When the first iPhone SE was unveiled six years ago, I was mad because I just bought
an iPhone 6 a few months prior and the phone I really wanted was this.
It was such a surprise because it provided the latest power and camera in the last package
for the least price. Which at $399 was really good.
This new third generation iPhone SE appears to adhere to the original's philosophy, but
a lot has changed since then, and that's affected the why of this phone's existence,
the where of its place in the smartphone landscape, and the who of who it's for.
And I'd argue that these changes have made the iPhone SE less desirable than ever.
They upgraded the wrong things.
If you put this iPhone SE next to its predecessor, or the iPhone 8 for that matter, you would
not be able to tell the difference between them. The list of updates for this new iPhone SE is quite small.
You get a slightly bigger battery, slightly tougher glass, an A15 processor with one extra
Gigabyte of RAM, and 5G.
And for the first time ever, a price increase of $30.
5G is notably unnotable. It's a big driver for this price increase, and yet I cannot tell when it's been useful.
Here in Humble Canada, I'm getting maybe double download speeds if I'm lucky.
I'm not getting 5G here. Let me just turn it on to 5G always.
Any luck? No. Okay.
But, so 105 down and 28.6 up, that's not bad for LTE, but why do I need 5G?
So if you're streaming video on this 720p iPhone screen, you're using 10 megabits per
tech in tops, that's a lot of overhead for little utility.
The A15 chip on the SE needs a disclaimer, too.
In Geekbench, it matches closely with the iPhone 13 Pro in graphics performance, even
though that phone's A15 chip has 5 GPU cores instead of 4 in the SE.
But when I exported RAWs to JPEG, this phone couldn't keep up with any of the iPhone 13s,
or the A14-powered iPhone 12 mini for that matter.
So it's a fine performer, but perhaps not the best.
And then there's what's not been updated. The camera remains the same, and it still doesn't have night mode.
There's also no MagSafe, and that's really annoying. It also doesn't bode well for MagSafe's future, considering that the first SE didn't get
3D touch. And look what happened to that feature. And then what else?
There's nothing. And that puts the SE in a peculiar spot.
The market for this $430 phone is increasingly small.
The only people that I could conceivably recommend this to would be people who have an iPhone
7 or older, so my parents, people who are getting a smartphone for the first time, teenagers,
and people who do not want to leave Touch ID, also my parents.
Which considering the pandemic we've been going through and the uselessness of Face
ID during it, that makes sense.
Altogether it's not a large group of what I imagine are mostly boomers.
Everyone else has moved on to something more modern. So I'm not surprised that already a month after release, reports have emerged that Apple
is cutting production of the device by around 20% due to the less than anticipated demand.
The group that's left for this iPhone will love the familiarity this unchanged design
brings. But I can't help but worry about the impact on usability this cramped screen imposes on
those with aging eyes who need to make text bigger.
This is the smallest screen of any mainstream smartphone.
So what if you want a bigger screen? Well you're going to have to venture out of the Apple Garden because there are a lot
of compelling looking big screened Android phones.
At the same price as this iPhone SE you can get the highly regarded Google Pixel 5a or
the brand new Samsung Galaxy A53. Both have significantly more features than the SE, multiple cameras, larger screen and
double the storage.
And the Samsung has facial recognition, an under screen fingerprint reader and a high
refresh rate display.
Stutters become even more obvious and they happen a lot.
The Pixel 5a has less pretense and bloatware, so it performs better.
In Geekbench, these compare more closely against the original iPhone SE rather than the current
one and exporting raws they take forever.
I'm frankly staggered at the stark difference in performance.
5G-wise the Samsung is significantly better for some weird reason.
This is an American Verizon phone on a Canadian TELUS network and it only displays that it's
connected to an LTE network, yet blasts through uploads and downloads.
If you do care about the camera on your phone though, the SE is not really for you.
Its improvements only come from the A15 chip's processing, but with no night mode.
So you're only going to notice an improvement if you compare it to a multi-year old iPhone.
Against the androids, it comes down to subjective opinion and whether you value an ultra-wide
camera over good video recording. The Samsung looks awful.
I'm still surprised at how slow the Samsung Galaxy A53 is.
It means that at this price point you have a choice between a phone that is basic, has
no new features, a tiny screen, but with incredible performance that'll easily last you six years,
or you can get a phone full of all the latest features, the most camera and OLED screen,
but will be slow and only get slower.
If you have to go Android, the Pixel 5a is the one I'd go with, though that's not available
here in Canada unfortunately, but even though the iPhone SE is much faster than any Android
phone in its price range, I still think you can get a better deal on an iPhone.
Remember when I ran to the iPhone 13 review about how complicated it is to buy a phone
these days? The whole Excel spreadsheet thing?
Well, it applies here too. If you want an iPhone SE, here in Canada a few discount carriers are getting rid of second
generation models for less than 200 US dollars over two years.
If you can snag that, that's a great deal. But what if you want to have your cake and eat it too?
Recently a friend of mine asked me to help her buy a new phone and I was able to help her find an iPhone 12 mini with 128GB of storage for 385 dollars.
That's a complete no-brainer. Prices have climbed a bit now, but they still match the current SE.
For my American viewers, the 12 mini is also currently on sale as well.
You can get one with AT&T for $315 or free with Verizon, though those are all with a burdensome
three-year contract.
What was amazing about the original SE was that for the lowest price you got a device
that was better than the iPhone 6 Apple sold at the time for more money.
It really was a good deal and perfect for small phone lovers like me.
In fact, I even bought one.
This is so tough because despite Touch ID's merits, I think that in 2022 this form factor
just looks ancient. If Apple were to maintain the true spirit of the SE with this release, they would have
given us an A15 powered, maybe MagSafe compatible 5G capable phone in an iPhone 11 or 10R
For 429, that would have been amazing, but they didn't.
It leaves an awkward gap, which I guess is still filled with the iPhone 11, which has
the old SE's A13 chip, but it also has night mode and an ultra-wide camera for $70 more.
Well, that means that if you need an inexpensive iPhone, this will do, but I do still think
it's worth the effort to go and find a better deal because they're out there.
Thanks for upgrading the least amount of this Mac Address. Now, I'm curious, if you agree with me that this should have been an iPhone 11 body, give
this video a like and if you're still going to use your existing iPhone ever longer, great
idea. You might as well subscribe. Now, in the comments, I'm curious how many of you still like this Touch ID iPhone 6 form
factor. Are you going to get one? Because this is probably the last hurrah.