iPhone SE

[amrnuke]

Will have the A13 Bionic CPU
Screen and camera obviously less high end
However, this is a solid price entry point at $399 for what is an incredible amount of power
In positioning against lower-end Androids, this could be a stellar move, including such a high end chip

Will be interesting to see how battery life, camera, and screen hold up in tests
Also, given smaller battery, wonder if they're down-clocking the A13 to help preserve battery life

 

[Commodus]

Will have the A13 Bionic CPU
Screen and camera obviously less high end
However, this is a solid price entry point at $399 for what is an incredible amount of power
In positioning against lower-end Androids, this could be a stellar move, including such a high end chip

Will be interesting to see how battery life, camera, and screen hold up in tests
Also, given smaller battery, wonder if they're down-clocking the A13 to help preserve battery life

Supposedly they're not holding back on the A13, so it should be just as fast.

It's not a radical design, and people will point to the display being a step back (in resolution, not color) compared to Android phones in its price class, but I don't think that'll matter. It'll sell like hotcakes to anyone who wants an entry point into the iPhone world, or who just wants a replacement for their faithful old iPhone 6/6s/7.

 

[Ravynmagi]

People shouldn't be worrying about the resolution. Apple has been a step back in pixel density compared to Android for quite a while now. Job's and Apple's philosophy seems to be "Retina" displays just need over 300 DPI when viewed normally (not 2 eyes from your eyeball scrutinizing for pixels) and I agree with that. For a 4.7 inch phone, the 326 DPI is pretty sufficient and I don't think people will complain about the screen. And it helps extend the battery life not having to push unnecessary pixels most people won't notice.

This is definitely probably the best $400 phone by far you can get. All of it's competition at this price point is going to cut corners big time on the processor and be significantly slower in performance. And also build quality.

By comparison. Samsung's Galaxy A51 at $400 has a bigger 6.5 inch screen at 2400x1080 (iPhone SE is 4.7" at 1334x750). An an Exynos 9611 processor which scores 347 in Geekbench 5, which is a tad behind the 3,400 the A13 in the iPhone SE.

 

[Roland00Address]

By comparison. Samsung's Galaxy A51 at $400 has a bigger 6.5 inch screen at 2400x1080 (iPhone SE is 4.7" at 1334x750). An an Exynos 9611 processor which scores 347 in Geekbench 5, which is a tad behind the 3,400 the A13 in the iPhone SE.

Sigh you are comparing single core to multicore apples to oranges with two different devices.

A51 according to notebook check
0,347 single core
1,229 multi core

While the a13 is about
1,300 single core and
3,300 to 3400 multicore depending on device.

Aka 2.7x to 3.7x faster the speed if the benchmarks are correct.

 

[ultimatebob]

That phone is definitely the best value in the Apple product lineup. Frankly, I'm surprised that they didn't start that phone at $500 instead of $400 to prevent cannibalizing iPhone XR sales.

 

[Roland00Address]

That phone is definitely the best value in the Apple product lineup. Frankly, I'm surprised that they didn't start that phone at $500 instead of $400 to prevent cannibalizing iPhone XR sales.

iPhone XR was already $599 and iPhone 8 was $450 as of Last September.

So think of this as as a $50 price drop of the iPhone 8 and boosting the iPhone 8 from a11 to an a13.

It was never going to be an a12 for the a12, a12x plus a12z, and a13 are all on the same die process. Why make the a12 which is only marginally smaller than the a13 when you already have good a13 yields. And keeping the a11 and just dropping the phone price by $50 just would not catch any buzz even if you do rename the phone.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Sigh you are comparing single core to multicore apples to oranges with two different devices.

A51 according to notebook check
0,347 single core
1,229 multi core

While the a13 is about
1,300 single core and
3,300 to 3400 multicore depending on device.

Aka 2.7x to 3.7x faster the speed if the benchmarks are correct.

Thank you for that correction. I thought the result sounded a little off, I should have double checked. But still, cheap Android phones are significantly slower (just not 10 times lower, haha, sorry again).

 

[killster1]

i posted a deal for it. 299 with 6 months service from redpocket. (sure hope it was 299 🙂 i cant even see the link from here)

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

Anybody think this phone is a good step from an Xperia XZ2 Compact? I hate large phones and buy the xperias because they are the only small phones left; however this new iPhone has me interested. I'm just not sure it's worth the switch. Android can be a pain in the neck sometimes but it lets me have Firefox with ublock origin which is pretty important.

 

[slayer202]

Even with the current deals floating around I'm not sure it's motivation enough to upgrade from my ancient iphone 7. I'm dying to find a new phone but can't find something I like. Tried the s20+ for a quick second and got rid of it. I thought the SE could be a temp solution but I can't convince myself to buy a new phone that has the same screen specs as mine from 4 years ago. Nor do I want an iphone with a notch. A flagship in the size of an s20/10/9/etc etc would be nice but the best stuff is in the plus models, which I find too big and unnecessary. Sigh...

 

[amrnuke]

Even with the current deals floating around I'm not sure it's motivation enough to upgrade from my ancient iphone 7. I'm dying to find a new phone but can't find something I like. Tried the s20+ for a quick second and got rid of it. I thought the SE could be a temp solution but I can't convince myself to buy a new phone that has the same screen specs as mine from 4 years ago. Nor do I want an iphone with a notch. A flagship in the size of an s20/10/9/etc etc would be nice but the best stuff is in the plus models, which I find too big and unnecessary. Sigh...

Agree, but the screen is a huge component of the price (not the cost, I know) and as such, hard to see Apple's impetus.
I wasn't sure I'd like the notch and lack of a physical home button but it's been pretty easy to get used to on my iPhone 11 Pro. I really wanted the OLED screen which is why I skipped the plain 11.
I really think an iPhone 11 Mini - basically the SE with an OLED screen and perhaps an upgraded camera, no notch, still has TouchID - would be pretty nice but I think the entry price point would be $600+ since the camera and screen are the two main differentiators.

 

[slayer202]

Agree, but the screen is a huge component of the price (not the cost, I know) and as such, hard to see Apple's impetus.
I wasn't sure I'd like the notch and lack of a physical home button but it's been pretty easy to get used to on my iPhone 11 Pro. I really wanted the OLED screen which is why I skipped the plain 11.
I really think an iPhone 11 Mini - basically the SE with an OLED screen and perhaps an upgraded camera, no notch, still has TouchID - would be pretty nice but I think the entry price point would be $600+ since the camera and screen are the two main differentiators.

I'd love something like that and would be happy to pay it. My only guess is that they can't fit what they need to into that size body. Though it could just be them trying to squeeze us to buy the most expensive version

 

[darkswordsman17]

The Wal-Mart SE deal was/would be (not sure if its still available or not) hard to pass up. I would've gone for it but no T-Mobile, and probably would've required some change to our current plan (which we don't want to give up).

Agree, but the screen is a huge component of the price (not the cost, I know) and as such, hard to see Apple's impetus.
I wasn't sure I'd like the notch and lack of a physical home button but it's been pretty easy to get used to on my iPhone 11 Pro. I really wanted the OLED screen which is why I skipped the plain 11.
I really think an iPhone 11 Mini - basically the SE with an OLED screen and perhaps an upgraded camera, no notch, still has TouchID - would be pretty nice but I think the entry price point would be $600+ since the camera and screen are the two main differentiators.

Its a shame that Apple wouldn't move TouchID to the back (say, on their logo, bit surprised they never made their logo light up on phones too). Make the front all display (but still fairly compact). Honestly, I wish someone would just make a phone with a single sensor and modular lenses (put like a zoom and ultrawide lens, which can attach magnetically to like a stainless steel ring around the singular sensor, along with lightning/USB-C adapters on like a keyring type of thing).

 

[Roland00Address]

Sigh you are comparing single core to multicore apples to oranges with two different devices.

A51 according to notebook check
0,347 single core
1,229 multi core

While the a13 is about
1,300 single core and
3,300 to 3400 multicore depending on device.

Aka 2.7x to 3.7x faster the speed if the benchmarks are correct.

Just thinking about benchmarks and the limits of them, while at the same time marveling at the sublime power that is apple silicon.

But the $399 iPhone SE should be performing better in Geekbench than the $1099 Macbook Air with the quad core i5, also the marginally faster quad core i7. Almost but not quite 1100 single core with the i7 1060NG7 and a little better than 2800 multicore.

This is because that i5 is a Y series chip. It really underlines how much hardware is in the $399 phone. I wished someone did a good keyboard dock for $199 or $299 where you can have a netbook clamshell and run the netbook off the iphone SoC.

Of course we will never gonna get this. We never gonna get the ability to run our own software on that awesome SoC with the form factors we want by design. Apple wants you to get an iPad Air (A12 for $499) or an iPad Pro ($799 A12z), or a macbook Air ($999 for dual core i3, $1099 for quad core i5.) Note those iPads prices are not counting 3rd party case, keyboard, and touchpad to make them effectively laptops. So much hardware in that $399 phone but without the user interface to access it. It is the new device tax where apple used to be charging outrageous mark up for ram in laptops in the 00s, and flash upgrades in the 10s.

Besides the user interface and the software / os the first real hardware limitation of the iPhone SE's limitation is its 3gb of ram, the same ram in the iPad Air (2019, $499), but the newer iPad Pro gives you 6gb, and the macbook Air is 8gb.

So much hardware in that small price package. A faster silicon than any intel silicon until you step up to 15w Ultrabooks.

 

[slayer202]

Agree, but the screen is a huge component of the price (not the cost, I know) and as such, hard to see Apple's impetus.
I wasn't sure I'd like the notch and lack of a physical home button but it's been pretty easy to get used to on my iPhone 11 Pro. I really wanted the OLED screen which is why I skipped the plain 11.
I really think an iPhone 11 Mini - basically the SE with an OLED screen and perhaps an upgraded camera, no notch, still has TouchID - would be pretty nice but I think the entry price point would be $600+ since the camera and screen are the two main differentiators.

I know this is off topic, but I just noticed that the galaxy s10e has a smaller body than the regular s10(and s20, of course). Not as small at the SE2, but not that much bigger, and the screen size is over an inch bigger since the bezels are so much smaller. Now, if I could only decide if I want to leave apple. Processor/software speed is the only hardware downside, along with stuff like facetime and embarrassingly, imessage. But an open box s10e 128gb is about $350 on ebay...

 

[Commodus]

Just thinking about benchmarks and the limits of them, while at the same time marveling at the sublime power that is apple silicon.

But the $399 iPhone SE should be performing better in Geekbench than the $1099 Macbook Air with the quad core i5, also the marginally faster quad core i7. Almost but not quite 1100 single core with the i7 1060NG7 and a little better than 2800 multicore.

This is because that i5 is a Y series chip. It really underlines how much hardware is in the $399 phone. I wished someone did a good keyboard dock for $199 or $299 where you can have a netbook clamshell and run the netbook off the iphone SoC.

Of course we will never gonna get this. We never gonna get the ability to run our own software on that awesome SoC with the form factors we want by design. Apple wants you to get an iPad Air (A12 for $499) or an iPad Pro ($799 A12z), or a macbook Air ($999 for dual core i3, $1099 for quad core i5.) Note those iPads prices are not counting 3rd party case, keyboard, and touchpad to make them effectively laptops. So much hardware in that $399 phone but without the user interface to access it. It is the new device tax where apple used to be charging outrageous mark up for ram in laptops in the 00s, and flash upgrades in the 10s.

Besides the user interface and the software / os the first real hardware limitation of the iPhone SE's limitation is its 3gb of ram, the same ram in the iPad Air (2019, $499), but the newer iPad Pro gives you 6gb, and the macbook Air is 8gb.

So much hardware in that small price package. A faster silicon than any intel silicon until you step up to 15w Ultrabooks.

I don't think Apple is trying to impose a "device tax" as just that there isn't really a market for turning your phone into a laptop.

Remember the Lapdock for the Motorola Atrix? Microsoft's Continuum for the Lumia 950? Samsung's DeX? Yeah, they all bombed, and not because of the phones they're attached to... It's that these phone-as-PC approaches are unwieldy and tend to involve a lot of compromises.

Yes, Apple no doubt wants you to get a Mac or iPad to go with that iPhone, but I don't think it's doing this out of some kind of cruel ignorance of what people want. It's that many people don't want the hassle of plugging their phone into a laptop shell just to get work done, and don't want to lose their home PC and their phone in one shot if they're mugged on the street.

 

[Roland00Address]

Remember the Lapdock for the Motorola Atrix? Microsoft's Continuum for the Lumia 950? Samsung's DeX? Yeah, they all bombed, and not because of the phones they're attached to... It's that these phone-as-PC approaches are unwieldy and tend to involve a lot of compromises.

Tech changes, yes there will be compromises but the compromises would be much smaller now.

While the benefits remain the same and in fact are larger when we are talking about this powerful of hardware. We have hardware in the iPhone SE faster than anything by intel under 10w and is trading blows with the 15w hardware. While things like the Motorola Atrix had a SoC that was slower than the 2008 intel atom. Likewise Microsoft Continuum was dead in the water for windows Phone was dead in the water.

 

[Commodus]

Tech changes, yes there will be compromises but the compromises would be much smaller now.

While the benefits remain the same and in fact are larger when we are talking about this powerful of hardware. We have hardware in the iPhone SE faster than anything by intel under 10w and is trading blows with the 15w hardware. While things like the Motorola Atrix had a SoC that was slower than the 2008 intel atom. Likewise Microsoft Continuum was dead in the water for windows Phone was dead in the water.

It has nothing to do with whether or not the CPU is powerful enough to run a desktop environment well, or whether the OS has market uptake. Remember, modern Samsung phones and tablets can do DeX... it still sucks.

It's the compromised experience. Having to dock or plug in; the inherent hardware limitations of a pocket-sized device; and of course, the hassles and risks that come with tying your phone to your personal computing. Try telling a parent that they can't use their phone while Junior is doing homework and that'll be a hard "nope" from them.

Listen, I know the fantasy of using your phone as a PC is appealing, but it keeps failing precisely because that fantasy dies when it collides with practical reality.