Is The Iphone Se worth It?

Hey guys this is Austin. Is the iPhone SE worth it? The unboxing experience is just like any other iPhone. Pop open the box and you’ll find the SE itself along with the Apple EarPods, Lightning cable for charging and syncing along with the five watt power adapter. First thing’s first: this looks just like the nearly four year old iPhone 5. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the metaI and glass build has held up well over the last few years. While I can’t exactly congratulate Apple on recycling an old design there’s not a lot I would change today. The chamfered edges feel good in the hand, I feel like I’ve got a solid grip unlike the 6 and 6s which have always felt a little slippery. The same goes for the glass and metal back, it’s just a nicer look than the plastic antenna lines on the newer iPhone. The SE also lacks a camera hump which not only looks cleaner but keeps it from rocking when laid flat on a table. It’s a classic design that fits in just fine in 2016. One thing that does feel out of place these days though is a four inch screen. This is absolutely a preference thing but as someone who’s been using bigger phones for the last few years it takes some getting used to to go back to a smaller phone. There are advantages like being able to easily use the SE with one hand and if you’re coming from a 5s or 5c this’ll be an easy upgrade but I feel like you’ve got to be committed to wanting a small phone. The keyboard is downright tiny though and you end up doing a lot more scrolling, there’s just less on screen compared to most phones out there. It’s especially noticeable when it comes to video, paired with the mediocre speaker it can’t touch the experience of using a higher end phone. The display itself is fine but nothing special these days, it’s unchanged from the 5s making it sharp enough but it’s not in the same league as Samsung’s latest AMOLED displays. Don’t get me wrong, having a solid option for a four inch phone is nice but I think for most people something closer to a five inch screen is the ideal phone size. While it might look like an iPhone 5 on the outside it’s all up to date on the inside, it’s rocking the same Apple A9 as the iPhone 6s paired with two gigabytes of memory. On paper it’s nothing crazy compared to newer phones or even the iPhone 5s but in real world use it’s one of the fastest phones out there. The A9 is no slouch and when paired with the small screen it absolutely flies, this might be a small phone but there’s nothing small about the performance. Zing! It works well for gaming too although the display size does mean you’ve got less room to work with. When it comes to benchmarks it’s basically identical to the iPhone 6S, the biggest difference is in the graphics side where the lower resolution screen gives it a slight edge. While iOS 9.3 is essentially the same as it is on the iPhone 5 and 5s there are some new features for the SE. One of the biggest upgrades is the addition of Apple Pay. While it’s still not everywhere it’s become a legitimately useful feature for me over the last year or so. It’s also rocking upgraded LTE and Wi-Fi which is a small but appreciated change. You’re not getting a perfect replacement for the 6s however, while you’ll find the TouchID fingerprint sensor on board it’s the older version which is a bit slower than what you’ll find on the newest phones. There’s also no 3D Touch on the SE. This is a somewhat useful feature on the 6s that gives you a pressure sensitive display to let you pull up shortcuts in apps, preview content before opening it and most useful for me turn the keyboard into a small trackpad with a cursor. Only some apps take advantage of this though so it’s not a huge loss and others like Live Photos just replace the 3D Touch with a long press. What is shared with the latest iPhones is the 12 megapixel camera. You’re working with a slightly smaller aperture but you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference, it’s a rock solid performer that you can trust to get good results in most conditions. It does lack the optical image stabilization of the 6s Plus but it’s not a huge problem, while the Galaxy S7 camera is a step up over the iPhone right now there’s really not much to complain about with the SE. The same holds true for video, you can record up to 4K and not only does it look nice but Apple does a good job tuning the digital stabilization, something that’s lacking in most other smartphones that shoot 4K. It also has solid slow motion options with 1080p video at 120 frames and 720 at 240 FPS, I prefer the cleaner look of the 1080p video but it’s all usable. One thing that definitely wasn’t upgraded is the front facing camera. The 720p video from the SE is not too impressive. With 1.2 megapixels it’s fine but it really can’t hold up with newer iPhones much less the best Android phones. You will find the Retina Flash that measures the light and flashes the screen which actually does work reasonably well but this is one of the clearest downsides to the lower price of the SE. And that price is a big selling point. At $400 it’s significantly cheaper than the $650 6s, when you consider that that works out to about $13 a month it’s a pretty strong sell. You’re only going to find 16 gigabytes of storage on the base model however, to upgrade it’ll run you an extra $100 to make the jump to 64 gigs which is probably a smart move unless you heavily rely on cloud services. Battery life is also surprisingly solid, thanks to that smaller screen it’s actually a bit better than the 6s and should last you through a full day of use. If you prefer a smaller phone the iPhone SE is one of the best options out there and as a budget iPhone you’re not giving up that much although you do need to be committed to a smaller size. So what do you guys think about the iPhone SE? Let me know in the comments below and if you enjoyed this video and you want to see more like this definitely be sure to subscribe to the channel. Anyway guys thank you so much for watching and I will catch you in the next one.