The New iPhone SE 2 – This is What You Need to Know
While the world is still under the coronavirus lockdown, Apple is not showing any signs of slowing down business. Today, they unveiled their newest member to the iPhone lineup: the iPhone SE 2. Here’s what you need to know.
Starting at the extremely attractive price-point of $399, this may quickly become one of Apple’s fastest-selling phones to date. For the base version of the phone, you get 64GB of storage which you can double up to 128GB at $449 and 256GB at $549. With only an extra $50 more than the base model, the 128GB version is clearly the sweet-point here. The phone comes in the more than familiar build-format of the iPhone 8 that was first introduced with the iPhone 6 in 2015. Coming in white, black, and product red, the phone is sticking to Touch-ID on the home button, something that may actually be a welcome return as face-masks are seriously obstructing the use of face-ID right now. Now the phone may look like the iPhone 8 but with the same A13 Bionic chip from the $999 iPhone 11 Pro we can be sure that this thing will be a real powerhouse. With a single 12MP wide-angle lens on the back, the device will use its powerful chip to take portrait mode shots thanks to AI image processing. However, this phone does not have an ultra-wide and telephoto lens and night mode is also not available. Considering the device is keeping the same LCD Retina HD display and battery of the iPhone 8, battery life should be good but making use of its powerful chip on performance-intensive gaming apps might strain the battery, especially in the future. It would have definitely been a nice surprise to see a bigger battery to get something along the lines of the iPhone 11, which has an amazing battery life. Other notable features are:
- 7MP front facing camera
- 4K video at 60 fps on the rear camera and 1080p video at 30fps on the front-facing camera
- Wireless charging — no surprise here as the iPhone 8 also had this feature
- Dual SIM and eSIM compatible
- Water and dust resistant (IP67 i.e. 1 meter underwater for 1.5 hours)
With pre-orders beginning on April 17th and the first deliveries expected on April 24th, the launch numbers should have been very high but will likely be dimmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. But can a phone like this compete in the era of bezel-less screens? The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have previously demonstrated that cheaper iPhones with bezels and Touch-ID sell incredibly well in the second quarter of the year. This is partly due to the fact that many people updating their phones around this time of the year are uninterested in the latest and greatest phones but simply want a newer and faster version of their current phone. In that sense, Apple is timing the release of the iPhone SE 2 perfectly and is surely hoping to capitalize on this trend.
