iPhone SE 2020 Long Term Review - OneYear Later! By TecworkZ

IPhone SE 2020 is without a doubt the most value for money iPhone Apple has ever created. Hey guys, it’s Sagar and I have had this phone for over a year, so let’s see how it has faired so far, and whether or not you should consider getting in 2021, or rather who should consider getting it in 2021. There are already reports that the next version of the iPhone SE might arrive sometime in the middle of 2022. So should you wait for it, or should you pull the trigger and get the 2020 iPhone SE? Well, could you really wait 1 whole year to buy your next phone? And at launch that one will definitely cost more than what the 2020 SE does right now, so are you willing to shell out the extra cash. If the answer to both these questions is yes, then ok wait out. But if you can’t wait that long, continue watching this video, and see if this 2020 iPhone SE fits your needs and lifestyles.

This phone came in at Rs.42,500 when it was launched, and it has seen a few price cuts since then. Now you can purchase it for as low as Rs.33,000 and even lower if you get it with some offers. At this price you get a very compact phone, premium build quality with IP67 dust and water resistance rating, 4.7 inch IPS LCD screen, 64GB of internal storage, and A13 Bionic the flagship processor of the time. You can speck it all the way upto 256GB of internal storage, which is frankly more storage than anyone would ever need, and it will cost you 48K Rs. which is still less than what you would pay for the base variant of the iPhone 11, and way less than what you would pay for the iPhone 12 mini.

Many people will try and argue in the comments that you can get a much better Android phone at this price. A - I am not really going to get into that argument in this video, coz then the video will take a completely different turn and become an endless comparison. And B - Someone who is looking at getting the iPhone SE 2020, knows what that want and what other offerings are there at that price point, but they are still considering this phone because they are more comfortable sticking with Apple, or maybe be they are deep into Apple’s eco-system. So this video is here to help them decide, that whether or not they should get this iPhone SE in 2021. First thing that might attract new buyers toward this iPhone SE is its price.

It is the cheapest iPhone right now, which still comes with respectably new specs. Other equally motivated factor pulling people towards this phone is its size. There are many people who liked a smaller iPhone and who felt like the iPhone X, XS, XR and the iPhone 11 was way too big for them. There were also some who preferred a Home Button and Touch ID over face unlock, And because of that, they were holding on to their iPhone 6, 7 or 8. Apple knew this, and for those users they launched the 2020 iPhone SE.

Other than the centred Apple logo, This iPhone SE 2020, gets the exact same design as the iPhone 8 from 2017, which means Aluminium frame sandwiched by glass at the front and back, and yes sadly it also means we still get the huge black bezels on the forehead and chin. That is one of the reason Apple was able to price it lower. I mean it was launched at a starting price of Rs.42500 which is not exactly less, but at least it did not start at 64K like the iPhone 8 did, and mind you this iPhone SE is much more powerful than the iPhone 8. Apple did not have to spend a ton of money on R&D, sourcing new components or did not even have to design this phone from the ground up, which might have helped them price it a bit lower than what iPhones usually do. I think Apple quickly realised that it would do a lot better if they priced it even lower, so in the last year iPhone SE has seen a few price cuts, and now you can get it for as low as 33K.

You can find it for even cheaper at some offline stores and Flipkart was even selling it for 26K in one of their sales if I’m not wrong. Which was a bonkers price for what this phone really offers. The design might not be new, but the Build quality is just as good as any of the other flagship iPhones. It comes in Black, White and Red colours, Gets the same Aluminium 7000 series frame as other higher priced iPhones, has glass back and front, comes with IP67 water and duct resistance, Wireless Charging, it has it all. Coming back to the size for a second.

Even after using it for over a year, It is hard to get over the fact that how good this compact form factor feels in your hands. It even weighs under 150 grams, and this weight is very evenly spread out across the phone. Now I am amazed with the size and weight, or someone who is coming from an android phone and looking at this as their entry into Apple’s eco-system might also be amazed at it. But someone who has been using the iPhone 8, 7, 6s or even the 6 and is upgrading to this will just feel at home. Overall the design on this phone is very durable.

I have a screen protector on, but other than that, I have used it without a case most of the time, and we don’t see any major scratches or dens on its frame or the back. I have also spilled some water on it one or 2 times, and thanks to the IP67 rating, it survived without any issue. Size of the display is small, and most people look at it as a downside, but then this phone is not targeted towards those people. It is targeted towards people who actually prefer a smaller display, and yes there are many people who do. Smaller display makes it easier for you to reach all corners with single hand, while keeping overall size of the phone compact and the weight down.

I don’t mind that the size of the display is small, but I feel that the resolution is a bit on the lower side. It is still a retina display so you won’t be able to distinguish between each individual pixel, while viewing it from an arm’s distance. But I am pixel peeper, and after having used it for a very long time, there are certain cases where you do notice the pixels, like while reading a lot of text or while zooming in on the images that you took. Now I noticed it sometimes, but that doesn’t mean everyone will. Overall display quality is so good, that I really doubt anyone will notice that its not a FullHD screen.

While watching videos you might not notice these pixels. Quality of the screen is really good. Colour reproduction is excellent, viewing angels are really good and at 625 nits of typical peak brightness, it can even get very bright, Actually much brighter than most of the recent phones in this price range, so you should not have any issues using it outdoors. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack. Apple has left it back for good on their smartphones.

But you do get stereo speakers which is always good to have. Output from these speakers is definitely impressive for a phone of this size, but the overall quality is nothing out of the ordinary. It doesn’t get as loud or as deep as the speakers on the iPhone 11, or the iPhone 12 mini, which is even smaller than this phone. You can have a much better media viewing experience by using lightning or bluetooth earphones with this phone. Speaking of media consumption, because most videos and shows are shot in 16:9, you don’t get black bars at the top on bottom while watching most videos on this phone.

That might sound good, but this phone is not really build for media consumption. The display is small, battery is also small and even speakers are not the best. There is no issue with occasionally viewing some videos here and there swiping through social media posts or stories. But if you want to binge watch content, then iPhone SE 2020 is not the idea device for it. There are big bezels at the top and bottom of the display, which makes this phone look much older than it is.

But at least they have some purpose. Top bezel houses the front facing camera and the earpiece speaker which doubles as a secondary speaker, and the bottom bezel is where the Home button and Touch ID sensor sits. Touch ID is such a convenient way to unlock this phone. We are wearing masks which makes using face ID very difficult, and whenever not at home, we end up typing in out passcode since we are wearing a mask. Yes, Apple has introduced MaskID so iPhones with face ID can unlock even if you have a mask on.

But 1, you need to own an Apple Watch for it to work, which I don’t think everyone who owns an iPhone does. And 2, you need to have one of the newer Apple watches for this to work. Now I have an iPhone and an Apple Watch, but it is the 1st Apple Watch that came out, and my watch is something that I don’t look to upgrade after every 2-3 years. And sadly this one doesn’t have the hardware parts or the software to make mask ID work. So again, Touch ID is so much more convenient for me.

BTW yes, I still own the 1st generation Apple Watch which was launched back in 2015, and I use it every day. I think they later started calling this one Series 0 which makes it sound even older than it is. Hit the like button if you want to see how it is holding up after 6 years. Inside, It packs in A13 Bionic processor, which was Apple’s latest processor when this phone came out. And it is the same processor that came inside the iPhone 11 Series phones and those phones start at a good Rs.25K above the iPhone SE. So we know that this phone is a beast at its heart, and its performance is top notch, and it will stay so for years to come.

Even now, there is no other phone which packs in a flagship processor as powerful as A13 Bionic, in and around this price point. Everything runs just as smoothly as it did when the phone was new. There are no issues running any of the latest games or apps on it. If you play a lot of games, you might run into a different issue. Now because the display is so small, all the controls are a bit cramped up and the screen feels a bit cluttered.

Buttons will appear small, so you will also have to more precise and watchful while hitting them. It comes with 3GB RAM, which might not sound like much, but the way iOS uses RAM is very different, so in your day to day usage, 3GB RAM will be enough and you will never feel that the phone is slowing down because of it. You can check out some of the recent phones in this price range, or even some of last years flagship phones, and the iPhone SE still scores higher or equal to them in CPU benchmarks. And has a more consistent and better performance with higher FPS in GPU benchmarks as well. It is a powerful phone, so you might want to play a lot of games on it, and if you do it for long time, you will notice the back and aluminium frame getting slightly warm.

Now yes, it gets warm with long gaming but it doesn’t overheat. Heating and over heating are 2 different things. Every phone heats a bit with long gaming sessions and that is normal. But overheating is when the phone shows a warning on the screen that it is too hot, or the screen dims down or the flash is disabled or something like that. And I never experienced overheating on this phone.

After build, size, Touch ID and flagship Processor, the next major advantage of iPhone SE is it’s operating system. It shipped with iOS 13, and right now it is running the latest version of iOS 14 available at the time of uploading this video, and it gets all the same and latest features that are available on the iPhone 12 series phones. Other than the gesture navigating system of course, because we have a Home button for that. Performance is smooth, and everything runs like butter on this phone. Apple is extremely vigilant with software updates, so you can expect the SE to get all software updates for the next 4 to 5 years if not more.

I have the original iPhone SE here. It came out in 2016, and right now, it is running the same version of iOS which is on the latest iPhones. And it is also set to get the iOS 15 update when it will be made available in September or October of this year. These are first day updates, which means they are available for you to install, the moment Apple pushes it to all other phones. There is single 12 megapixel camera on the back, and apple doesn’t tell us which sensor it is, but it is not the same as the one used in the iPhone 11.

Thanks to the excellent image processing pipeline of the A13 Processor, even with an older sensor, images from this phone are really good. They are not the best or as good as the ones from iPhone 11, but I feel these are some of the best images that you will get from a phone in this price range. Most average users who are not pixel peepers (which is almost everyone who is outside the world of tech YouTubing) will like the results it produces. Colours in its images look good, there are plenty of details, and thanks to SmartHDR, dynamic range is also really good. The key feature of this camera is consistency.

Click after click, day in day out it will give you good images consistently. It doesn’t have secondary lens, but you can still take portrait shots with its rear and front facing camera as well. But if you are looking for a versatile set of cameras, this one is not for you. I doesn’t have the wide, telephoto or a macro lens, which will let you capture a different perspective. You can however use add on lensed with it, which will let you take wide, telephoto or macro shots, but then those are separate accessories that you will always need to carry around with you, which makes it a bit less convenient.

It can shoot optically stabilised 4K 60fps videos and has an amazing dynamic range. So if you want to vlog with it you can definitely do that. If you know how to use the light to your advantage and how to compost your shots, you can take some amazing images with this single camera. Yes the low light performance is really weak, as it doesn’t even have a night mode. Adding the night mode alone, would have made its camera perform so much better, but for some reason, Apple left it out.

At the front we get an old 7 megapixel sensor which is not even capable of shooting 4K videos. I have a dedicated video showing a lot of image and video samples from this phone. If you want to know more about its cameras, you should definitely check that video out. I also have a video comparing the cameras on this iPhone SE with the iPhone XR and even the iPhone 11. In that video we saw that iPhone 11 definitely had a better camera, but there was barely any difference between the images from the iPhone SE and the iPhone XR.

I will leave a card to both these videos on the top right corner of your screen, and also link them in the description section. Everything other than the Battery life on this phone is just amazing. Battery backup has been the weakest point of this phone, right from the launch. But I knew it is going to be like that, because It packs in a mere 1821mAh battery, which will barely get you through half of your day, if you are a heavy user. I consider myself an average to moderate user, and I struggle to get a screen on time of about 5 and half hours or 6 hours on a single charge.

And on most days I have to plug it into the charger twice. If you like to play a lot of games on your phone, you might even have to charge it 3 times. Now don’t get me wrong, if you are a lite to average user, which I think most people considering getting this phone are, and if you only use social media apps, make a few calls and do web browsing, watch a few videos on YouTube, then the battery will last you an entire day. There have been a few good days, where I did not use the phone that much and even ended my days with about 20-24% of the battery still remaining. But all in all, I don’t consider this phone to have a good battery backup by today’s standards.

If you are coming from older iPhones, this backup might be enough for you, or you might even feel like it gives you better backup because of the power efficient processor. So it really depends on your individual usage. The good thing is, even with all this charging the phone multiple times in a day, the battery health has held up pretty well for the last year. It was steady at 95% until last week or so, and has dropped to 94% recently. Part of a reason for it might be the fact that I charge it with my Macbook Air’s 30 watt charger.

If I would have used the included 5 watt charger, or a 20 watt charger, or even a wireless charger, the battery health would have been even higher. So you can blame this part is on me. Ya another thing, I purchased this phone last year, and it came with a charger and the lightning EarPods in the box. But now it doesn’t come with those things. It comes in a slim box like the iPhone 12 series phones and you only get the phone and charging cable in the box.

Nothing else. So keep that in mind. To compensate for this Apple has reduced the price a bit, so if you have an older charger hold on to it. Battery is the worst past of this phone, and there is no way around it. If you want a phone that lasts much longer on a single charger, you will have to either spend a extra on the iPhone XR or the iPhone 11.

Or go with one of the android phones in this price range, and compromise on the performance, software updates and build quality. The biggest point that can be made for this 2020 iPhone SE is the value that it provides you for the price. It gives you amazing build quality, the best possible performance for the price, unparalleled software support for years to come with latest software releases available on day 1, and it fits right in the pam of your hands. Apple builds these phones in a way, that they last for a very long time with minimal issues. So if you willing to, you can easily use this phone for the next 3-4 years without any issues.

It will just look a lot dated then, because even now, it doesn’t have the latest design language as Apple’s other latest products. Now I love this phone, so I am definitely going to hold on to it for another couple of years at least. But my usage is a bit different. This really my in between phone. I always buy and use the latest iPhone that Apple releases, but I Also sell them off before the price starts dipping too much.

And this one acts as my main phone from the moment I sell one off and get the new one. Despite of all the good things that I told you guys, there are some people for whom this iPhone SE is not the right phone. If you are a student, who plays a lot of games, or attends lot of their classes online due to the pandemic, if you like to binge watch a lot of content on OTT platforms, If you go out on a lot of trips and need to carry limited things with you, then this phone is not for you guys. You should probably look at the iPhone 11 or the iPhone XR if you want to save a bit more or maybe some other android phones. As good as the performance of this iPhone SE is, and as much value it gives you for the money that you pay for it, You won’t be happy with its display size, battery backup, and fact that it doesn’t look as modern as other phones.

As I said before, if you like smaller phones, if you prefer home button and touchID over navigation gestures and face ID, if you holding on to your older iPhone just because there wasn’t a newer smaller iPhone, if you don't like the design direction that newer iPhones have taken, and you want to hold on to the older design for as long as you want, if you use your phone like a phone, and not like a media consumption device, if you want the most value for money iPhone, if you are looking to buy an iPhone as your secondary phone and don’t want to spend a ton of money on it, or maybe your main phone broke, and you want an interterm phone to get you through until next iPhones come out, or if you are looking to enter into Apple’s eco-system but don’t want to spend too much to test the waters, In all these cases the 2020 iPhone SE is totally worth it for you. You can even try getting a less used one in the second hand market coz that will be an even sweater deal. So you see, there is a market for this phone, specially at its current prices. What do you guys think? If you are 2020 iPhone SE user, or if you are planing to get one, let me know your thoughts in the comments. That is it for this video guys.

Please hit the like button if you enjoyed this video, and subscribe to the channel for more quality tech videos like this. You can also check out some of the other videos form this channel. This has been Sagar, and I will catch you guys in the next video. Take Care.

Source : TecworkZ