Apple Announces The iPhone SE

by Brandon Chester on 3/21/2016 2:15 PM EST
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  • zeeBomb - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    An iPhone 6S in a 4 inch device. Great stuff!
  • witeken - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Small Edition?
  • magreen - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Steve Edition.
  • ddriver - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    sucker edition... although aren't they all...
  • BurntMyBacon - Wednesday, March 23, 2016 - link

    Some more than others (0_0)
  • Wolfpup - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link

    It's the cheapest iPhone Apple's ever done...it's a $250 discount, basically with the only downside being a 0.7" screen reduction. I'd rather have the larger screen (rather have the 5.5", everything being equal), but it hardly makes you a sucker to save $250.
  • kaesden - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    it should have been called the iphone 6s minus.
  • osxandwindows - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    but, but, its to cheep.
    /s
  • kron123456789 - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    But why the same design as 5S? I know, it's easier that way, but that's Apple we're talking about.
  • osxandwindows - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    I like the 5s design for the small iPhone.
  • SaolDan - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    i never liked it. looked long. kinda stretched.
  • raazman - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Yeah because of those huge bezels from 5 years ago.
  • KoolAidMan1 - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Because its a better design. I wish the iPhone 6 was designed more like the 5, those curved edges are so slippery. The 5 was also very thin but those angles made it feel much sturdier and secure in the hand.
  • GruntboyX - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Tooling.. they have already depreciated the equipment for the 5/5S design cycle. They get more life out of it which is what helped drive the price down. Less cost to production. less cost to recoup. And its a cheep risk in case the whole thing flops.
  • PromotedPawn - Tuesday, March 22, 2016 - link

    For a few reasons:
    1: It's still a wonderful design for a smaller phone. Where the hard edges wouldn't work on a larger one, here they allow a great grip on the device and greater durability.
    2: It keeps costs down. Apple gets to keep the 5S production lines rolling with a few tiny tweaks instead of designing and supporting a whole new product line - this is likely the biggest factor that allows them to stuff 6S guts into a 5S price point.
  • CharonPDX - Friday, March 25, 2016 - link

    Seems odd to me since they had established the 5c's plastic form factor as the "inexpensive 4" iPhone" body. They even said that the 5c was far more popular than the 5s at the time, and continued to be very popular after the 6/6 Plus came out. I guess they figured they might as well keep the "luxury" look of metal.
  • jjj - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Same device as the 5S but instead of dropping the price by 100$ when the iphone 7 launches, they do minor upgrades (SoC, modem and cam) and drop the price by 50$ now.
  • DCide - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    You have an odd definition of what constitutes 'minor updates.' And yet they still dropped the price.

    Except for the screen size, it's a significnatly better phone than the 6 for $150 less.
  • magreen - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    It's totally not the same device as a 5S--it comes in pink!
  • MrSpadge - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    WTF.. often you whine about differences in the 5 - 15% range as if they mattered. Now there's a switch from an A7 to an A9, which yields a performance improvement by a factor of 2 to 3! Check AT bench, if you don't believe it:
    http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1157?vs=1562
  • zeeBomb - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Does this phone really have 2GB RAM tho. That's what I wanna know.
  • Guspaz - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    It's an iPhone 6S in an iPhone 5S chassis, so yes.
  • RollWave - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    That's what I want confirmed too.
  • PrinceGaz - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    It would probably be more expensive to design a new A9 SoC with 1GB RAM, than it is to stick with the existing design with 2GB.
  • extide - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    No, it wouldn't they just put a different RAM chip on top. The RAM is not built into the A9, rather it sits on top, and is an entirely different chip.
  • dragonsqrrl - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    The article specifically states 2GB LPDDR4. What more do you want to know?
  • ssiu - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Traditionally Apple does not talk about the amount of RAM in their devices, and usually we need someone with the actual (final retail) device to run some benchmark/configuration program and/or do a hardware teardown to confirm that detail. Some blogs post info that they just assume is true.

    On the other hand, some websites could have reliable insiders that can leak info to them :-)
  • danbob999 - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Many web sites including Anandtech have been wrong in the past by saying Apple's new device had X MB/GB of RAM.
    The correct answer is that we don't know, Apple didn't announce anything. 1GB is still a possibility.
  • ingwe - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Why is the default 16GB instead of 32?!? sigh...
  • DCide - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    So they can charge a significant percentage of their customers $100 more by selling them more than they need at big profit margins,

    And now it's easier for them to charge $399 instead of $449 for the entry level phone, without upsetting the entire iPhone pricing structure and profits.
  • Donkey2008 - Tuesday, March 22, 2016 - link

    Because of Enterprise. 16GB is more then any user needs for a work phone. I know, it's a hard concept for you teenagers to understand, but you will understand once you get into the real world.
  • ingwe - Tuesday, March 22, 2016 - link

    Woah why the trolling? I happen to have an MS in Mechanical Engineering. I did not think of the enterprise market. So thank you for pointing that out. No thanks for you being a douche though.
  • CloudWiz - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    What do you think about Touch ID 1.0 instead of 2.0, and lack of a barometer?
    Confirmation of 2 GB would be great, I wouldn't put it past Apple to stick 1 GB into this phone
  • CloudWiz - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    1.2 MP front facing camera as well, was really hoping both cameras would share the optics of the 6s
  • Agent_007 - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    "as well as from LPDDR3 to LPDDR5"
    LPDDR5 should be LPDDR4
  • menting - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    2x higher or 2x as high? 2x higher means it's 3x as high.........
  • Burns101 - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Does this come with the same badass NVME storage as the 6S?
  • zeeBomb - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    If it did... That's a huge plus. Im going to say no to that one, but it is a possibility.
  • icrew - Monday, March 21, 2016 - link

    Looking at http://www.apple.com/iphone-se/specs/, there are two models of the iPhoneSE: Model A1662 and Model A1723. Anyone know how that’s breaking down in terms of which carriers get which models, and how that all relates to the “SIM-free” version?

    I ask because my wife would like to get an SE now, but we’re hoping to switch from AT&T to Verizon once my iPhone 6 contract expires in September. I’m hoping that she might just be able to buy the SIM-free SE now, use it with her existing AT&T SIM (from her 5S), then swap her carrier over to Verizon when I get a 7+ this fall.

    Any insight would be most appreciated!
  • KPOM - Thursday, March 24, 2016 - link

    My guess is that it's the same as the iPhone 6S. The AT&T/SIM-free version has Band 30, while the other version does not. Otherwise they are identical. She can use the SIM-free version now and switch to Verizon later with no issue.
  • ABR - Tuesday, March 22, 2016 - link

    It's amazing the hardware advances they are putting out year after year – all to make the devices just keep feeling the same speed.
  • CloudWiz - Tuesday, March 22, 2016 - link

    Antutu confirms 2 GB ram. Rejoice!
  • beginner99 - Tuesday, March 22, 2016 - link

    I'm all for smaller phones but I choose a 5" one with a normal bezel compared to this i phone that looks liek half of it is the bezel. Terrible.

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