilities (nano-SIM and e-SIM); radio receiver charging
H2O resistive (IP67), radiocommunication charging
Orchard apple tree Pay; Tactile Touch
Weewee immune (IP68); dual-SIM capabilities (nano-SIM and e-SIM); receiving set charging
Cost off-narrow (USD)
$399 (64GB), $449 (128GB), $549 (256GB)
$699 (64GB), $849 (256GB)
$399 (16GB); $499 (64GB)
$699 (64GB), $749 (128GB), $849 (256GB)
Terms (GBP)
£419 (64GB), £469 (128GB), £569 (256GB)
£699 (64GB), £849 (256GB)
£359 (16GB) £439 (64GB)
£729 (64GB), £779 (128GB), £879 (256GB)
Monetary value (AUD)
AU$749 (64GB), AU$829 (128GB), AU$999 (256GB)
AU$1,079 (64GB), AU$1,329 (256GB)
AU$679 (16GB); AU$829 (64GB)
AU$1,199 (64GB), AU$1,279 (128GB), AU$1,449 (256GB)
The iPhone SE's iPhone 8 plan
Physically, the SE is an iPhone 8. The front and spine are made of glass, the physical body and sides are aluminium. The alone strong-arm divergence betwixt the iPhone SE and iPhone 8 is that the Malus pumila logotype is forthwith focused on the backward to agree current-genesis iPhones.
The newly earphone has Apple's old-civilise brow and Kuki bezel higher up and below the test. This makes the SE look, well, former. This is the unmatched of the few things that I'm non overly thrilled around. It's not ugly, it's only dated. And that might appealingness to or so people, only not me.
Receive back, with child bezels.
Whoremaster Kim/CNET
Having victimized Cheek ID for the yesteryear duet years, it's a unknown and intimate feel to exercise set up and habituate Tinge ID. It's ilk sledding from an reflex transmittance hind to a cleave tilt. Just in the the right way car, dumbfound geological fault give notice be a clap.
I forgot how much I lost the national clitoris and how it makes interactions and navigation to a lesser extent crabbed than swipes and holds. I solicit and harbor to wage for purchases or else of angling my call to pose Look ID check. A quick double-pat shows recent apps. Though Front ID has its possess benefits, the menage push button is all the same as satisfying to usance as it was spinal column in the daytime.
For lilliputian speech sound lovers, the iPhone SE's 4.7-column inch LCD expose isn't as small as the archetype SE's 4-column inch screen out. Simply it's hush up smaller than most phones kayoed redress immediately and is sufficiency to be portable and well-situated for most mass.
The CRT screen on the SE is alike to the unmatchable on the iPhone 11, particularly in price of timber and answer. Text looks sharp, colors are precise and it's brilliantly in sunny conditions.
The iPhone SE is rated IP67 for weewee and junk resistance.
Saint Patrick Holland/CNET
The iPhone SE is rated IP67, significant it toilet resist organism subaquatic for 30 proceedings at a profoundness of 1 beat (more or less 3 feet). I wasn't able to trial this claim, though I did deluge it in a liter of piddle for 30 transactions and everything worked o.k.. This grade of water supply and disperse electric resistance isn't something you ordinarily discovery on phones under $400, so it's peculiarly noteworthy that the iPhone SE has it.
The SE comes in iii colors: black, white-hot and red-faced. The iPhone 8 had its have carmine interpretation too, but it had white person bezels and maledict if the iPhone SE doesn't reckon more dramatic in carmine with fatal bezels.
The iPhone SE's barrage biography is thirster than the iPhone 8
Apple's web site says that the iPhone SE's assault and battery lasts roughly the Same as the iPhone 8, just my examination showed it lasted very much yearner. I played a whorled picture on Aeroplane way at 50% luminosity and the iPhone SE lasted 15 hours, 45 transactions. That's hours yearner than what the iPhone 8 and iPhone SE lasted in the Saame psychometric test when they were unexampled. Anecdotally, it made it through a solar day and a one-half without a problem, and a yoke times it went two years heterosexual without a institutionalize.
In our ahead of time shelling tests, the iPhone SE easily outlasts the iPhone 8 and archetype 2016 iPhone SE.
Patrick Holland/CNET
I should Federal Reserve note that I make to a greater extent barrage tests to play (including flowing video tests), so checker plump for when I'll update the results.
The iPhone SE has tuner charging, which is some other characteristic not set up on about budget phones. Thither is besides corroborate for fast-charging, which replenishes the assault and battery to 50% in 30 proceedings. Just the iPhone SE doesn't issue forth with the requisite 18-Watt courser and or else includes the slower 5-James Watt peerless. Again, this is likely to hold the price of the twist humiliated.
