Hands On With the Apple iPhone SE

The iPhone SE may be the small phone of your dreams. Equally anticipated, it'south mostly an Apple iPhone 6s crammed into an iPhone 5s body—and because of its smaller size and lower screen resolution, it should accept even better functioning. At $399 and $499, it'll be a existent examination of whether people actually desire smaller phones.

I spent a healthy amount of time with the SE today after the phone's introduction. The design is very, very like to the 5s. It's really hard to tell the two phones apart. The buttons are in the aforementioned place, at that place are exactly equally many speaker holes, and the color of the materials looks about the aforementioned. But performance wise, it'southward ace. Gaming performance on the 6s is already expert, merely I expect it to be even better here, because the aforementioned A9 processor is pushing fewer pixels.

Now, I've been using iv.7- to v.one-inch devices for a while now, so I can't deny that the 4-inch iPhone definitely feels small. The SE has the same 1,136-by-640 screen every bit the 5s, which is the same 326ppi pixel density as Apple's larger phones, so information technology doesn't feel low-res—it's just smaller. The smallness of the phone mostly hits me when trying to use the touch keyboard.

And i of the biggest changes is invisible, and very important. Apple tree stepped upwards to a better modem from the 5s. It adds Band 12 for T-Mobile, which dramatically improves LTE reception, and the Spark bands for Sprint, which will probably improve download speeds past 50 per centum over the 5s. Apple told me this isn't the 6s's modem. It's LTE Category 4, not Category 6, so it won't be able to accept advantage of some of the tricks Sprint and AT&T are running to make their networks faster. But it's definitely better than the 5s's modem.

So, information technology looks like the 5s, almost disturbingly so (iPhone SE vs. iPhone 5 below), but it's faster with apps, faster on the Net, and has better cameras. That'due south pretty much the experience.

Apple tree also claims up to 50 percent better battery life for the SE over the 5s because of more efficient components, although of class we oasis't tested that.

There are a few small caveats hither. I of them is that the SE'due south cameras aren't form-leading any more than. As I saw when testing the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5, the iPhone's 12-megapixel main camera doesn't quite measure out upward to those in low low-cal. It's really good, though, especially considering this is a $400 phone and the Galaxy S7 costs $650. The SE also drops dorsum to a 1.2-megapixel front photographic camera from the iPhone 6s'due south five-megapixel offering. That just isn't a lot of pixels for a $400 phone present, making for blocky selfies.

Some of my friends have been lamenting the lack of a 128GB model. There'south nonetheless some of the "smaller ways cheaper" mentality going on with this production, and Apple tree wants to drive people who want 128GB to the bigger, more expensive phones. I call up almost everyone who wants the SE will be happy with 64GB; that's a lot of storage!

I'd consider the lack of 3D Touch less of a caveat. I was crazy virtually 3D Touch when it starting time came out on the iPhone 6s, peculiarly in the things information technology could do for gaming. But I haven't seen 3rd parties making much use of information technology.

Should you replace your iPhone 5s with the SE? If you're on Sprint or T-Mobile, absolutely. No question. Correct at present. The difference in modem performance is and so huge, many connectivity frustrations will go away when you pick up your obviously identical niggling phone.

If you're on AT&T or Verizon, it'due south a tougher call. If your battery is running down or your phone is lagging, get for information technology. You lot'll become the functioning you look from the latest iPhone, in a more familiar course that's $250 cheaper. But if your 5s is fine, the SE doesn't accept a killer feature to make you lot recycle a perfectly good phone.

The iPhone SE pre-orders commencement March 24, and will arrive in stores on March 31. I'm really looking forward to getting information technology into the Labs for testing.

Sascha Segan is live from Apple tree with his hands on impressions of the iPhone SE and new iPad!

Posted by PCMag on Mon, March 21, 2022

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/apple-iphone-5-news-features-release-date/11271/hands-on-with-the-apple-iphone-se

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