iPhone SE (3rd Gen.) | A high-performance iPhone at a friendly price

By paying half the price for an iPhone, are you ready to do without the ultra-wide-angle lens, optical zoom, facial recognition and MagSafe charging, all in a 23% smaller screen? If you answered yes, Apple’s newly launched third-generation iPhone SE is the best deal in the city.

Karim Benessaieh
The Press

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In its third version, the concept of the iPhone SE has not changed since 2016: we equip an Apple phone with the same processor as a more expensive recent model, we remove some high-end components and we package everything in a shell more small, with a 4.7-inch screen, all at an affordable price.

In the case of the iPhone SE version 2022, we were a little more generous by equipping it with the A15 Bionic chip which equipped the iPhone 13 barely five months ago. And it’s not window dressing: our benchmark tests with Geekbench 5 software show that this iPhone SE is as powerful as its predecessors from last fall, and far more efficient than its Android competitors.

Needless to say, this curvaceous little phone – the straight edges of the iPhone 13 have been eliminated – runs at full speed for all tasks, from everyday tasks to more demanding ones such as editing and video games.

The glaring differences from its expensive predecessor: unlocking and authentication are done with fingerprints rather than facial recognition (Touch ID rather than Face ID, to use Apple’s marketing jargon) and the black borders at the top and bottom bottom of the screen are much more visible.

Magnetic charging is still there, but the iPhone SE can no longer get stuck on a puck with the MagSafe system like the iPhone 13. Both are IP67 rated, supporting up to 30 minutes at a depth of one meter . We once again had fun putting the iPhone SE in a bowl of water to retrieve it afterwards, completely functional.

The screen labeled by Apple “Retina HD”, rather than “Super Retina XDR” for the iPhone 13, has a definition of 326 ppi rather than 460 and a contrast reduced to 1400: 1. Its brightness is also lowered to 625 nits rather than 800 nits. Honestly, no matter how much we put the two devices side by side, it would have taken laboratory devices to distinguish these differences.

Aside from the screen size, which is much smaller and will bring back fond memories to those who bought their first smartphone a decade ago, the big difference is behind the shell. The camera arsenal of the iPhone 13 is here reduced to a single lens, which is the main lens of its predecessor, namely a 12MP wide-angle camera. We lose the Night mode, the telephoto lens of the 13 Pro Max and the optical zoom and its Cinematographic mode which had impressed us so much.

So what is it worth in photos, a phone stripped of these accessories? We compared it to its big brother, the iPhone 13 Pro Max, and a phone priced in between, the Galaxy S21 FE. Here are three comparison shots.

The first evidence is that for photos in normal light and focus conditions, the iPhone SE is quite competitive. When light is lacking, it attempts to compensate by increasing sensitivity at the expense of nuance. Its Portrait mode, although available in theory, does not blur as nicely as its rivals. And very close, having no macro mode, it is unable to capture all the nuances of objects.

In other words, for everyday photography and the one that 95% of users do, the iPhone SE is an excellent device, equipped with the same main lens as its bigger brothers and capable of faithfully rendering colors and contrasts. The Galaxy S21 FE, as a good Samsung device, is better for digital processing, even if it sometimes tends to force the note.

Last but not least, this device is priced from $579 for 64GB of storage.

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Since 2016, we have become accustomed to large screens, which are so practical in particular for driving, web browsing and videos and which offer more spaced keyboards. The return to a 4.7-inch screen didn’t seem very appealing to us.

We have already exposed it above but remember: for all the photos requiring more optical capabilities, especially in low light and up close, the iPhone SE is no match for it.

One buys ?

Apple claims that the iPhone SE is the most popular model among first-time iPhone buyers, and that’s easy to understand. This little phone has absolutely incomparable value for money, as the calibration tests and handling show. We even pushed the generosity, if we can call it that, to equip it with the latest processor that still equips the iPhone on the shelves, to the point where we wonder if the iPhone SE will not cannibalize them. Perhaps for the misfortune of Apple, but surely for the happiness of the buyers.