Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “This is why no one’s buying this”.
The iPhone SE. ( audience applauds ) When the first iPhone SE was unveiled. Six years ago I was mad. Because I just bought an iPhone Six. A few months prior. And the phone I really wanted was this. Ugh..
It was such a surprise because it provided the latest power in 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.
( soft music ). If you put this iPhone SE next to its predecessor or the iPhone Eight for that matter, you would not be able to tell the difference between them. The list of updates for this new.
For this new iPhone SE is quite small.. You get a slightly bigger battery. Slightly tougher glass and A15 processor, with one extra gigabyte of RAM and 5G., Oh 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.! Why do I need 5G? So if you’re streaming, video on this 720P iPhone screen you’re using 10 megabits per second 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 five GPU cores instead of four 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 Nothing. And that puts the SE in a peculiar spot. ( soft, music, ) (, plane engine roaring ) 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, Seven or older.. So my parents.
People who are getting a smartphone for the first time, teenagers and people who do not wan na leave, touch ID.. Also, my parents., Which considering the pandemic we’ve been going through and the uselessness of face ID during it now makes sense. ( soft music ) 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 cramp screen imposes on those with aging eyes who need to make text bigger., (, soft, music ). This is the smallest screen on any mainstream smartphone.. So what if you want a bigger screen? Well I’ll tell you, but first lem me tell you about this: video sponsor Anker., Since the iPhone SE no longer comes with a charger anymore. You should check out Anker’s Nano Pro 21 Charger. In its small and colorful package. You get Anker’s active shield technology, as well as a power tuner chip to get the fastest and safest charge., And if you need to charge even more, they also have a 40-watt dual charger available as well. Check’em out at the link in the description below.. Now, if you want a big screen, phone you’re gon na 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.. The pixels still got a headphone jack.
And the Samsung has facial recognition, an under screen fingerprint reader and a high refresh rate display. ( soft music ) ( whooshing sound ). Yes, I switched to Android and it is quite revealing..
You might think that this Samsung would trounce the iPhone., And you know yes, this high refresh rate screen is nice right up until you reach a hiccup on an animation., Then it’s really annoying. 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 Tellus 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 gon na 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 OLET 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., ( soft music ). Remember my rant in 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 over two years.. If you can snag that, that’s a great deal., But what if you wan na, 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 128 gigabytes of storage for $ 385..
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 .