iPhone SE

 

When Apple announces a new phone, it is anticipated around the world and rumours have circulated for weeks that its Mar 21 event would do just that. But this was a first for even a company as innovative as Apple, taking an old phone design, in this case the iPhone 5, and adding a whole new set of features. Instead of just keeping older iPhones around to sell at a lower cost, Apple actually had to design and build an entirely new device, the iPhone SE.

Visually, very little is changing from the iPhone 5, including the chamfered, sharper edges of the device. The only difference is that those edges will be finished in matte, unlike the iPhone 5s and ‘Rose’ will be added to the available colours. For good or bad, you will know what the iPhone SE looks like and for the people who loved the compact feel of this phone, the iPhone SE offers a modern, powerful update. Apple says it sold 30 million iPhone 5’s last year so plenty of people remain unconvinced about moving to one of the company’s larger models.

Usually, getting a small phone has meant getting lesser performance on power or poor photo quality (or, most likely, both). That’s absolutely not the case with the iPhone SE.

The camera is the same 12-megapixlel model on an iPhone 6S, able to capture 4K video, except here it’s even better because the camera aperture doesn’t stick out. With that camera comes the ability to capture and view Live Photos, Apple’s GIF-style feature that captures a couple of seconds of video before and after the picture is taken to result in a moving, video-like recording. Apple has included the same LED functionality in the SE, meaning you can take selfies in the all kinds of lighting conditions.

The SE will include an NFC chip for Apple Pay, alongside the much-faster A9 processor and M9 motion co-processor. This means that the phone will see speeds similar to the iPhone 6s, and will also be equipped with always-on “Hey Siri” functionality. Apple says the iPhone SE’s hardware upgrades make it twice as fast as the 5s when it comes to CPU performance. And if all that performance raises concerns about battery life, Apple says it has “improved” battery performance compared to the 5s.

iOS 9.3 is out now and will ship with the iPhone SE. It includes Night Mode, which changes the coloring and brightness of the display to better suit your eyes in the evening/night and early in the morning. It will also include password-protected (TouchID) Notes, app suggestions in Health and more customized News.

The iPhone SE will come in two models, 16GB and 64GB. You can pick up the new iPhone starting March 31, and it will hit 100 countries by May at prices significantly below those for all the iPhone 6 models.

One of the main issues iPhone 5 owners have is that the hard edges and matte body scratch very easily, so protect yours with a great custom phone case from our range, personalise it with your own images and text and create something as individual as you are! (Make a Case for iPhone SE)