Remember the Home button on the first few iPhones? Remember how nice the handsets felt in one’s hand? For those who have been fans of Apple’s iPhone from the beginning, the SE or Special Edition is a throwback to how the the iPhone was a few years ago. Small and seemingly simple. Every now and then Apple re-launches the SE to cater to its nostalgic fans who can’t be bothered with using technology all day long, but love a little iPhone around.
On the face of it, the iPhone SE seems bigger than the iPhone 13 Mini. And it is, if you look at its body. But when you turn it on and compare, you’ll find the screen of the SE is very much smaller. It’s bordered by thick bezels in a way that you don’t see on any phones nowadays; nor will it be tolerated on another phone, actually. It does look very dated, which is why the design won’t please everyone. In fact, it’s the same body as the long-retired iPhone 8 had.
The bottom bezels needs to be thick to accommodate the once beloved round Home button. That button has always had a very satisfying soft click when you press down on it and is part of the nostalgia factor. It does mean though that you will be using Touch ID on this phone and not Face ID, which could have been included but isn’t.
Serious power
The iPhone SE 2022 is slim and light, lovely to hold and not at all tiring like the large phones we use today. It’s great to talk on because you can hold it for so long. The grip ensures it’s less likely to fall than big phones, but it is glossy and slippery and could suffer damage if it falls, so you may find yourself opting for a protective case.
The SE doesn’t come in all the colours that you would find on the Series 13 phones. Our unit is ‘Midnight’. The other colours are ‘Starlight’ and my favourite, ‘Product Red’. On the back, there’s just the Apple logo and a sole little camera.
The old-fashioned body, however, does hide some serious tech and power. It runs on the same A15 Bionic chip that the entire Series 13 iPhones run on and one can go ahead and play games and it’ll handle them. It has 4GB of RAM and while that means nothing much in the Android world these days, the iPhone doesn’t work the same way and is quite zippy. The 4.7-inch screen is not OLED. But it’s far from ordinary and looks quite good even though it doesn’t have a high refresh rate, very deep blacks and very high brightness. It does support True Tone, Apple’s superior handling of adapting to ambient light. The battery now lasts two hours longer.
The camera is a single primary and doesn’t come with the companion ultra-wide etc. It doesn’t even have a night mode. It’s still a good camera, including with video shooting.
The iPhone SE doesn’t support Apple’s MagSafe charging but it does have splash resistance. It’s a phone that’s built in Apple style and will last a long time for those who want to stick with maintaining some sanity in a frantically tech enabled world. It starts at ₹43,900 and that’s a lot, but it’s the cheapest way to go Apple with a fresh phone.
Published on
March 31, 2022
