iPhone SE review: Apple's cut-price smartphone king - MW

Apple's latest iPhone SE is an amazing discount that suddenly revives a classic iPhone design and beats every other mid-range phone in the process.

The iPhone SE costs £ 419 taking key bits of iPhone 11 - processor and software - and bringing them into the iPhone 8 body from 2017. You get a phone design that hasn't changed much from the iPhone 6 in 2014. , with the traditional home button, but the performance and longevity of an all-new Apple phone costs £ 310 less than an iPhone 11.

It's an encouraging proposition, price-competitive with countless mid-range Android smartphones, including the Google Google Pixel Pixel 3a, but with the highest-level iPhone performance and services.

The 8-inch iPhone design was tiring in 2018 and today it is no different. The 2020 SETHER 4.7in iPhone screen is tiny by today's standards, but the body of the phone is not because it avoids a modern full-screen design to replace the large bezels and chunky chin and forehead.

Put simply, there are more phones than the small screen suggests. Those looking for a really small phone like the previous generation iPhone SE 4in will be disappointed.

The size and materials are an exact match for the iPhone 8. The front and back are glass, aluminum, the Touch ID fingerprint scanner is on the home button, the Lightning connector is on the bottom, but there's no headphone jack. like Face ID.

At just 148g, the iPhone SE is super light - weighs just 1g more than its main rival, Pixel 3a - and is the smallest by most modern figures. The iPhone 11 is significantly larger, is 12.5mm longer and 8.4mm wider and weighs 194g.

However, the iPhone SE feels solid and well made like other iPhones and I can comfortably use it with one hand.

The iPhone SE does not support 5G.

Technical data

• Screen: 4.7in Retina HD (LCD) (326ppi)
• Processor: Apple A13 Bionic
• RAM: 3GB
• Capacity: 64, 128 or 256GB
• Operating system: iOS 13
• Camera: 12MP rear camera with OIS, 7MP front camera
• Connectivity: esim, LTE, wifi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5, Lightning and GPS
• Water resistant: IP67 (maximum 1m to 30 minutes)
• Dimensions: 138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3mm
• Weight: 148g

Top performance is similar to iPhone 11

The iPhone SE has the same A13 Bionic processor as the iPhone 11 and works similarly in everyday use, which is a very good thing. That means the iPhone SE will be the top-performing product for years to come.

This iPhone may only cost £ 419, but in fact it will beat everything else in terms of raw processing power. Sadly, performance comes with the price of battery life.

The iPhone SE lasts 27 hours between charges, lasting from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. on the second - enough to see the phone reach bedtime before it needs to be plugged in. That's an hour longer than iPhone 8, but shorter than eight hours of iPhone 11.

Three hours out of 27 were devoted to 4G, the rest connected to wifi. The screen was turned on for three hours, including 30 minutes of video, plus four hours of Spotify via Bluetooth headset and about 20 photos.

Charging the iPhone SE with the 5W charger comes very slowly, only reaching 55% in 60 minutes and takes two hours and 45 minutes to reach 100% from zero. With a £ 29W USB-C charger and a £ 19 USB-C to Lightning cable included in the box with the iPhone 11 Pro, the iPhone SE reaches 80% in an hour and fully charges in two hours and 15 minutes. Any USB-C power distribution charger with 18W or more will achieve the same result and can get a third of the cost. The phone has standard Qi wireless charging too.

Apple slows down the charging process to collect data by over 90% which means it's probably not worth trying to charge the iPhone SE. It's also worth noting that iOS 13 includes a battery optimization feature, designed to learn your habits, and only charge batteries in excess of 80% right before you need it to help maintain this process.


Sustainability

Apple does not give a rated lifecycle for the iPhone SE’s battery, typically 500 full-charge cycles, but it can be replaced for £49. The phone is generally repairable, with the out-of-warranty service cost being £136.44 for the screen or £276.44 for other damage. Repair specialists iFixit gave the phone a repairability score of six out of 10.

The iPhone SE has 100% recycled tin in the solder of its main logic board, 100% recycled rare earth elements in is vibration motor and at least 35% recycled plastic in multiple components. Apple is also using renewable energy for final assembly of the phone, and breaks down the iPhone SE’s environmental impact in its report.

Apple also offers trade-in and free recycling schemes, including for non-Apple products.


iOS 13

The iPhone SE comes out of the box with iOS 13.4.1, the same version of iOS running on Apple’s more expensive iPhone 11 series and every other currently-supported phone.

The main differences between iOS on Apple’s more expensive phones and the iPhone SE is simply the lack of gesture controls. Instead the iPhone SE has the same button-based controls as older phones with Touch ID. It’s quite jarring and slow moving from gesture controls used on practically every modern smartphone back to a home button, but it will immediately be familiar to all those with an Apple smartphone pre-iPhone X.

You get the same dark mode, enhanced quick settings and enhanced privacy options as the iPhone 11.


What’s particularly notable in this mid-range price bracket is that Apple provides software support for its smartphones for far longer than most, averaging around five years from release. The best of even high-end rivals cap out at about four years, but phones in this price bracket are often supported for far less. It means you can safely use the iPhone SE for longer as you will continue to get important security updates as well as new features via iOS version updates.

Camera

The iPhone SE has a single 12-megapixel rear camera that is essentially identical to that used in the iPhone 8, but with the processing and smarts of the iPhone 11. The combination is really quite good.

In good light somewhat very difficult to tell the difference between photos shot on the iPhone SE and the iPhone 11 Pro - a phone costing more than twice as much. Images are well balanced, with good detail and color accuracy. In middle-to-low light, noise and grain are more prevalent and images can be fairly dark. The iPhone SE lacks Apple’s Night Mode, which is a shame, but has the firm’s portrait mode for people only. Video at up to 4K at 60fps is also very good, particularly at this price point.

Overall the rear camera is arguably only beaten by Google’s amazing Pixel 3a at anywhere near this price point for still shots, and you have to spend a considerable amount of money to beat either one.

The selfie camera is very good too, producing highly detailed and well-exposed shots in reasonable lighting, only getting a bit soft and dark in poor light.


Observations

The haptics on the iPhone SE are simply fantastic
There’s no headphone adapter in the box, but there is a set of Lightning EarPods
The stereo speakers are surprisingly good
You can’t expand notifications through a long-press on the lockscreen like you can with every other iPhone, which is annoying (you can on notification pop-ups though)
The iPhone SE is too short for some wireless charging stands
Price
The iPhone SE is available in black, white or red costing £419 with 64GB of storage, £469 with 128GB and £569 with 256GB.

For comparison, the iPhone 11 costs £729, Google’s Pixel 3a costs £299, the OnePlus 8 costs £599 and Samsung’s Galaxy S20 costs £799.

Verdict

We don’t typically associate Apple with tremendous value, but that’s what the iPhone SE is.

What was tired in 2017 with the iPhone 8 has been revitalised in 2020 with a dramatic price cut and top-of-the-line processor. The combination is extremely potent.

You get an iPhone for a much more palatable £419. The tried and trusted design is dated, but perfectly functional and easy to manage at this size. You get a good screen, OK battery life, a camera that’s hard to beat at this price, wireless charging, water resistance and a build quality second to none.

But the icing on the cake is the A13 processor and industry-leading software support that should see the iPhone SE receive at least five years of software updates. That means you can buy the iPhone SE and still be safely using it five years later. Not even Google’s Pixel 3a will manage that.

It’s not perfect, of course: the battery life could be longer, the screen could be bigger or the body smaller, there’s no headphone socket, no Face ID and it takes ages to charge. Lovers of tiny 4in iPhones such as the previous iPhone SE will be disappointed by the size. But these issues are very easy to overlook at this price.


The 2020 iPhone SE is the phone to buy for people who don’t care about phones, who just want a phone to work well, not be too big and last a long time. At £419, the cheapest iPhone totally crushes the competition. If you don’t want to spend £600-plus, this is the phone to buy. Period.