Apple was definitely playing it safe with the iPhone SE. So safe, that it’s boring. In fact, Apple has been playing such conservative product strategy these days, that its sort of disappointing, but for the price of this device, you cant go wrong. External Appearance It was pretty clear that Apple decided that they did not want to spend any money redesigning their 4 inch smartphone. Instead, they jammed in all of the nice specifications of the iPhone 6S into an iPhone 5S body, and renamed it the iPhone SE. The problem is that it still looks really outdated, and it feels like Apple has not made any updates on the design from 3 years ago. Internal Hardware As stated before, the iPhone SE has been jammed packed with iPhone 6S hardware. They upgraded the iSight camera, CPU, and GPU. However, I did not tell you the whole story. Sneaky Apple left out features like 3D touch, but people aren’t complaining. Perhaps this is an indication that 3D touch is not a necessary a high demand feature that makes or breaks the iOS experience. On the bright side, these new phones specifications make the phone really powerful and we were able to play all the latest 3D intensive iOS games. Quality of Materials The iPhone SE feels as solid; however, the edges of the device is still susceptible to scratch with high impact drops like in previous generations iPhone 5S. I am surprised that the device has not deteriorated in quality even with it being so inexpensive. Portability The iPhone SE is extremely portable, as portable as the iPhone 5, and 5S. You can slip this device into small pockets with no issues, which means you can bring this phone everywhere. It is the least burdening iPhone out of the iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s plus, but not by much. Battery Life The battery life is surprising good. It last around 24 hours, before you need to charge. in some cases with intensive use, you might have to charge it in 8 hours. User Experience The iPhone SE runs on iOS which provides a really smooth with a well executed user experience. My only complaint is the fact that the browser had issues at times. Its like Apple decided they couldn’t afford a proper QA team for the iPhone SE project, and it’s just these little bugs that are rather annoying and can make you want to switch to Android.
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