When you think about it, what do you buy when you buy an iPhone? For some, an image, a status symbol. But this image is the result of related elements. First, there is the serenity of the user experience, made up of flexibility, fluidity and a sense of security. Security, which produces peace of mind, and which is so much touted by Apple as justification for the lock affixed to the App Store, in particular.
Then comes the integration between hardware and software, a major and unique advantage in the highly competitive smartphone market. Integration is also Apple’s ecosystem, of course, made up of cloud and services.
Then you have to count on a certain idea of innovation. Not always top of the line, but still smartly done enough that the historic feeling associated with Apple is there.
Finally, of course, another pillar of Apple’s image, an art of design, essential, which refers to the first statutory point, but also serves a purpose. Generally, it is a vision of what the product should bring to the user – a vision that Apple sometimes imposes against all odds without too much discernment – the connectivity on MacBooks between 2016 and 2021 is one of them. beautiful artwork.
Either way, generally all of Apple’s products build on these points, with more or less emphasis on one or the other. It’s a balance that has to be found, a shifting balance depending on the type of product, a sometimes precarious balance, because it is also based on a last essential pillar, the price.
Price is a cardinal factor, which has two aspects. The first is very tangible: it is its impact on your budget. The second is more difficult to assess. Depending on whether the criteria mentioned above are balanced or not, the price will then be deemed acceptable or too high. In the first case, it will sublimate the positive points. In the second, it will on the contrary reinforce the negative points, and unbalance the equation in a sort of game of chaos.
To shed more light on our remarks, we offer you this little infographic. It very schematically represents the (subjective) scores that we allocate to each of the criteria mentioned above to the three generations of iPhone SE, from 2016, therefore, to 2022. The closer the score is to its maximum at ten, the better price, design, etc.
If the infographic above does not appear, click here.
Design – between visual weariness and a brake on innovation
Let’s take the example of the note in design to start and explain our point of view. We give the first iPhone SE (2016) a score of 8/10. At the time, the design of the iPhone 5S, released in 2013 and selected for the first SE (4 inches) still looked good in an offer consisting of iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, equipped with 4.7 and 5.5 inches.
In 2020, the iPhone SE 2 adopts another more recent design, that of the iPhone 8, released in 2017. Except that, in the meantime, Apple has introduced with its iPhone X a new design and a new technology, Face ID, which frees up a lot of space on the front panel, providing more screen space. The design rating therefore drops, because in addition to the visual design, the functional design begins to age.
We then arrive in 2022, Apple maintains the design of the iPhone SE 2, which officially dates from 2017 and the iPhone 8, but in fact goes back to the iPhone 6, and therefore 2014… Eight years for a design, that’s a long time, especially when everything else in the market, including iPhones, has moved on.
As edge-to-edge designs proliferate, one last straw justifies our 3/10, the arrival of the iPhone mini, more compact and yet equipped with a larger – and better – screen.
Innovation, betting everything on the chip?
With each generation of iPhone SE, Apple has integrated what it then offered best in terms of SoC: the A9, the A13 Bionic, and finally the A15 Bionic. A very good thing that allows him each time to establish a high “low” technical threshold for his entire range.
Nevertheless, this year, the A15 Bionic seems a bit suffocated in this tiny case, behind this too small screen.
The SoC does not manage to boost the autonomy of the device as much as it does on the other models that equip it. The fault of a too small battery, no doubt.
On the photo side, the only rear camera module is far too limited to allow us to offer a photo partition worthy of an iPhone in 2022. Especially since we are touching here on a widespread problem, in our opinion, across the entire range. In photo, Apple, which was the king, is no longer so for a long time. If it progresses and continues to offer a quality experience, it should work twice as hard and offer much more (larger sensors, greater focal variety, better digital processing, etc.).
Coming back to innovation, the third-generation iPhone SE plays the card of delay and technical recycling far too much, except for its chip, for the latter to save it.
Status, permanent downgrading
To say that the iPhone is a statutory smartphone is not just to say that it throws it away because it is more expensive and that proves that we are rich enough to afford it. The status is also linked to the image conveyed by Apple in general and by the device in particular.
The iPhone SE is Apple’s “affordable” smartphone, so it’s not the one you take out of your pocket to burn. It’s the iPhone of reason, in a way. In 2016, it benefits from the appeal of novelty, a design that is still quite fresh, or at least close to the entire range.
In 2020, while most iPhones have adopted the design born of the iPhone X, the status takes for its rank, and ends up collapsing in 2022, when it is now the only one to offer a screen so small in a small package, but proportionally too big.
On the Western market, it hardly benefits from the flashy and qualitative image of Apple. In emerging markets, we imagine that its price will not make it easy for it.
Integration, and security, safe bets
The next two criteria are integration. By this we mean both the integration into the services, the homogeneity of uses and the comfort offered by the device.
In an environment where iOS plays more and more with touch gestures and no longer at all with the Home button, in a universe where HDR content is gaining importance, where the OLED experience transcends movies and everyday use, where Apple offers services to enjoy quality video game or video content, the iPhone SE cannot claim a perfect score in integration. It makes too little effort, the comfort it provides is no longer up to what the market offers.
For security, however, it is housed in the same boat as the other iPhones, and if the ecosystem is not perfect, if flaws zero day are sometimes exploited, iOS remains a relative haven of peace.
The price, symbolic thresholds
Let’s finish with the last criterion, the price, an essential point. If the iPhone SE have always been expensive “entry-level”, Apple has taken a symbolic step by increasing its price by 40 euros this year, and exceeding 500 euros. Because it is the bar that often delimits the middle of the high end.
However, in 2022, a so-called entry-level smartphone – and its design, its screen, its good but dated ergonomics go in this direction – cannot display a price that now confronts it with what the competition has best or almost.
There is too big a gap between its price positioning and the reality of what it brings. Admittedly, the iPhone SE is a pleasant iPhone, but not enough to claim to embody the gateway to this rather prestigious range and focused on a qualitative experience.
An iPhone anyway?
So what if you want an iPhone?
- Accept being the turkey of the farce with an iPhone SE of which only the chip is at the level. We must admit that we have difficulty guiding you towards this solution.
- Turn to other smartphones in the range, such as the iPhone 11 or 12 mini, which are still sold by Apple. They are, of course, more expensive.
- Or, finally, turn to the refurbished market, which has become more structured in recent years and offers great deals for those who know how to be on the lookout. There are iPhone 12 minis that are hardly more expensive than the iPhone SE and there, almost all the boxes are checked.
You could even add a new one that we have deliberately omitted from our criteria: the ecological cause. Recycling will always be greener than buying a new iPhone…especially when it disappoints.