iPhone SE 2022
Apple (Hacker News):
The new iPhone SE features impressive upgrades including the performance of A15 Bionic, which powers advanced camera capabilities and makes nearly every experience better, from photo editing to power-intensive operations like gaming and augmented reality. Along with 5G, longer battery life, and improved durability, iPhone SE comes in three stunning colors — midnight, starlight, and (PRODUCT)RED.1 iPhone SE will be available for pre-order this Friday, March 11, with availability beginning Friday, March 18.
The base configuration is $429 (up from $399) for 64 GB of storage. It’s not clear to me how the camera compares.
Previously:
Update (2022-03-09): Sean Hollister:
On Tuesday, Apple announced the 2022 iPhone SE, the first 5G iPhone for the United States that lacks the millimeter-wave 5G that AT&T and especially Verizon have doggedly insisted on for years. Instead of rejecting that iPhone or insisting that Apple make a special version for its millimeter-wave network, Verizon will simply... carry it. Verizon spokesperson George Koroneos confirmed to The Verge that the company will stock it in stores.
Why am I making such a big deal about something so normal? You need to understand that things have not been normal in Verizon-land. Verizon pushed Google to create a version of its budget Pixel 4A 5G that cost $100 more to satisfy the carrier’s ridiculous demand that phones support barely-there millimeter wave. The Verizon version of Samsung’s Galaxy S20 had less RAM and no microSD expansion so they could fit mmWave 5G. All of Apple’s high-end iPhones have had tiny picture windows for millimeter wave if you buy them in the United States, and for what? Personally, I’ve experienced a Verizon mmWave 5G signal with my iPhone mini a total of once.
Update (2022-03-16): Antonio G. Di Benedetto:
You cannot get another phone for under $500 with as fast a processor or as many years of expected updates as an iPhone SE.
[…]
That design may seem warm and cozy to longstanding iPhone owners that haven’t upgraded their phones in years, but compared to Android phones, it looks like it’s ripped from a long-forgotten past. For about the same price of the iPhone SE are all kinds of excellent Android phones with larger screens, bigger batteries, more RAM, and extra cameras. The iPhone SE might offer higher performance thanks to its CPU, but phones like the Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, Galaxy A42 5G, Google Pixel 5A, and Motorola Moto Edge 5G UW (2021) pack in more modern features and just stuff in general.
Via Matt Birchler:
The Snapdragon SoC’s in these Android phones are way slower than the A15 in the SE. Like 1/3 the speed according to Geekbench in both single and multi-core benchmarks. Fast enough for reviewers in 2022 to say “things run fine” but not fast enough to still feel that quick 2+ years down the line.
What matters is that the A15 is the most efficient phone chip in the world, too. It should last noticeably longer — hours longer — in typical use compared to the 2020 iPhone SE, and much longer than the several-years-old phones with depleted batteries most iPhone SE buyers are likely replacing. After last week’s announcement, I saw many nerds on Twitter — people who clearly had no interest themselves in buying the iPhone SE — griping that it’s downright wrong for Apple to put a “faster” chip in the same old form factor without greatly increasing the capacity of the battery. Too many nerds have internalized the way it used to be, that when chips got faster they necessarily consumed more power. Apple silicon has fundamentally changed that equation. The A15 in the new third-gen iPhone SE is both faster and more power efficient than the A13 in the second-gen iPhone SE.
[…]
The camera hardware is unchanged from the 2020 SE, but the image quality of photos is superior because so much of image quality from phone cameras comes from the image signal processing on the chips, and the A15’s ISP produces noticeably superior results.
I disagree with him about the battery part. My wife has a second gen SE and battery doesn’t make it through a work day. Even if the A15 is more power efficient, the display still sucks the most power and is unchanged, and 5G could impact the battery too.
The bottom line is the battery in the SE is too anemic for modern phones. If the battery can’t last, then the SE isn’t the “comfort” iPhone, it’s just the “familiar” iPhone.
Apple could have bothered to redesign the chassis to still have the home button but a larger battery. Instead they slapped new chips in and called it a day. This isn’t some brilliant move by them, it’s a lazy one.
It also still has the iPhone shape that’s the least comfortable in the hand.
Via Matt Birchler:
We don’t know how big the battery is in the new SE, but this is a complaint I have heard from several 2020 SE owners.
Update (2022-03-23): Joe Rossignol:
The teardowns reveal the new iPhone SE has a larger 2,018 mAh battery compared to 1,821 mAh for the previous-generation model. The new iPhone SE offers up to an extra two hours of video playback and up to an extra 10 hours of audio playback on a full charge versus the previous model, according to Apple's tech specs.
3 Comments RSS · Twitter
> It also still has the iPhone shape that’s the least comfortable in the hand.
Exactly.
iPhone 1, 3G, 3GS: round
iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5S, SE1: square
iPhone 6, 6S, 7, 8, X, XR, XS, SE2: round
iPhone 11, 12, 13, SE3: square
Man, do I hope that this years iPhone 14 is round again, so I can finally replace my aging XS Pro Max...
@Marc iPhone 11 and SE 3 both have (uncomfortable) round edges.
I don’t believe the camera hardware is different. I think all the new benefits come from the computational photography enabled by the A15.