The Second Generation of one of Apple’s most beloved products, the iPhone SE, which was originally introduced back in 2016, is finally here! The $400 flagship iPhone, kind of. This will indeed be one of Apple’s best selling iPhones of all time.
So, without any further ado, here are not 5, not 10, not 15, but 20 interesting facts about Apple’s iPhone SE 2020.
1) SE Name
Firstly, why is it called the iPhone SE? Why not, for example, iPhone 11 Lite or iPhone 9? Well, “SE” actually comes from “Special Edition”. Back when the original iPhone SE was introduced, in 2016, Apple had already released the iPhone 6S and they were just about to launch the iPhone 7. The iPhone 6S was already the Second Generation iPhone to use the new design.
A summary of what we got with the original SE.
However, many people preferred the old iPhone 5 and 5S design. That and the smaller 4 inch Display, compared to the 4.7” Display that the iPhone 6 came with. So, in 2016, Apple brought back the iPhone 5. But, the iPhone 5, which came out in 2012, already had some very outdated hardware in 2016. What Apple did was put the iPhone 6S’s hardware, the most recent iPhone that they were selling, inside of the iPhone 5’s Body and called it the “iPhone SE”, or “iPhone Special Edition”. This was pretty much like buying an old classic car and refurbishing it with a brand new engine.
We got the same performance as the 6S, same CPU, same amount of RAM and even the back Camera was identical. The only thing that you were missing out on, was the more modern design of the 6S, the larger & better Display and Front-Facing Camera, which was a bit better on the 6S. But other that that, you literally had the exact same Smartphone, just for $400, compared to the $650 that the iPhone 6S used to cost.
After the success of the iPhone SE, consumers were eagerly awaiting the Second Generation. We had a ton of leaks on this, showing a smaller iPhone X or even an iPhone 6 Body with updated specs. We made so many videos on the iPhone SE 2, even back in January 2018, but it never ended up happening.
Instead, we got reports that it was cancelled by Apple, for whatever reason. But now we have it. More than two years after we started seeing the leaks, the iPhone SE 2020 is here.
2) Old Cases
Now, the second thing that you should probably know, is that since this has literally the same design as the iPhone 8 from 2017, which looks the same as the ‘7’ from 2016, the ‘6S’ from 2015 and the ‘6’ from 2014, at least from the front. Some Cases will fit, but not all of them will.
You see, the ‘SE’ and the iPhone 8 have literally the exact same thickness, at 7.3mm thick. The iPhone 7 on the other hand, and the ‘6S’, were thinner, at 7.1mm whilst the iPhone 6 was just 6.9mm. That was actually the thinnest iPhone that Apple ever made and because of this, not all cases will work. The iPhone 8 Cases will and the iPhone 7 & 6S Cases might, if they were not super tight on the Phone. However, iPhone 6 cases are likely not going to fit the iPhone SE, just because of that extra 0.4mm in thickness.
3) Design Changes
Design wise, from the front, you won’t be able to tell the ‘6’ from the ‘6s’, from the ‘7’, from the ‘8’ and from the ‘SE’. They all look identical. From the back, there are a few differences though.
The ‘8’ and the ‘SE’ both have a Glass back, while the ‘7’ has a Dark Aluminium back and the ‘6S/6’ both have a Light Aluminium back. Another change is that the Apple logo is now centred like on the iPhone 11’s, as opposed to being more towards the top, like it was on the ‘8’ and the ones before it.
4) New Colours
Now, another design change that we get is with the colours. We get three (Black, Red and White), compared to the four colours that the iPhone 8 came in, which were Space Grey, Red, Silver and Gold.
With the colour selection, we lose the Rose Gold option that the iPhone 8 had.
There are a few changes here. The Black is actually darker than Space Grey now and this is the first time, I believe, since the iPhone 6, where Apple isn’t calling an iPhone Space Grey anymore. Also, the White is now much brighter than the previous Silver colour and it also comes with a Black front now, so no more White front on the SE.
Finally, the RED colour is pretty much identical to the one that we got with the iPhone 8. The only small difference here being that before, Apple used to give a percentage of their product RED items sales to fighting HIV. Those proceedings are now going towards fighting COVID-19.
5) 3D Touch
Something that the SE is lacking, is 3D Touch. This did get removed from all the iPhone 11’s last year and instead, Apple is just using the Haptic Engine and a long-hold to simulate 3D Touch. But if you were a big fan of Peek & Pop and those Force Touch Wallpapers, that’s pretty much gone now. Not entirely, but it just doesn’t work as well as it did before.
Strangely enough, the weight is still the same as the iPhone 8 at 148 Grams, the thickness is the same at 7.3mm and the Battery Life, which I will cover in just a second, is also the same. I’m really not sure what Apple did with that extra inside space.
6) WiFi Speeds
The next big change is when it comes to WiFI. The iPhone SE now comes with WiFi 6, or 802.11ax, which can give you speeds of up to 9.6Gb/s, compared to around 6-7Gb/s of WiFi 802.11ac. But the biggest difference here is in terms of Bandwidth. WiFi 6 can support four times the number of devices, with longer Battery Life and much improved Network Efficiency. If you have a WiFi 6 Router and a bunch of WiFI 6 devices, they should all run incredibly smooth, even when the network is congested. Fun fact, not even the MacBook Pro 16” got WiFI 6. The iPhone 11’s did indeed get it as well.
7) Cellular Speeds
The Cellular Speeds have also been improved. We now have Gigabit-class LTE, so while it’s still 4G, we can now get up to 1Gb/s 4G speeds. Previously, we had a limit of around 300Mb/s. At these speeds, you don’t even need 5G.
8) No U1
Something that the iPhone SE doesn’t apparently need, is a U1 Chip. This is the Ultra-Wide Band Positioning Chip that the iPhone 11’s added. That Chip will be used for precisely locating those upcoming Apple AirTag Trackers. The iPhone 11’s have it, but interestingly enough the 2020 iPad Pro doesn’t have it either, but that’s likely due to the fact that not as many people would be walking down the street with iPads compared to iPhones. But the ‘SE’ is an iPhone and considering how popular it will be, it’s quite a shame that we won’t get improved AirTag Tracking capabilities with it.
9) Dual SIM
But, something that we do get on the iPhone SE, is Dual SIM Support. Now, you don’t really have a Dual SIM Slot, it’s still a single SIM. But, the SE now supports eSIMs as well.
You can just go into your Settings and select a Carrier from there. Not only does this make it so much easier to add a Smartphone plan but if your Smartphone does get stolen, there is no way for the thieves to remove the SIM Card and block your network connection. Which means that, as long as that iPhone is turned on, you should be able to quickly locate it using ‘FindMyiPhone’.
10) Express Card
A really cool feature that the SE comes with is called Express Card Power Reserve. There’s this feature in Apple Pay, where you can have Express Cards set up. These are essentially cases where you don’t have to scan your face or authenticate, in order to use Apple Pay.
These Express Cards are usually used for public transport. I actually used it when in London, on the London Underground. Now, what this Express Card Power Reserve feature does is, even after your iPhone discharges completely, as in you cannot even turn it on, allow you to still scan your iPhone and get onto public transport. It essentially saves a tiny bit of power, in order to power that NFC Chip. The iPhone 11’s have this as well, pretty cool stuff.
11) Camera System
Speaking of the iPhone 11’s, the SE has the same Camera as the iPhone 11’s do, to some extent. We don’t get the Zoom Module that the iPhone 11 Pro’s come with, or the Ultra-Wide Angle Module that both the 11 Pro’s and the regular 11 comes with, instead we get a Single Camera Module.
We only get a Single Module on the SE, but it does the job of more.
That Camera Module is said to be pretty much identical to the iPhone 8’s Camera, or the iPhone X’s Main Camera, so the quality there is pretty good. But, on top of that, we also get the same Image Processing as found in the iPhone 11’s, thanks to the Apple A13 Processor. Realistically, this is an even bigger improvement than just the Camera System in itself, meaning that the photos coming out of this Smartphone would look almost as stunning as they do on the highest-end iPhone 11 Pro Max.
In fact, Apple has even shared some pictures, coming out of the iPhone SE’s Camera, and they look absolutely stunning. This might just be the very best Camera on a Smartphone at this price. The only competitor that it has, the the Pixel 3a.
12) Video Performance
The Video Performance is excellent as well. It still records in up to 4K60 but now we get an extended Dynamic Range, which is made possible thanks to that new Apple A13 Processor.
13) Special Video Features
Aside from this, we also get some new video features, such as Quick Take Video. Just like on the iPhone 11’s, it lets you hold the Shutter Button and you would automatically start recording a video. We also get Stereo Audio Recording during video, which is something that we didn’t have with the iPhone 8.
14) Portrait Mode
To my surprise, the iPhone SE also comes with Portrait Mode, which was introduced on the iPhone 7 Plus back in 2016, by the fact that it had two Camera Modules. Well, this is now all done through software, on the ‘'SE’. We only have one Single Module and this is doable in real time, thanks to that Apple A13 Processor.
Not only that, but we also get all the Portrait Mode effects that we get with the iPhone 11 Pro which, as you know, has three Camera Modules, compared to just one. We get those six effects, such as Studio, High Key Mono and so on.
15) Front Camera
When it comes to the Front Camera, it is pretty much the same one as on the iPhone 8, which had the same Front Camera as the iPhone 7. This is a 7MP Sensor, with an f/2.2 Aperture.
There’s nothing new with the Front-Facing Camera.
Video recording is unfortunately still limited to 1080p 30 on the front, compared to 4K 60 for example, like we have on the iPhone 11’s. But something that is indeed new is that we also get all the Portrait Mode effects on the iPhone SE as well. You know, the ones that actually required the massive FaceID camera system? Portrait Mode Front, those Portrait Mode Lighting effects, those are all still there. I’m quite surprised that Apple managed to add all of this in, with just a Single Camera Module.
But, something that we don’t get are the Animojis. It seems like for now, these still require the FaceID Camera on the front, which creates a 3D Depth Map of your face. Apple cannot just do this with a Single Lens and purely through software, at least for now. But, here’s the thing, if Apple can already do Portrait Mode with just one Lens, I would happily just get rid of that entire Notch in favour of just a small Front-Facing Camera Cutout. Please don’t tell me that the only reason why Apple is keeping that is for Animoji support, please don’t.
16) Storage
Moving on to the Storage, we still get a 64GB and 128GB option like we did with the iPhone 8, but now, we also get a 256GB model. So, if you’ve always wanted a very portable iPhone, with a ton of Storage, now is a pretty good time to get one.
17) Battery Life
In terms of the Battery Life, even though we do get the A13 Processor, which is the same extremely power efficient Chip that the iPhone 11’s also got, we don’t really see any battery improvements. Apple’s still rating this at 13 hours of video playback, which is exactly the same as the iPhone 8, iPhone 7 and two hours more than the ‘6S’ and the ‘6’.
18) Highest Performance
Also, fun fact, I think the iPhone SE might actually be the most powerful iPhone ever made, here’s why.
It does indeed have the exact same Processor as the iPhone 11 Pro Max, the Apple A13 Chip, which is the most powerful Chip in any Smartphone on the market. But, the 11 Pro Max or even the 11 Pro, have much higher Resolution Displays. This would be a 2688x1242 Resolution Display in the case of the 11 Pro Max, compared to just 1334x750 on the ‘SE’. This translates to 3,338,496 Pixels on the 11 Pro Max and just 1,000,500 on the ‘SE’. So, the ‘SE’ has 3.33 times less Pixels to render than the 11 Pro Max does, meaning that performance would actually be better and you would get more FPS in apps, on the ‘SE’, compared to all the other iPhones. Too bad that the Display is only 60Hz and you won’t be able to see those extra Frames.
19) RAM
Something else that you won’t be able to see, is the amount of RAM. Apple never tells you how much RAM they have in their phones. On the 11’s, we have 4GB of RAM, which to be honest, was never enough for me. YouTube especially keeps reloading from scratch pretty much every single time I launch it.
The iPhone 12’s are said to come with 6GB of RAM, the ‘SE’ only comes with 3GB. For most people that should be fine, but I just wanted to mention it regardless as you will have half the amount of RAM, compared to the upcoming 2020 iPhones. Multitasking will not be as good on the ‘SE’.
20) Water Damage
Also, with the ‘SE’, we do have an IP68 Water Resistance of up to 1m, for up to 30 minutes. This is the same as on the iPhone 8 and 7 before it. However, as with all the iPhones before it, if it does break when it’s underwater, the warranty would not cover that. Water Damage is a bit of an odd thing, so many manufacturers do promote it but if your Smartphone does break, they won’t cover that under warranty.
21) Fast Charging
Finally, I’m not sure how many of you know this, but the iPhone SE does indeed support Fast Charging, just like the iPhone 8. In the box, you only get the same painfully slow 5W Charger, but if you buy a more powerful Charger or if you simply have a MacBook Charger, all you need to do is buy a USB type C to Lightning Cable and you can get your iPhone charged to 50% in just 30 minutes.