No place like home for nostalgia buffs as Apple’s budget iPhone SE delivers

Don’t underestimate the appeal of Apple’s new budget iPhone SE. We live in tough economic times.

iPhone SE has some state-of-play features.

Don’t underestimate the appeal of Apple’s new budget iPhone SE. We live in tough economic times, our dollar is weak, and many users say they are paying for features on premium phones that they never use.

The iPhone SE (special edition) is a smaller iPhone with a 4.7-inch display, the same size as iPhone 8, but has some of the advanced features of the latest iPhone 11 model, including the same lightning fast processor found on Apple’s premium iPhone 11 Pro Max.

However, the SE is much cheaper than the reigning iPhone 11, just $749 for 64GB of storage, a difference of $450. An iPhone SE with 128GB of storage is $829 while one with 256GB is $999. They are all three figure amounts. The other relatively budget iPhone XR starts at $1049, $300 more.

The question is whether you are comfortable with the compromises Apple makes to deliver a budget iPhone.

On the plus side you get an iPhone with the same A13 “bionic” processor found on iPhone 11 models. It is very fast and runs augmented-reality experiences, apps that use machine learning and offers advanced photographic capabilities. My iPhone SE test unit scored 482,955 on the AnTuTu performance benchmark app, even more than the 458,524 that I scored for iPhone 11 Pro Max last year.

Some say the iPhone SE’s release is partly motivated by Apple wanting more subscribers to its Arcade gaming service. There are big dollars in mobile gaming but younger gamers may shy away from expensive iPhones. They get optimal gaming performance in Arcade with this phone.

But you get 3GB of internal RAM memory instead of 4GB on iPhone 11.

Apple's new budget iPhone SE smartphone.

The iPhone SE has some state-of-play features. It supports QI wireless charging, 18-watt fast charging, although the phone comes with a standard 5W adaptor, so you’ll have to acquire an 18W one yourself. Connectivity is great. The phone supports Gigabit LTE fast uploads and downloads, the latest Wi-Fi 6 for better wi-fi speeds and Bluetooth 5.0.

No current iPhone supports 5G.

As well as a regular nano-SIM, you can add virtual SIMS (eSIMs) electronically to easily access phone and data services when you travel.

The iPhone SE is IP67 dust and water-resistant to a depth of 1m for up to 30 minutes.

The main compromise is that the iPhone SE has the look and size of the iPhone 8 of 2017. I thought iPhone 8 was a decent phone in 2017, so you shouldn’t be missing too much.

The iPhone SE not only has the same dimensions and weight as iPhone 8, it has a similar build with a glass front, glass back and aluminium frame, and the same specced 4.7-inch LCD touchscreen with 326 pixels per inch density and 750x1334 pixel resolution that began with iPhone 6.

The one aspect of iPhone SE I didn’t like was the large bezel (black area) at the top and bottom of the phone. You feel the screen should be bigger on the frame. That’s because I’m totally used to modern phones with screens almost the size of the frame. I guess I have to adjust backwards.

Users who never liked the removal of the home button and gesture control will be thrilled that the home button is back with old-fashioned navigation and old-fashioned touch ID (fingerprint recognition) to unlock it instead of face recognition with Face ID.

Apple's budget iPhone SE smartphone

The battery on this phone is substantially smaller than on iPhone 11 — 1821 milliampere hours versus 3110 mAh for iPhone 11. The phone operated for eight hours, 13 minutes using our standard battery test of playing 1080p video at 50 per cent brightness, which is just over half the 14 hours with iPhone 11.

The other compromise is the camera. Instead of two or three lenses on the main camera, you are back to a single-lens system with a 12MP wide-angle lens with a decent f/1.8 aperture.

Shots taken during the day look great but you can’t pinch for a wider-angle view, and there’s no night mode so you won’t get great shots in lower light.

The lens does support Apple portrait mode with the Bokeh effect (blurring of backgrounds) and portrait lighting effects. It also supports Apple’s “smart HDR”, which seeks to ensure all sections of an image are properly exposed.

You can take 4K video at 24, 30 and 60 frames per second.

The selfie lens is a disappointment though, just the old 7MP instead of 12MP on iPhone 11. You can take portrait shots of people, although not objects. Video is 1080p rather than 4K.

There is rollback on premium iPhone 11 camera features. However, if you thought cameras on phones were adequate in 2017, you get more now with this phone. I’ve had people say that modern phone cameras have too many advanced features that they pay for, but never use.

The iPhone SE supports Apple operating system iOS13. The phone comes in black, white and red.