Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “iPhone SE review: Old is new, again!”.
You know smartphones are getting really expensive. I distinctly remember when iPhone 10 launched for a thousand bucks and everybody freaked out and now it’s commonplace to see $ 1200 flagships and $ 1400 flagships. I mean the oneplus 8 pro is considered a good value at nine hundred bucks. So then, when Apple announced the new iPhone se for 2020 for four hundred dollars, everybody took now first and foremost.
Yes, those are not your eyes being weird. The iPhone se is stacked inside of an iPhone eight body. Isn’T that means that you’re not getting a triple camera system or a big, borderless OLED display or face ID instead you’re getting an LCD display and you’re getting the touch ID home button you’re getting a single camera in big bezels, but the one thing that makes the Iphone se really special is the a13 Bionic processor.
Now don’t get me wrong. Most of these specs are distinctly mid-range. It’S got three gigabytes of RAM a measly 1821 milliamp hour battery and 64 gigabytes of storage at the base line.
But what makes the iPhone se truly remarkable is it’s a 13 Bionic processor. This is Apple’s absolute newest processor that you’re gon na see in the iPhone 11 series, and it enables some new features like being more power efficient in a bunch of new camera features, but maybe even more importantly, it means that the iPhone se is going to be Supported for a long long time, look when you walk into a carrier store and you buy an expensive smartphone. You want it to be supported for a while, and, unfortunately, a lot of manufacturers will only update their phones for like one or two years, and one of the big benefits of buying an iPhone is that it’s supported for a while. The iPhone 6s series is currently on the latest version of iOS. The last original iPhone se is currently on the latest version of iOS, and that means that the new iPhone se is probably going to be supported for at least four or five more years. Anyways.
Let’S talk about what this processor brings to this phone and improvements that you can actually see now there are two main things that the processor does for this phone. One is going to be a much improved camera system and two is going to be better battery life. Now the iPhone se uses the same camera system as the iPhone 8. The a13 bionic has a new image signal processor in some new neural cores that are going to make photos coming out of this phone a lot better than the iPhone eight and overall, that held out to be pretty true. The colors were really nice.
The sharpness was good. I was not at all bothered by the fact that this is a 12 megapixel camera. In fact, I really like 12 megapixel cameras, because it means that the individual pixel size is not ridiculously small. Sharpness was really good too, and it was an over sharpened, like we’ve seen in a lot of modern smartphones and white balance, actually looked a little bit better than it did coming straight out of the iPhone 11 Pro, which really surprised me now.
Obviously, these photos aren’t going to be as sharp as higher resolution sensors on some Android phones, but I think overall, if you’re just viewing them on your phone, they still look pretty good. Now one kind of cool thing from that a13 Bionic processor is the fact that it’s using its neural chorus to allow for portrait mode and we’ve seen this before with single camera. Phones like the pixel one through three, but it’s working a little bit differently here.
The pixel 1, through 3, used dual pixel autofocus, which gave it this stereo vision, so it could determine what was in the foreground and what was in the background. On a contrary, the iPhone se doesn’t have dual pixel autofocus. So, just taking a 2d image and interpolating depth out of that now, the default camera can only use this on people, but if you download a third-party camera app, you can actually use this on things like street signs or animals, although it’s definitely not gon na work. As well because the neural network has been trained specifically on people but overall, I am pretty surprised how well that portrait mode works, especially with just a flat 2d image, because you can take any 2d image with a person in it and interpolate depth. Out of that, and because this is all software, it also works on the front-facing camera.
Overall, the selfie quality was also pretty good, with good color and white balance, and it’s really cool being able to do a selfie portrait mode photo with one camera on a knife. Now the other camera benefit that that a 13 Bionic brings to the iPhone 8 is 4k 60fps. Video and iPhones have always had some of the best video quality on any smartphone at all, and the video quality coming out of the iPhone se is very, very good, of course, that back camera has optical image stabilization, as well as electronic image stabilization. So you get a really smooth image with very good color and dynamic range.
This is me testing the 4k 60fps video and, of course, I can’t see the key 4k video on the screen right now, because it has two keys, the back camera. But let me know how do you think it looks honestly, I’ve tested it a little bit and it’s pretty good. Now there is one glaring issue with the iPhone se camera and that’s it there’s no night mode. Now I really don’t know why they wouldn’t put name 1 in this phone.
I would assume that they had the capabilities to do it, since it’s mostly software, and that is pretty annoying, because when you’re in low-light circumstances, the iPhone 11 Pro will automatically take these night mode photos that just show a lot more detail. Now, like I said, the a 13 Bionic is also more power efficient than the chip in the iPhone 8, and it’s not groundbreaking ly different. I mean I usually unplugged around 8:30 a.m. and the phone died around 1:30 a.m. so this definitely got through the whole day.
It just wasn’t nearly up to the 2 day battery life that we’ve seen in other high-end Android smartphones, but I mean high-end Android smartphones have like 4000 and 5000 milliamp hour batteries, so that’s kind of understandable. Now this is fine for a general day when you’re just sitting at home or in the office most of the day, but if you’re planning on going out till late at night, you’re definitely gon na have to top off in the middle of the day. Now, fortunately, there’s also wireless charging in the iPhone se, which I particularly appreciate because Michael and I have wireless chargers all over this apartment and it’s really nice to just be able to place it on a charger and walk away. Now, speaking of charging, that chip also allows this phone to charge with an 18 watt charger that you’ll see in like an iPhone 11 Pro now, unfortunately, the iPhone se comes with a 5 watt charger which kind of sucks, and you have to buy an 18 watt Charger separately, but it does work and it charge about 50 % in half-an-hour. If you purchase that separate charger, and, of course perhaps the most obvious, but also important thing about this iPhone – is that it runs iOS if you’re looking for an iPhone you’re looking for it because of the ecosystem.
You’Re. Looking for the ability to use iMessage on your MacBook or on your iPad you’re, looking for the ability to FaceTime and use an Apple watch and air pause now, don’t get me wrong. Ios is not nearly as customizable as Android. If you’re someone who really likes to change your launcher or change your icon pack or even have an app drawer, you’re, definitely going to have to go after Android.
But if you like the Apple ecosystem in general, you have a MacBook or an iPad. You want that tight integration with Apple’s products and services, then in iPhones what you’re gon na have to get. So I guess the big question is: what are you missing if you buy an iPhone se well, like I said earlier, just from the other iPhones you’re, not getting the triple camera system, you’re, not getting an OLED display and you’re not getting face ID.
Those are the main things from like the iPhone 11 Pro no iPhone 11 Pro max otherwise, from some of the higher-end Android phones, you’re, not getting a super high resolution or super fast refresh rate display you’re, not getting a gigantic battery and you’re, not getting the tight Integration with things like Google Assistant, but I think for most people, not the tech nerds like you and me, just getting access to the Apple ecosystem for $ 400 is more important than any of those things. If you can walk into a carrier, store and walk out with an iPhone 4 cheaper than most Android phones and 20/20, that’s a big win for a lot of people. Look I’m not here trying to tell you the iOS is better than Andrea.
I definitely prefer Android for most things, but I think everybody should have access to whatever OS that they want to use and the more access there is to the iOS ecosystem. The more the people can actually decide which one they prefer anyways, guys that’s about it for iPhone se 20/20 review. Do you think there are any mid-range Android phones that can really compete with this thing at the $ 400 price point, let me know in the comments section down below and make sure you read the article over on Android Authority. Otherwise I’ll see you in the next article .