Apple last week unveiled iPhone SE, a powerful new iPhone with exceptional capabilities and performance starting at just $429.
The new iPhone SE features impressive upgrades including the performance of A15 Bionic, which powers advanced camera capabilities and makes nearly every experience better, from photo editing to power-intensive operations like gaming and augmented reality. Along with 5G, longer battery life, and improved durability, iPhone SE comes in three colors: Midnight, Starlight, and (PRODUCT)RED.
Allison Johnson for The Verge:
Everything about the iPhone SE is designed for the next few years except for one very important component: the screen. More specifically, the thick bezels that border the 4.7-inch LCD on the top and bottom. It’s a tired design straight out of 2017 that makes an already-small screen feel even smaller than it could be.
That’s a shame, because otherwise the SE is a fantastic midrange phone. With a starting price of $429, it will give you an excellent return on your investment since it will almost certainly get software updates for years to come. This year’s model also includes 5G, and naturally, Apple’s latest and greatest processor, both of which future-proof the phone for wireless advancements to come in the near future…
[T]here’s still the home button with Touch ID, which some people just prefer over Face ID and gesture navigation. This iPhone SE is for them, or for someone who just wants an iOS device for as little money as possible and doesn’t mind a small screen. But for everyone else, I think this vintage design is just a little too dated and probably best left in the past…
The iPhone 8 chassis that the SE uses may be vintage, but underneath lies Apple’s very latest mobile processor, the A15 Bionic. It’s the same one you’ll find in the top-of-the-line 13 Pro Max. Again, the SE costs less than $500, and the 13 Pro Max costs more than twice that. That’s just plain cool. And in day-to-day use, the SE behaves like a phone with a top-tier processor…There’s not a lot that the SE can’t do that a $1000-plus phone can.
Unfortunately, that cutting edge performance is hampered by the small screen.
MacDailyNews Take: Basically, it’s the Home button anachronism that has to go. The physical dimensions of the iPhone SE 3 can accommodate a much larger display, edge-to-edge, even if it has to sport that damnable notch, and inelegant kludge that we cannot wait to kiss goodbye.
As we wrote back in January, “It seems we’ll have to wait for 2024, at least, to finally see the iOS-interrupting Home button go the way of the dodo, some seven years after the modern iPhone paradigm arrived with Apple’s seminal iPhone X.”
For the iPhone SE to follow this upcoming model, we expect Apple to finally do away with the Home button, being on Face ID and an edge-to-edge display, but that will have to wait until the component pricing is right (which should be the case in 2024 or so when that model’s release arrives). — MacDailyNews, February 4, 2022
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Enough already.
Some of us like, and prefer, the Home Button. I’m happy they kept that. And I buy it because I like the small screen. If you don’t like all this, then buy one of the larger options! OPTIONS! Stop complaining.
Exactly right. I prefer the DISCREET home button over the showboats obsessed with FaceTime.
Also prefer the smaller screen size that is about an inch larger than the original 3.5 inch iPhone debut in 2007. Steve called it “the perfect size” and did not get larger for several years. No one complained then, but the larger phone snobs of today are whining?
Like so many others have already posted, you like a big phone buy a big phone. Shut up already about the MILLIONS of us that prefer otherwise like your acting so smug superior.
Same for MDN calling for the removal of the home button. Hint: condescending commentary sways NOTHING to loyal fans…
If you don’t like the small size then review one of the giant screen phones. Get over yourself. Not everyone wants a big ass phone.
I don’t want a large phone and I don’t want Face ID. I certainly don’t want that stupid notch.
This Verge writer doesn’t understand ‘Design Principles 101’: every design choice is a compromise.
For example, a bezel-free design carries the implications that the display edges will now get covered (thus lost) by the holder’s fingertips. Likewise, no bezel leaves the glass more exposed to damage from an accidental drop. Its a pretty lame for a writer to whine about a bezel that’s only a few mm in the first place.
Likewise, “small is good” when carrying two phones (work + personal), if you want them to still be able to fit (both together) in just one pocket. Since they can’t fold upon themselves in N-dimensional space, that’s going to have to mean a smaller screen size.
Overall, the author’s provided another good example as to why discerning customers don’t need to bother to read the Verge.
Nilay Patel is an insufferable jerk. Nothing the Verge publishes is worth your scarce time.