The iPhone SE (2020) Review: A Reinvigorated Classic
by Andrei Frumusanu on April 24, 2020 6:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Apple
- Smartphones
- iPhone SE
- Apple A13
- iPhone SE 2020
System Performance
Performance-wise, the inclusion of the new A13 chip should essentially blow the iPhone 8 out of the water given it’s two generations newer than the A11. For more details about the A13, please read our in-depth coverage of the chip in our review of the iPhone 11 series.
In the steady-state Javascript web benchmarks, the iPhone SE unsurprisingly matches the newer iPhone 11. In JetStream, the phone even gets a boost here, which might be due to the newer iOS version. I haven’t had the chance to re-test the older iPhones, but I’m certain the scores will level out across the A13 generation devices.
On WebXPRT 3, the iPhone SE did score quite a bit worse than the iPhone 11 phones. This test is more interactive in its workloads and more impacted by DVFS responsiveness, rather than just being a continuous stead-state load. It’s very much possible that Apple has tuned down the DVFS of the chip in order to remain at the more power efficient frequency states for more workloads. I haven’t had the time to update Xcode to run our workload ramp test yet – but it’s something that can be easily verified in a follow-up update on the topic.
Update April 29th:
I was also able to verify the CPU frequencies of the A13 in the iPhone SE, and the phone tracks identical peak frequencies as on the iPhone 11. This means that we're seeing 2.66GHz peak clocks on the Lightning cores when a single core is on, and up to around 2.59GHz when both cores are enabled. The Thunder cores clock in at up to 1.73GHz as well, just as on the iPhone 11’s.
The DVFS of the two phones is also identical – with the same ramp-up times between the SE and the iPhone 11. In general, any performance differences between the new SE and the flagship phones should simply be due to thermal characteristics of the smaller phone, possibly throttling things faster when under more strenuous workloads.
Overall Performance
Whilst I haven’t had too much time on the SE, the first impressions of the device are very much that this is just an as good experience as the iPhone 11 series. Much like on the iPhone 11 series, I actually feel that the raw performance of the hardware is actually hampered by the software, for example animations could be much shorter or even disabled in order to improve the user’s experience of speed and responsiveness. In either case, the iPhone SE’s performance is fantastic, and that’s due to the A13 chipset’s raw power.
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hechacker1 - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Buy an Apple or third-party battery case to solve your issue? The phone is cheap enough to afford a case to double the battery life.GC2:CS - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Yes that is strange. teardown makes it look like the displays are so similar they are interchangeable. Has Apple gone so cheap they did not even bother to remove 3D touch layer ?Still original SE had battery almost the size of an 6S. This is 60% of 11.
Teckk - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
I couldn't get used to the limitation that is iOS so, back to Android, but that battery life is really good. Especially when comparing S9+ and Pixel 4XL with bigger batteries.That battery capacity on Android phones won't be fun at all.
Speedfriend - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
The reason that battery life is good is that iOS kills background apps. I do day trading and on my iPhone it stops the prices updating in the background so when I switch to it quickly to check prices, it is totally wrong. I have to manually shut it and reopen it to get it to work. So I use Android for my main phone because you can customise app killing.Featherinmycap - Monday, April 27, 2020 - link
That is not really true. Go into settings/general/Background App Refresh and select if you want your stock app to keep refreshing in the background. By default it is usually enabled. So, yes, like Android, you can "customize" app killing.cha0z_ - Thursday, August 6, 2020 - link
You can customise a lot on ios, but people love to bring that argument without really having any clue what they are talking about. :)cha0z_ - Thursday, August 6, 2020 - link
That's your trading app issue, not ios.sorten - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Wow, double the GPU performance of the iPhone 8, which is faster than my 7. Not sure what I'd use it for though since I don't bother with phone games.This is a brilliant phone in terms of value and perf., but only an iPhone SE sized device would have caused me to upgrade early.
Quantumz0d - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
Only company which can make anyone fool - Apple.The design, 2008 OG iPhone and 2020 SE same bezel width. Just perfect.
IPS LCD 720P, I bet it costs them cents at this point.
AL frame, recycled again massive profits.
Probably their SoC R&D already had a massive break even and TSMC as well so again with that SoC, next level profits.
A13, the BAU case of AT's uber fast SPEC measurement means it's faster than a 9900K and SD865 is waste because it's sooo fast and Qualcomm is so behind as it takes many years to catch. But in real life UX, it's the same and sometimes even loses to the Android, wonder where did all that performance go.
But it's just $400+tax, so it's the best of the best smartphones on the planet because it's the best phone evaar. And ofc you do not get any 3.5mm jack as usual because space is not there I guess.
Apple is the most successful company because of their marketing edge, which is not possible to beat by any company, even the company which lives on Ad revenue itself failed so hard.
The utter shame is it runs on an OS which doesn't have a filesystem open to user for access but rather a ball and chain ecosystem utopian system.
Kudos tho. I hope this breaks the retarded mold of the Android phones esp Chinese ones and Samsung, Sony get their shit pricing corrected by selling $1000+tax phones planned obsolescence with sealed battery technology.
hlovatt - Friday, April 24, 2020 - link
You are probably trolling, but in case anyone else is reading your Comments the file system app omen to the user that is part of iOS is called Files.