What Do The Reviews Say About The New iPhone SE?
The new iPhone SE — that's "Special Edition," apparently — is out March 31st, and the reviews are rolling in. And they're very positive! (Unless you hate small phones).
It Looks And Feels Just Like The iPhone 5S. Really.
If you have an iPhone 5S and you like the way it looks and feels… has Apple got the phone for you:
The SE looks exactly like the iPhone 5s. I've been carrying both phones around for comparative purposes for the past few days, and I've grabbed the old phone by mistake on multiple occasions…. It even feels exactly like a 5s… The back is smooth and satisfying, as though the phone just shaved. It weighs just four ounces but feels fairly durable, due in part to its hard edges and the fact that it's just slightly thicker than the newer iPhone 6s.
It's Fast As Hell
Apple took the exact same A9 processor and M9 motion coprocessor from the iPhone 6S and put it inside the iPhone SE. And Apple didn't cut corners either. They didn't lower the clock speed or reduce the amount of RAM. The Geekbench results for the iPhone SE and the iPhone 6S are identical.
[Mashable]
[T]he most important thing to know about the iPhone SE is how fast it is. Something about the pure speed of a phone in such a small body is just inherently impressive. Small, inexpensive phones used to mean compromise. The SE, as I heard one person refer to it, is a little pocket rocket. It's corny, but it's true.
The processor inside: Apple says it's "up to 70 percent" faster than the iPhone 6. Opening apps, switching apps, processing things — it all happens faster.
[Yahoo]
And It Goes Fast For A Long Time
[T]he battery life is about 30 percent better than the iPhone 6s's (good for 13 hours of Web browsing, Apple says) — a side effect of having a screen the same size as the 5s.
[Yahoo]
The standout news is battery life. Unlike many other recent Apple products, the iPhone SE's is a significant improvement over its predecessors'. In my lab stress test, which cycles through websites with uniform screen brightness, the SE lasted 10 hours—more than two hours longer than both the iPhone 6s and iPhone 5s, and nearly three hours longer than the Galaxy S7.
I'd even say it's performing better than my iPhone 6s; by 5:30PM yesterday, a full 12 hours after I started using it, my iPhone SE still had 44 percent battery left. That was after checking email, taking phone calls, scrolling through social feeds, watching a YouTube video, briefly running Maps, and using the phone intermittently as a personal hotspot, all with the display brightness set to around 50 percent.
Which Includes Taking Some Very Solid Photos
The 12-megapixel rear camera is capable of Apple's Live Photos video trick, and performs admirably in most settings—though, like the iPhone 6s, it's now bested in low-light shooting by Samsung's new Galaxy S7.
Possibly the most interesting aspect of the iPhone SE's camera is that it sits flush with the aluminium body instead of protruding the way all iPhone camera lenses have since the iPhone 6 in 2014.
And It's Kind Of… Cheap?
Not in a bad way! But at $400 unlocked, it's the cheapest iPhone Apple has ever offered.
The best thing about the iPhone SE might just be its price. Selling for just $399 for a 16GB version and $499 for a 64GB version, this is a tremendously competitive phone. Most $400 phones are not going to give you the latest-generation processor and camera technologies. I really can't underscore how well I think this product will do, simply based on its price.
[Mashable]
Which Isn't To Say There Aren't Drawbacks
Bad news if you're a 3D Touch power user (is that a thing?):
It doesn't have 3D Touch, which makes shortcut menus pop up when you apply additional pressure to the iPhone 6s's screen.
[Yahoo]
[I]t lacks… the super-fast Touch ID of the latest handsets. It has a perfectly decent first-generation Touch ID, but not quite as fast.
There's also the size tradeoff — easier to hold, but less screen real estate:
When it comes to productivity, bigger is better. The phablet trend was essentially chasing the ergonomic reality that we get more done—and even remember more of what we read—on larger screens. Larger phones also have larger virtual keyboards, and the largest phablets boast beefier batteries. The 25% difference in screen area between the iPhone 6s and iPhone SE could have an impact on your work.
TL:DR
The iPhone 5SE is a good-to-great phone in all the key areas. If you own an older iPhone and like the small form factor (or if you've found yourself struggling to use a 5″+ phone), the 5SE is an ideal upgrade. It's also a few hundred bucks cheaper than the 6S, so if you're looking to buy without a contract, it's definitely worth giving a look.
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