iPhone SE 2020 Review - My Experience By DailyTekk

Hey, it's Chris today we're gonna check out the iPhone s e. Now this is an important phone. You may not be interested in personally, but you should know about it, because it's really a game-changer because of what it can do for the price. So today we're gonna talk about the battery life. That's the most requested thing that people want to know for me about this phone. We're gonna talk about the camera performance, we're gonna talk about the actual performance with its new chip that actually performs better in a certain category, then even a MacBook Pro.

Let's start with the design. Where else will we start? I mean it's a big talking point here, because this is the same design, basically as the iPhone 8, which has been around since 2014. Now, let's just get this out of the way: I, don't love the huge bezels on the forehead and the chin of this phone, but I do like that. They chose to go all black for the front, even if you get the white phone design and the reason I like that is because at least it hides the camera components. Now, one of the reasons that this phone is so affordable, we're, gonna talk more about the price at the end of the video is because they're able to reuse this same design.

So this older design, it's one of the things we're just gonna, have to put up with at this price point, but it's really one of the few major complaints. So on the back of the phone, you just have a nice simple, centered, Apple logo. Now that is a little different from the iPhone eight, because the iPhone eight said iPhone on it and the iPhone SE doesn't know that's such a small detail. I, don't even know why I'm mentioning it, it's just something I'm pointing out I guess, but speaking of small, this is a smaller phone than I thought. For some reason, I was thinking that this was gonna, be a pretty big iPhone, SE and I.

Think a lot of people were under that impression like this, isn't the small phone that you thought it was going to be, but actually, when I held it in my hands for the first time, I was really surprised. It's pretty small, actually smaller than my iPhone 11 and when I compared it to my wife's iPhone SE, the original it was only like, barely bigger than the original like in significantly so now, I'm talking about the physical footprint, because the screen on the new set hat is significantly bigger than the old SE, although, while I'm mentioning screen sizes, it's also significantly small, then the iPhone 10, our that has a lot more screen real estate vertically I mean even my wife, who's been holding on to her original iPhone SE for dear life, because she likes smaller phones and for several other reasons, was pretty receptive to the size, and so I think. People who, like smaller phones, are still really going to like this. Just to be honest now, somebody on Twitter actually asked me if the new iPhone SE was too small and I have to, say I, don't think so, but I tend to like my phones to be as powerful as possible and as small and as portable as possible. You know that's my mobile thing.

I want it to be small but capable when it comes to my tablets, I like to have those as big and as powerful as possible. I got the twelve point. Nine-inch iPad Pro this year, but I would actually like to see an iPhone 12. That was this size, although when you go down like this, the battery does suffer, and we're going to get there in just a little now in terms of the actual user experience on this phone. Let me just say if you've never used an iPhone without a home button like that has faced ID, and you're going to feel right at home, but on the other hand, let me just say it's a good thing that this phone isn't targeted at iPhone addicts or people who are really into super phones with all the bells and whistles the flagship stuff, because once you've experienced things like face, ID or tapped, awake or swiping up to go home and other convenient gestures, then the older design of the iPhone SE does feel like a step back at least to me.

But again this phone isn't targeted to super phone addicts. It's targeted at people who, like smaller phone designs or people who want to save some money or people who are thinking about switching from Android or who don't want to switch to Android, which is kind of ironic, because a lot of Android manufacturers have kind of gone in the opposite direction: they've kind of started out making budget handsets, and it has now started pushing towards the flagship price point now for all the people that are interested in this phone. Here's, the good news all the flagship features that I just mentioned a second ago. Those really turn out to be more like nice to haves, rather than absolutely necessary in order to have a really great phone experience. Now in my early testing, it was clear right from the get-go really that I could do all the court tasks that I do on my iPhone 11 on the iPhone SE, all the things that really matter in a phone experience are they're on the iPhone SE.

In fact, we're talking about Apple's flagship iPhone right now, the iPhone 11 versus this iPhone SE, it's really like a luxury car versus a standard car yeah, a luxury car, is gonna, be nicer to ride around in than a standard car, but both are gonna, get you from point A to point B, and that's really what it's like here. So the iPhone 11 has extra lenses and face ID and tapped awake and all those things I mentioned, and that's kind of like having less cabin noise, while you're driving on the interstate or leather seats, they're, nice, but not having them, doesn't mean that you can't have a really nice iPhone all right. So the chip inside this thing is the a13. It's the same chip, that's in the iPhone, 11 and 11 pro, which means it's really fast, has a lot of performance, and it's a big upgrade from the a12. It's not like in the new iPad pros where this year in 2020, the jump was pretty small like this is a big jump from a 12 to a 13 and here's.

What's mind-blowing for $400 the a13 in the iPhone SE. Actually, bests a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro in a single-core thread in benchmark testing Wow. Now, let's talk about storage. The base level this year is 64, that's much better than 16, but here's what I have to tell you don't get 64, even if you're trying to save money at least upgrade to the 128 in two years or three years. You'll.

Thank me and if you don't, then in a couple of years, I'll just be like I told you remember this part of the video with me pointing in your face. So let's jump into the camera. A lot of people might be like well, there's only a single lens and sensor in the back, so this must not be a really great photo or video shooter, but I'm happy to tell you that really isn't the case. This thing takes great photos and even better videos. Now, one area where that new a13 chip really shines is when it comes to portrait mode photos which, yes, you can take using either the selfie or rear camera, and that's thanks to some amazing machine learning chops.

Now, look closely at these to portrait mode photos and try to tell me which one came from the eleven and which one came from the iPhone S II. Now I'm going to tell you in three two one ding-ding-ding the left. One is from the iPhone as e. Now something to point out is that the default iPhone camera app only allows you to shoot portrait mode photos with human faces in them, so you're not gonna, be able to just hold up your favorite drink and get a nice blurry background or even a picture of your pet. Or can you actually you can with an app called halite, which does give you a depth, chart and depth information that will let you take portrait mode photos of just about everything doesn't always turn out great, but here's a good example of something that turned out pretty decent.

All right. Let's talk about low-light photos. Now this is one area where early reviewers have been saying that the iPhone SE just doesn't quite hold up as well as they would like, and yeah I wish that low-light photos were a little better here, too, a little less noisy, but really, if you think about it, percentage-wise most of the photos that I take at least are usually in pretty well lit, places, there's no night mode here, but I don't end up using night mode. All that much on my iPhone 11 I mean there's probably times when I go months without using my night mode on iPhone 11. Now it's going to be different for everybody, but what I do at least recommend is getting an external photo light, which is made specifically for smartphones for a pre decent price I'll list a couple down below, but at the end of the day, no, you can't have it all for 400 bucks, you just can't, and so am I impressed for the price point with this camera yeah now the low light is a little disappointing, but you know, what's absolutely insane with this.

Camera is the video quality I mean I, could sit here and do my YouTube channel with nothing, but this phone if I had to, and it would turn out great people, probably wouldn't even care or notice, so just to show you what I'm talking about here's a really short b-roll segment shot with the iPhone SES rear camera, using film pro of a few things just lying around my desk. It's not bad right kind of cinematic. Now, let's talk about the battery. This is the thing that a lot of people are really going to care about, and you know what this iPhone SE. It doesn't just look like the iPhone 8.

It also shares the same battery size as the iPhone 8. So long story short the battery life on this phone isn't going to blow your mind, I, wouldn't say anybody's gonna, say it's amazing, but it'll get you by, but at least it's capable of fast charging. Now it doesn't come with a fast charger in the box comes with a kind of slow 5 watt charger, but I'm going to list up a fast charger down below that I think is a good recommendation, not a bad price and probably like an instant buy for you or the first accessory. You should get maybe aside from a case, because I think some be well worth your money to be able to quickly top off that battery, especially as this battery starts to age now in the battery and charging Department. One thing I'm really excited about is that this phone now is capable of wireless charging, like my wife, with their old iPhone SE I've got wireless chargers laying all over the house, but she can't use any of them I'm trying to get her to upgrade here, because it's just really convenient.

Now. My review unit came with this really nice, all leather official Apple case it's black. It matches perfectly, and I would say if you're wondering about getting it, usually I really gravitate towards ultra-thin cases. This one is just the right amount of thickness I think to offer some protection to make the phone a little less slippery to leave all the ports accessible makes the buttons still nice and click. So if you want to get this budget phone but still kind of make, it feels a little nicer add a little of luxury.

I think this is a great case to actually buy apples official leather case, and if that's not your thing, I will link up some ultra-thin cases down below too alright. So, let's talk about the price. This thing starts at 399 399. It's just hard to complain about this with anything that you're like. Well, that's not perfect yeah, but it's 399.

If you want the core iPhone experience at a budget-friendly price, this is just like an instant recommendation. If you still have the old iPhone SE or even the iPhone 6, this is an instant recommendation. I would put it like this. This is the budget iPhone of your dreams, maybe the budget phone of your dreams, because, unlike the Android ecosystem, this phone is gonna, get updates for years and years to come. If you loved the original iPhone SE because of its size, you, like smaller phones, I, really do think you're still going to love this one and if you're an Android user whose kind of curious about dipping your toes in the Apple ecosystem, then yeah I think this is a great place to start and see what it's all about.

On the other hand, if you've been using an iPhone, 10 or an iPhone 11, and maybe it broke, and you need a cheaper replacement or even if you've been using the new iPad pros and their face ID system and all the gestures you might find it a little tricky to go back to this home button setup. Alright. So thanks for watching today, if you want to I, would love to hang out with you every week, every Friday, in fact on the daily tech after-party. That's our podcast, where we talk about all kinds of things related to the Apple ecosystem and the tech world, and even daily tech. You can see what's going on with me and I would love to connect with you on Twitter and Instagram as well.

I'm at daily tech spell a daily ten k in both in those places and one final plug. We have a new site. It's apple hype, comm check out, what's new, what matters in fifteen seconds or less every Monday through Friday on Apple hype, comm, and I'll catch you guys in the next video later.

Source : DailyTekk