Apple shook things up almost 4 years ago with the release of the iPhone 8, as well as an all-new design, the iPhone X. Since then, it has continued with the new design, but 2020's 2nd Gen iPhone SE has brought back the old style. A more affordable alternative to the iPhone 11 family. Now Apple has done it again with the iPhone SE 2022, priced at just $429. But how long can Apple continue to release the same old smartphone with little more than a new processor inside? Let's take a close look and see the value Apple offers this time.
iPhone SE 2022 - Design and Features
The iPhone SE 2022 will look pretty familiar to anyone who's seen an iPhone in the past eight years. The design was first introduced on the iPhone 6 with some tweaks and tweaks to the iPhone 8 where the iPhone SE 2022 is now almost identical. For better or worse, it's the same aluminum-framed phone we've seen for years, with a glass sandwich design.
The "for better" aspect of the design is that it is comfortable in the hand and familiar to many people. At the bottom is a Touch ID home button that's quick to use and easy to access, which of course means there's no Face ID in the colder months where you can wear gloves. Apple may be boasting "the toughest glass in a smartphone" here, but curiously, it didn't mention the Ceramic Shield, which protects its latest flagship iPhones from drops, which the company claims is "more durable than any smartphone glass." Apple? Isn't Ceramic Shield technically glass? Specifications aside, the design is thankfully easy to hold and manage with one hand, and it fits nicely in pockets, so the risk of falling can be somewhat reduced.
The “worse” thing is that Apple's design is so dated that it never flies on the Android side of the fence. If an Android smartphone manufacturer tried to implement this design on a $429 device, the planet would be laughed at. Even the cheapest Android phones today have eliminated the thick bezels found on the iPhone SE 2022. For $429, I expect a large, pixel-dense, OLED display on Android. Meanwhile, Apple offers the same 4.7-inch, 1334 x 750 Retina IPS display it's been using for almost 8 years. Even the iPhone 7 offered 625 nits of brightness (good but not stunning), which is still offered here. Newer screens are much better, and the slow pixel response time actually stands out a bit in some situations, such as scrolling. The iPhone SE 2022 looks even less attractive when you realize that the iPhone 12 mini and 13 mini are both smaller (and the 12 mini might be cheaper if you upgrade). Even next to my almost five-year-old OnePlus 5, the iPhone SE 2022 screen falls short.
The screen sits in the center of the phone and is a bit of a double-edged sword. Having a screen that is so easy to navigate with one hand is actually a bit refreshing. But I really feel too much content getting stuck. The keyboard is cramped vertically and horizontally, and web pages struggle to display too much at once. If a video or pop-up appears on the screen, it's game over until it closes, and the small buttons can make it difficult to achieve.
Maybe that's it for people whose priority is a small phone. For people whose priority is value and a good screen is a big part of that equation, the iPhone SE 2022 certainly isn't. Streaming video on the phone feels cramped with low details and nothing of the infinite contrast ratio of an OLED. While the speakers offer decent sound, they do squeak a bit at higher volumes, and it's even easier to accidentally cover it up with a hand.
Beyond the looks and screen, the iPhone SE 2022 has the same old point Lightning port, supports wireless charging (thanks again, iPhone 8), can last 30 minutes under a meter of water (well, but that's far). the six meters that the iPhone 12 and 13 manage, or the two meters that the iPhone 11 boasts).
The real big addition for the iPhone SE 2022 is 5G support. This new model can connect to Sub-6 5G networks, where carriers are ubiquitous if not mmWave. Perhaps the main benefit here is that the iPhone SE 2022 therefore gets better support as it ages. It doesn't need to use the high bandwidth of 5G to stream 4K video or anything like that.
iPhone SE 2022 - Software
iPhone SE 2022 runs iOS 15, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system. This provides software parity, if not feature parity, on even the most expensive iPhones, and that's no small benefit. Long-term support for Apple's devices helps customers use their phones in the long run without the need for an upgrade as only software updates and thus security updates stop coming to the device. The phone also supports Focus Mode (hardware switch for Silent Mode can also help here) to eliminate distractions, and convenient dictation via Siri with on-device processing. This latter feature is pretty fast and accurate, but pales in comparison to Google's recent dictation offering in the Pixel 6 line. Apple's dictation lacks as much punctuation as its touch keyboard, something Google impressively nails.
iPhone SE 2022 - Gaming and Performance
While the design of the iPhone SE 2022 is definitely a 2006 Honda Civic, the A15 Bionic chip inside is a brand new, turbocharged V8 engine, except that it's somehow fuel efficient in that metaphor. Unfortunately, with only 64GB of initial capacity, there isn't much room in the trunk.
Apple's latest chip is a powerhouse, if not a huge leap forward over the A14 Bionic chip that preceded it. The A15 is a monstrous chip with a six-core CPU, a quad-core GPU, and a 16-core neural engine. Blew everything inside iPhone 13, and the iPhone SE 2022 is asked to do even less heavy lifting. Of course this begs the question: why include it? It doesn't make a mind-blowing mix between multiple cameras, it renders high-quality gameplay at high resolutions and frame rates. It sure makes the phone fast, but so does the A13 Bionic on the iPhone SE 2020.
This performance is masterfully manifested in Thatgamecompany's Sky, which runs smoothly in high performance mode. But that's not surprising, as it barely renders at over 720p images. While all this is going on, the phone does get a little hot and there is very little mass to dissipate the heat. It's also hard to get excited when this performance is viewed on such a simple screen. I used the less powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 chipset to get more impressive results on similarly affordable phones like the $499 Black Shark 4 and the $300 Poco F3. These phones are new.
The tiny battery actually takes a hit when faced with a workload, too. He played Sky for only 30 minutes with the screen at 50% brightness and saw 20% of the battery completely drained. A 35-minute episode of Our Flag Means Death only sips about 5% of the battery with the screen and volume set to about 50%, while streaming TV shows doesn't hit the battery nearly as hard. With regular use, the phone will hold up to a full day, or even two, with a bit of texting and surfing the web throughout the day, so it won't fall short for casual phone users.
iPhone SE 2022 - Camera
Normally, a new iPhone's cameras are something to get excited about. After all, they're getting some of the latest software updates powered by Apple's impressive processors. This is not the case here. The iPhone SE 2022 has one basic camera on the back and one basic camera on the front.
Sharpness is certainly on offer, as both the rear and front cameras capture a clear image with plenty of detail. The front camera is a more modest but acceptable 7MP while the rear camera captures them at 12MP. Shooting possibilities on the iPhone SE 2022 are particularly limited, as no extra zoom or ultra-wide lenses are offered here. Without different lenses to be put together, the iPhone SE 2022 does not allow the A15 Bionic to flex its legs too much, with stylish camera features such as Cinema Mode.
Instead, the most the camera does is Deep Fusion to bring out a bit more of the fine detail, apply SmartHDR4 (although I didn't realize it animates my images), or apply Apple's Photo Styles, which are little more than interchangeable. , customizable photo filters. Sometimes these fine details seem to be over-processed, as all the edges in one of my swamp shots seem to have increased contrast.
One of the best things the iPhone SE 2022 offers from its main camera, which you don't usually find on cheap Android phones, is strong low-light performance. The wide aperture and Apple's powerful image processing help prevent noisy images with a bunch of blur from a long exposure. This helps to avoid getting absolutely crushed by it. Pixel 5a 5G in the camera department (an upcoming Pixel 6a might be a different matter), but still a poor showing. All these years Apple has been churning out phones with this design, hasn't really figured out how to give it the second rear camera the Plus models have?
Video recording is another strength here. While options are still limited to a single rear sensor, the A15 Bionic has no problem capturing 4K60. I usually see budget phones trying to record higher quality now and then, but the iPhone SE 2022 doesn't. So, whenever you want to catch your pet doing something cute or a friend doing something stupid, the video will continue.
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