Apple’s New $399 iPhone SE: Long Live the Small Screen and Home Button
Those who have resisted $700-plus iPhones with big screens and Face ID finally have a solid choice
There’s a brand new iPhone—and by “brand new” I mean an iPhone that looks like an old iPhone with the name of an even older iPhone.
Don’t worry, I’m here for you in this confusing and difficult time.
Announced on Wednesday, the $399 second-generation iPhone SE is now Apple’s AAPL -0.86% most affordable smartphone. It looks almost exactly like the iPhone 8, which it replaces and was previously priced at $449, yet has a faster processor and the same lower price as the previous iPhone SE, which the company stopped selling in September 2018.
The new model will be available for preorder this Friday and will begin arriving on April 24 by mail—given that most Apple stores are closed.
Sure, it might seem like minor stuff—especially against the backdrop of, you know, an economy and society ravaged by a pandemic—but there are people who have been anxiously awaiting this very iPhone for years. Yes, this is the phone for:
1. Those who don’t want a phone the size of an Olympic pool.
2. Those who love the traditional home button like their first born.
3. Those who think phones above the price of $700 are totally ludicrous.
The SE’s traditional home button design and its “smaller” 4.7-inch screen fly in the face of the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max, which have screens 5.8 inches or larger and start at $699.
But what exactly is new here? And is $399 actually a good value for what you get? I spent time talking with Apple executives to get some answers.
What’s actually new here?
Good luck spotting the very, very minor physical differences between an iPhone 8 and an iPhone SE. (Hint: look at the location of the Apple logo on the back!) Inside, however, this is a very different phone. It has Apple’s latest A13 Bionic processor—the same exact one in the higher end iPhones.
That enables faster performance across the entire system, according to Apple, and also unlocks some camera tricks. The single 12-megapixel rear camera supports smart HDR, portrait mode for people—sorry, no beautiful blur around Fido’s face—and can record 4K video. I look forward to testing out the camera in my full review. The $399 model also comes with 64 GB of storage. (The largest 256 GB model is priced at $549.) All are available in black, white and red.
But isn’t this screen still sort of big?
There are some out there who may be disappointed by the iPhone SE’s 4.7-inch screen considering that the old iPhone SE—modeled after the iPhone 5—had a 4-inch screen. To that, Apple says this is a very popular phone size; it has sold more than 500 million 4.7-inch iPhone models.
That enables faster performance across the entire system, according to Apple, and also unlocks some camera tricks. The single 12-megapixel rear camera supports smart HDR, portrait mode for people—sorry, no beautiful blur around Fido’s face—and can record 4K video. I look forward to testing out the camera in my full review. The $399 model also comes with 64 GB of storage. (The largest 256 GB model is priced at $549.) All are available in black, white and red.
But isn’t this screen still sort of big?
There are some out there who may be disappointed by the iPhone SE’s 4.7-inch screen considering that the old iPhone SE—modeled after the iPhone 5—had a 4-inch screen. To that, Apple says this is a very popular phone size; it has sold more than 500 million 4.7-inch iPhone models.