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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
196 Comments
View All Comments
name99 - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
"In JetStream, the phone even gets a boost here, which might be due to the newer iOS version."Not "might be", *is* a result of newer iOS. Apple's constantly improving Safari performance.
Some of the tech behind the most recent improvements is detailed here:
https://webkit.org/blog/10298/inline-caching-delet...
LeftSide - Saturday, April 25, 2020 - link
Could the oddly close battery life numbers be related to the oddly close name of a particular apple employee and the name of this site?yeeeeman - Sunday, April 26, 2020 - link
With this article my suspicion of you guys being either paid my Apple or Apple fanboys has been confirmed.There are a ton of interesting, cheap Android devices in THE SAME price category as this old junk, but you never get the time to cover them. Some of them even have SD865 and the lot at close to same price as this phone, but neah, don't bother to write about them.
No, you instead waste your time and our time to write a long article, to repeat basically all that was valid for iPhone 6 in 2015. Sure, you are free to do it, you are the writer.
Sorry to be so harsh, but I feel like this site is going into a wrong direction.
toyeboy89 - Monday, April 27, 2020 - link
The fact is that Apple is more popular. They are going to get more hits on an article for a new iPhone. Just because a design is old doesn't make it junk. It's a proven design that many people still prefer to the swiping gesture based controls of the newer full screen iPhones. Most people don't look into these off brand budget phones you speak of for the same price. I personally wouldn't risk spending $400 on a brand with no service center in my country, Apple is everywhere, and you can walk into a store and get service the same day on your device.trparky - Friday, May 1, 2020 - link
A lot of those cheap Android phones are from China. That's a hard NOPE in my mind.shady28 - Sunday, April 26, 2020 - link
Honestly my untrained eyes can't see much if any difference between the iPhone 8 and SE 2020 video. I do see a slight but noticeable difference vs the iPhone 11 Pro video though.There is at least one side by side speed comparison with the SE and 8 out there now. Basically, normal stuff it's a toss up. But in more demanding applications, longer loading apps and so on, there's a pretty large difference.
My take on all this is that the SE 2020 is essentially a more future proof variant of the 8, but the 8 is still a very capable and fast phone to the point where the differences are undetectable except under the most demanding of apps (there is a significant difference in the comparison when the phones are pushed, but how many people push their phones SoC to the limit with any frequency?). This shouldn't be too surprising, any competing phone running less than a Snapdragon 845 is going to get thumped hard on performance by the iPhone 8 - which is to say anything short of a 2019+ flagship android.
So, as an 8+ owner who disdains facial recognition, I'm not seeing this as much of an upgrade path. I don't want to go back to the smaller screen, my camera is already better than an normal 8 and probably better than this 2020 SE, and I'm not interested in losing my home button on the new iPhones.
Deicidium369 - Sunday, April 26, 2020 - link
Yeah I remember when my Atari 800XL with disk drive was future proof.toyeboy89 - Monday, April 27, 2020 - link
To be fair CPU and GPU in phones have plateaued in recent years so shady28 does have a good point.Drakkon801z - Monday, April 27, 2020 - link
I don't understand about bezels, phones with thicker bezels have higher chace to survive after accidental drops, I lost cout of how many thin bezel phones that has latest version of protective screen, been smashed/cracked just because of 30 cms drop. For practical purposes, thicker bezels is like the only choice, unless you add good quality material like higher quality quartz/sapphire glass to entire front. Untill then, I will prefer thicker bezels on my phones.pav1 - Monday, April 27, 2020 - link
As usual, Anandtech reviews dote on CPU, giving us an A13 review which we already know is fast and largely wasted on such a device.