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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sonny73n - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
Sure you’ll get the best performance compared to other phones at the same price point ON PAPER, not real life experience. For $400, There are many battery phones - Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi, Oneplus, Vivo... to choose from. Unless you want to be on iOS which can be good also bad.sonny73n - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
***many better phonesmandirabl - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
Any example of which phone *performs* better, zippier and faster without lag?Any example of which phone gets updates for the next 4 years, including security updates?
Any example of which phone is as secure and provacy-focused?
...Thought as much.
Retycint - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
Most android phones at the $400 price point perform just as smoothly. We aren't talking about the $100 bargain basement phones here. The last two points are your own personal priorities, and people with different priorities e.g. battery life, high refresh rate etc will not necessarily see the iPhone SE as a clear winner.sonny73n - Sunday, April 26, 2020 - link
You sound like a close-minded person who never likes to read. There’s a thing called internet, you know. Get on gsmarena, you’ll find many 2019-2020 flagship phones for under $600. Here’s a couple of midrange phones came to mind - Xiaomi Mi 9T $270, Vivo V15 Pro $300. They have full displays Super AMOLED, 6-8GB RAM, 128GB internal storage among many other things that I’d prefer them over this garbage.You’re one of those Apple sheeps who would believe everything Apple says. Watch the OLD Apple keynotes again and check those old iPhones which Apple touted about - “the fastest iPhone yet” LMAO. You don’t even know that iOS is a closed system, optimized to run on iPhones. Zipper, faster without lags my ass. Play Plants vs Zombies at high level on an iPhone, see how many fps it’ll give you. Operating system update? Haven’t you noticed every time an iDevice got updated to a new version of iOS, it got slower? Many people including me don’t want system updates for our iPhones but Apple always harass you if you don’t, right? They even trick you to enter password to update AFTER you CANCEL update. Security updates you say? Who gives a fk except for idiots. There’s many service online that bypass iCloud activation on stolen iPhones. Jailbreaks are out all the way to iOS 13. Security updates Apple push to your iPhones are for themselves, mostly patching the jailbreak exploits and install some more spywares. There’s not a phone that is secured. If you don’t know that iPhones and Android phones are the worst with spywares, you should not use any.
I said this somewhere but I’ll tell the readers here again about my experience with these so called smartphones. My wife FaceTimed me while I was away from home, showing my 2 years old boy taking his first step. I told her please record everything about our baby. Fast forward to about one year later, she called me and told me that our then 3 years old boy singing in the shower and he’s taking the shower by himself and she’s recording it to send to me after. I stopped everything I was doing and told her not to do that because those MFs at Apple may think that you’re trafficking child porn or something. She said that’s our baby and that’s what I asked her to do, why tell her to delete this precious recording now. We had a argument over that until I explained clearly and showed her the iCloud storage of the message app later that night. I know that every keystroke I make or any file I have on the phone will go to the server and it will stay there forever, until someone dig it up. Luckily I stopped her in time or I would have been living in fear until now. Welcome to the police State where you have Apple and Google always there with you. Only sheeple like you would live in peace.
You have thought as much? Still too fking little to me. Think some more. You have a long way to go.
Deicidium369 - Sunday, April 26, 2020 - link
I have heard of this thing called the Internet - I hear they have that on computers now - apparently 25% porn, 25% cat videos, 25% propaganda, and 25% long winded messages that are tl;drmandirabl - Tuesday, April 28, 2020 - link
That moment when Android Police agrees... https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/04/28/iphone-se...trparky - Friday, May 1, 2020 - link
Xiaomi and Vivo? Really? I wouldn't let those damn devices with all of the Chinese backdoors into my house at all. Bad enough Google spies on you with Android as it is but to add China to the mix makes it even more of a toxic hellstew of spyware.Irish910 - Wednesday, May 6, 2020 - link
Wow. Salty much?? Did Apple shit in your Cheerios?Deicidium369 - Sunday, April 26, 2020 - link
I replace my laptop/convertible every 2 years, replace my desktop every 2 years, why on earth would I keep a phone for 4 years - more like a year MAXWhat is provacy?