Many iPhone SEs seem very familiar. The phone received the chassis of the 5s model and became the 3rd generation of Apple smartphones, which used the same design. However, with the external similarities inside, the model underwent a major modernization. The processor frequency rose to 1.85 GHz, the amount of RAM doubled, the camera resolution increased to 12 megapixels.
Design
Even without photos, the design of the Apple iPhone SE 32GB smartphone is easy to imagine. In fact, it has not changed since 2012. Perhaps only HTC One M7 can say something like that.
From an aesthetic point of view, the chassis style of the iPhone 5, 5s and SE is still one of the best solutions for smartphones. Flat edges, beveled edges, round volume buttons and antenna inserts - all this looks elegant and, according to many, is better than the 6th model with built-in plastic antenna lines, oblong buttons and a camera protrusion. On the other hand, the ergonomics of the phone have definitely improved. Although the SE's flat surfaces and beveled edges provide an elegant design, the rectangular shape does not fit well with the human hand.
Externally, almost nothing has changed in the iPhone SE 32GB smartphone. The dimensions remained the same, and the mass grew by only 1 g. You can find only 2 differences. Firstly, logos disappeared from the rear panel, and secondly, the brilliant chamfer along the edge was replaced by a matte finish corresponding to the rest of the chassis. In addition, a new color option has appeared - pink gold.
Such conservatism has its advantages and disadvantages, which often turn out to be sides of the same coin. For example, due to the fact that the manufacturer did not seek to make the relatively inexpensive model thinner, this left more space for the battery and eliminated the protrusion of the camera. The old design has a large frame width on the left and right sides of the screen, and the black space between the white front panel and the actual display is much thicker than on new models.
IPhone SE 32GB Gold has become part of the general trend not to change the design until the market is ready for this. In many ways, a change in design means significant flaws that required new solutions. A good design is durable and requires only minor changes to accommodate new features and to constantly reduce the thickness of the device.
Performance
As expected, the specifications of the iPhone SE 32GB match those of the 6s. Compared to the 5s model, the improvement turned out to be significant, about twice as much as the performance of its predecessor: in the 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Unlimited test, the phone gains 2038 points.
NAND memory also works no worse than iPhone 6. Reading data in random order is faster (27 versus 23.33 MB / s), and writing is almost equal (2.21 and 2.22 MB / s). Sequential reading is slightly worse (378.36 and 404.39 MB / s), but writing is performed at the same speed (165.33 and 165.55 MB / s). Slight differences can be attributed to the test variance and confidently say that the SE memory performance corresponds to the 6s model.
iPhone SE 32GB: Battery Review
With a Wi-Fi connection test of web surfing, the smartphone copes very well. When Apple announced that SE has a larger offline web resource than the 6s and 6s Plus, some were surprised, although this is actually a natural result. SE is equipped with a much smaller LCD with lower resolution than other models, which significantly reduced its total power consumption. The increase in battery capacity compared to the 5s also contributed to longer battery life. According to Apple, the iPhone SE 32GB smartphone can last 2 hours longer than the 6th model, and users confirm this. Wi-Fi web surfing can last 9 hours 16 minutes.
LTE connection lasts 3 hours longer than that of 6s, and is inferior to the previous test by a couple of hours.
The 4-inch iPhone models in the GFXBench test always showed poor results. Here, SE shows the shortest battery life - only 1.46 hours. The phone, of course, got better compared to 5s, even though its results in this test are half an hour less, since by the end of the test the iPhone SE shows a 6-fold increased productivity due to a greater degree of thermoregulation of the A7 processor.
Charge time
Like the iPhone 6s Plus, the SE comes with a 5-watt charger. Such low power for a large model would be problematic, but for a small battery it is enough. The charge time of SE from 0 to 100% is 1 h 40 min.
Screen
The display provides the greatest advantages of the model, but not because of its characteristics. IPhone SE 32GB replaced the 5th model with the same 4-inch IPS-screen with a resolution of 1136 x 640. Although it is impossible to confirm that the panel remains the same, you can make sure that they are quite similar.
Apple estimates the brightness of its displays at 500 nits. SE at peak brightness reaches 598 nits. This is more than the iPhone 6 and 6s, whose specifications are higher.
Black level at maximum brightness is quite high (0.69 nits). This is partly due to the bright backlight of the screen, but in the end, even with a large peak brightness, the contrast lags far behind the characteristics of other phones, and even in comparison with 5s it is quite low. It is important to note that Apple rarely uses displays with a contrast ratio of 800: 1, but if you put the phone side by side with modern IPS-matrices of smartphones such as the iPhone 6 and LG G4, the black color looks like a dark gray.
The phone screen accurately reproduces shades of gray. As usual, a blue shift is observed, but it is small, and the average color temperature is below 7000 K. The gamma is quite straightforward, and in the end there are no shades of gray with DeltaE> 3, which is usually required. With an average DeltaE = 1.87, there is nothing to be desired.
The color rendering of the iPhone SE 32GB is highly accurate. For many edemas, DeltaE <1, i.e., the error is invisible, even if the reference color is put next to it. In extreme cases, saturation is achieved with DeltaE = 2, which is very impressive. On average, DeltaE = 1.24, and there is practically nothing to improve here.
Given that color blend accuracy is only a function of saturation accuracy and grayscale accuracy, it’s not surprising that the iPhone SE shows good results here. There are no errors with DeltaE> 3, and, in general, most of them are between 1 and 2.
Overall IPS display iPhone SE 32GB reviews praise. 1136 x 640 is far from the highest resolution on the market, but Apple really provides the best-in-class color accuracy, and the density of 326 dpi is quite high so that no additional smoothing is required.
Camera
Like the iPhone 6, the SE is equipped with a 12-megapixel 1/3 "sensor and an f / 2.2 aperture lens. The A9 chipset includes the same ISP processor, so in theory the photos should be identical. This is a huge improvement over the 5s that I used Apple's first 1/3 "8MP sensor. Switching to a sensor with a higher resolution made it possible to record UHD video, and the new ISP provides slow-motion video with a resolution of 1080p and a speed of 120 fps, and also supports the Live Photos function. SE and iPhone 6 have the same photo and video results.
Image Quality
According to reviews, iPhone SE 32GB allows you to get good photos. They are noticeably sharper than frames taken at 5s, due to a combination of a higher resolution sensor and improved image processing processor. As expected, due to the same camera and ISP, the image quality is essentially the same as that of 6s and is definitely the best among phones cheaper than $ 400.
Night shots are identical to those of the 6s. But the price of the iPhone SE 32GB is $ 250 lower. The quality of daytime photos is not bad, but inferior to 6s Plus in low light due to the smaller sensor and lack of image stabilization. Obviously, the quality of the camera was sacrificed at a lower cost. But SE has the best image sensor in its price range.
iPhone SE 32GB: 4-inch design overview
The Android world has long abandoned smartphones with a diagonal of 4 ". While Apple was still using 3.5 ”, competitors' phones switched to a 4”, 4.3 ”, 4.5” diagonal screen, etc. Currently, the standard flagship Android phone has a display larger than 5 inches, and 4, 5 ”screen is considered tiny. Of course, there are other factors related to the size of the device, for example, whether there are physical or on-screen buttons and how large the panel is, but the diagonal of the screen still determines the borders of the window on the Internet and in all applications.
When switching from 5 ”to 4”, the smartphone really seems small. After some period of getting used to it, you can enjoy the possibility of using the phone with one hand. Using a 4-inch screen is much easier to work with one hand, without fear of dropping the smartphone and without shifting your hand to get to the upper left area of the display.
On the other hand, the 4 ”screen seems rather cramped, even after getting used to its small size. With the default settings, the density of information is absolutely ridiculous, and it is almost impossible to use the phone without setting the minimum font. Therefore, users who need larger letters due to poor eyesight should immediately exclude the iPhone SE if they do not want to constantly scroll. Even after changes, the display cannot accommodate everything you need. On the main screen, there are one less line of labels, fewer letters are displayed in the Mail application, there are no avatars in the messaging application. Similar reductions are repeated in other applications of Apple and third-party manufacturers. Programs like the control center only hold half the entire page of the iPhone 6s.
All these changes are only a function of the size of the display, and although they seem obvious, it is difficult to understand the extent to which they change the experience of using the phone.
The Last of the Mohicans
Of course, the iPhone SE 32GB features are the best among 4-inch smartphones, and all specifications can be ignored, as this is the only offer of this size. Android manufacturers refused to create small phones, and most of them have not released top-level models of this size for several years. By 2012, emphasis was placed on 4.5 ”and more, and at the end of 2011 Samsung introduced 5.3” Galaxy Note. The idea of a compact Android phone is something like the Xperia Z5 with a 4.6 ”screen, which is slightly smaller than the iPhone 6s display. Further downsizing means a move to cheaper smartphones like the Moto E, but that's already a completely different part of the market.
Advantages and disadvantages
Compared with the smallest modern high-end phones on the Android platform, it is easy to notice that the characteristics of the iPhone SE 32GB put it in first place. The Apple A9 is still one of the fastest chips, and it goes without saying that the Snapdragon 810 in the Xperia Z5 Compact is not comparable with it. According to reviews, the camera also has no equal in phones of this class. It does not reach the flagships, but using the sensor of the 6th model allows you to get really beautiful photos and the best 4K video that can only be obtained on the phone.
The 4-inch IPS display of the iPhone SE 32GB Black is perfectly calibrated and its resolution is enough to avoid anti-aliasing, although it is clearly not as clear as on many Android smartphones. According to user reviews, the main drawback of the screen is low contrast and a high level of black brightness, which is noticeable when used, when compared with more modern phones or any AMOLED panel. The screen is probably one of SE's weaknesses, although overall it's a good IPS display.
Conclusion
The fact that the design of the phone has not changed since the iPhone 5s, according to the owners, is not its drawback. The design is reliable, and there is no reason for the arbitrary modification of the product in each generation. SE has become a necessary update to Apple's 4-inch model, given that more than 2 years have passed since its introduction. The fact that the user gets the same camera performance and display calibration as the 6s model is pretty attractive considering that the device costs $ 250 less. The battery life, depending on the situation, is better or worse than that of 6s, but it definitely improved compared to 5s. Faster LTE and a much faster Wi-Fi connection are also nice changes, like Apple Pay. It was difficult for the manufacturer to include something else without cutting its margin, and this would raise questions about why 6s are much more expensive.
According to reviews by some owners who have used SE daily, they intend to upgrade to models such as the Nexus 5X and iPhone 6s, as the small display does not really suit them. But the fact that Apple sells 32 million 4 ”devices per year, indicates a great demand for a small phone with high performance. Moreover, after the announcement of the 8th model, the price of the iPhone SE 32GB dropped to $ 349.