For the past couple of years, phone makers have said that if you want a small phone, you must have little needs. However that simply isn't true. Some people have small hands and big ideas. The brand-new iPhone SE from Apple ($ 399 for 32GB; $499 for 128GB) is the little phone that many individuals have actually been waiting on, with a cautious balance of elements that keep it present, while also hitting a midrange price point. Anybody who has been driven nuts by progressively big devices and wants to go back to simpler, one-handed days will love this phone. It's our Editors' Option for smaller sized smartphones.
Truthful, Objective Reviews PCMag.com is a leading authority on innovation, providing Labs-based, independent reviews of the most recent product or services. Our expert industry analysis and useful solutions help you make better purchasing choices and get more from innovation.
Physical Features and Ergonomics Here's a quick rundown: The iPhone SE has the very same body, screen, and storage as the iPhone 5s (at Amazon). It has the same modem, Touch ID sensing unit with NFC for Apple Pay, and front electronic camera as the iPhone 6. And it shares a processor and rear camera with the iPhone 6s (599.99 with code VZWDEAL at Verizon). These elements amount to a phone that can run the current apps without complaining, and fits into a kid's hand.
From a style perspective, the iPhone SE (at Amazon) uses the iPhone fives body. That suggests it measures 4.87 by 2.31 by 0.30 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.0 ounces, and has a brushed-metal back with glass panels at the top and bottom. There's a Touch ID-equipped, fingerprint-sensing physical Home button listed below the display screen. The phone fits easily into iPhone 5 or iPhone 5s cases. There are just 2 noticeable distinctions between this and the older phones: there's a small SE logo design on the back, and the diagonal edges are matte instead of shiny. The phone also now can be found in increased gold, in addition to dark gray, gold, and silver.The iPhone SE also uses the very same screen as the iPhone fives, a 4-inch, 1,136-by-640 panel that has 326 pixels per inch. In regards to quality, it's pretty similar to the iPhone 6 and sixes screens, which are simply bigger. These are high-quality LCDs that have actually made numerous millions of people delighted for many years, but it is essential to remember they aren't leading-edge: The screens on the Samsung Galaxy S7 ($ 199.99 at Samsung) and the LG G5 ($ 624.00 at Verizon), for instance, are brighter, with richer colors and much greater pixel density, making everything look more vibrant than it does on iPhones.
The 4-inch screen lowers functional realty, of course. Checking out an e-mail in Outlook, I could see about 90 words on the SE's screen, as compared with 160 words on the iPhone sixes, 250 on the Galaxy S7, and 360 on Samsung Galaxy Note 5. Taking a look at a Google Sheet spreadsheet, I could see 13 rows on the SE, as compared with 17 on the 6s, 22 on the Galaxy S7, and 27 on the Note 5.
That can be aggravating, however it can also be liberating. I used the SE as my main phone for a weekend, coming off of a couple of months with a Galaxy Note 5, and discovered that you utilize them in a different way. I found myself less likely to compose long emails and social media messages on the iPhone SE than on the bigger Note 5, however more likely to rapidly examine different feeds and read news, specifically while doing something else. The iPhone SE sat so securely in my hand that I never seemed like I was going to drop it, the method I sometimes felt with the Galaxy Note 5. I commute with my tween child, and she discovered it more comfortable to play video games on the SE than on the Note 5-- which is so huge that she actually can't hold it securely in one hand.
Call Quality and Networking
Call quality here is similar to the iPhone 6: Voices are loud and solid through the earpiece, with assistance for HD calling, Wi-Fi calling, and voice-over-LTE (VoLTE). The speakerphone is adequate, however not magnificent. Transmissions through the microphone on the T-Mobile VoLTE network were clear and strong.
There are 2 models of the iPhone SE. The design we evaluated-- A1662, which Apple refers to as SIM-free-- is cost AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon; it's likewise the model offered opened. It supports LTE bands 1/2/3/ 4/5/8/ 12/13/17/ 18/19/20/ 25/26/29. That notably neglects Sprint's high-speed band 41, so a various unit, A1723, is cost Sprint. The SIM-free model also has the most-used standard LTE wandering bands, but not band 7, which improves speeds on Canadian and some European networks. The iPhone 6s has all the bands, and recuperates from dead zones a lot more quickly than the SE.
That stated, the iPhone SE is going to surpass both the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 6 (however not the 6s) on T-Mobile, due to the fact that it supports band 12, which has actually become really essential iphone se price for extended LTE protection. The 5s and 6 do not have that band; the 6s and SE do. The iPhone 6 and SE should have comparable performance to each other on the AT&T and Verizon networks.
The iPhone SE carries out regularly better than the iPhone fives, but not along with the iPhone sixes, on Wi-Fi networks. While the SE and 6s did about along with each other within 25 feet of a Wi-Fi router, the 6s used much better speeds on the edge of the Wi-Fi cell and in a very Wi-Fi-noisy location. I got double the Wi-Fi speed of the SE on the 6s in edge cases, where both phones were stuck under 10Mbps on a 100Mbps connection. That's to be anticipated, since the 6s supports MIMO and the 6 does not.