iPhone SE Review: Powerful and affordable MSRP $429.00 Score Details “The iPhone SE is the best budget iPhone you can buy.” Pros Cons The iPhone SE has always sat in an interesting place in the iPhone lineup — and the 2022 iPhone SE third generation is no exception. Picking up where the 2020 iPhone SE left off, the modern SE is putting its focus very clearly on the budget side of the market.
Coming from the larger, notch-laden iPhones of the past few generations, this screen really does feel like a jump backward. Of course, it’s still Apple, so it’s not like the display is bad. In fact, those budget Android phones I mentioned above? They typically look washed out and fuzzy, with fewer pixels and far less true-to-color performance. Apple basically always does displays well, and this one will definitely look nice once you get used to the size. But right out of the box, there was definitely an adjustment period.
Then there’s 5G. Most modern iPhones support 5G, but in this affordable end of the smartphone market, having 5G capabilities is a really nice cherry on top. Now, most of us are still going to use Wi-Fi at home and in the office, so your mileage will vary on just how important this feature is to you. At launch, the new SE only supports the lower-level Sub-6 5G, but the wider-band spectrum protocol is expected to roll out via software updates down the road.
Camera The camera system on the third-gen iPhone SE is a tale of two variables: Old hardware, new software. Well, that’s not entirely accurate, because most of the image processing bells and whistles are only possible due to the neural engine on the A15 chip. But the single 12 megapixel, f/1.8 wide-angle lens is the same camera we saw on the original iPhone 8, which had me skeptical before I received the phone.