The New iphone SE 2020 Edition
From £419/$399
“The only downside is the battery life. Only light and sedate users will get a day’s worth of juice out of this iphone”
Key features 4.7-inch Retina display • A13 Bionic chip • Portrait mode • 4K video
Learn more apple.com
Available from
All major phone stockists
BACK IN THE SPRING OF 2016, APPLE LAUNCHED THE ORIGINAL
IPHONE SE which, as we were getting used to iphones getting increasingly bigger, was a callback to the four-inch, hold-it-in-one-hand design of the classic iphone 4 that many of us loved. Now Apple has done something similar with the 2020 incarnation of the iphone SE.
The X-factor
Although in this case not a callback to the four-inch form factor, the new iphone SE does see a return of the beloved Touch ID Home button. It also features updated internals, but mainly keeps the established form factor of the iphone 6 through to the iphone 8. It has a bright (625 nits bright) 4.7-inch Retina display, a 12MP camera with Portrait mode and Portrait Lighting (for the back camera and the Facetime camera) and 4K video support that includes an extended dynamic range for better highlights and contrast.
The new iphone SE is outfitted with Apple’s latest A13 Bionic chip with a third-generation Neural Engine, is waterresistant up to one meter for 30 minutes (IP67), supports wireless charging and fast charging with an 18-watt plug and, of course, it’s got that sweet Home button!
On the surface, the 2020 iphone SE looks nearly identical to the iphone 6 through iphone 8. It has the same casing and camera array, which is part of why the price is so low – the initial R&D cost of the chassis was paid off long ago – so Apple can keep the cost low while adding the most advanced processor. The screen size, when measured diagonally, is 4.7 inches, which is also the same size as the iphone 6 through to iphone 8. It’s slightly shorter and a tiny bit thinner than the iphone X through to iphone 11 Pro models, even though the latter has a 5.8-inch screen. This is because the 2020 iphone SE has a bezel – this is not an edgeto-edge screen. Though similar in looks to the older models, the iphone SE has some very important upgrades, including support for dual-sim, so you can have two different phone numbers on one phone (for home and work, for example). It has Portrait mode and Portrait Lighting built-in, something that no other Home button iphone has ever had. It has Haptic Touch instead of 3D Touch. And of course, has that super-fast A13 Bionic chip as compared to the iphone 8’s A11 chip, so everything is super-fast and silky-smooth.
Power-hungry
The only thing about the iphone SE that we can’t rave about is the battery life. Given the number of power-hungry apps available that capitalise on the power of the A13 chipset, only light and sedate users will get a full day’s worth of juice out of this iphone. However, don’t let that detract from the fact that the iphone SE 2020 follows on from its predecessor by bringing you a new iphone, with not a lot of compromise, for a lot less money than you might expect.