Apple iPhone SE test (2020): the low price, designed to last

I have not encountered any problem to run the most demanding games of the App Store. We have of course tested Fortnite Battle Royal, which runs with a 100 %3D resolution, details set to the maximum, and at 60 frames per second. I noted a little phone heating after a good game session, but not enough to get below 50 frames per second. Same bell sound for call of duty mobile which turns perfectly on this iPhone.

Apple iPhone SE 2020 test

Four years after the first version, Apple renews his iPhone se with this version 2020 that he always positions in the mid -range. Sold from € 489, the camera combines the design of the iPhone 8 and the components of the iPhone 11.

The iPhone SE 2020 has a 4.7 -inch Retina HD screen with a resolution of 750 × 1334 pixels.

This smartphone works with the iOS 13 operating system and an A13 Bionic processor with 3 GB of RAM memory and 64, 128 or 256 GB of internal memory, but no memory card reader.

It does not have a facial recognition system, but offers the return of the home button with Touch ID technology to unlock the home screen with the digital imprint. Waterproof, it has a nano-sim and esim card reader, a 1,821 mAh wireless loadable battery and 4G, Bluetooth 5 connections with NFC and Wi-Fi 6.

Finally, it has a large, wide angle camera of 12 Mpixels, a 7 Mpixel front camera and can film ultra high definition (3840 × 2160 pixels).

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Apple iPhone SE test (2020): the low price, designed to last ?

The iPhone SE 2020 takes up the design of the iPhone 8 and incorporates the iPhone 11 processor, with a little more RAM. All for a price below 500 euros. What is this new proposal from Apple is worth ? Here is our full test !

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In short
Apple iPhone SE 2020

• Performances ! ��
• Exemplary finishes
• Apple update monitoring
• Well calibrated screen
• (waterproof, Wi-Fi 6, NFC)

• Dated design
• Mediocre autonomy
• Slow charger
• Little versatile camera
• (No 5g)

This test was carried out on May 25, 2020 and the market may have evolved since. Consult our comparison to discover more recent products potentially more relevant to you.

Our full opinion
Apple iPhone SE 2020

May 25, 2020 05/25/2020 • 18:30

In 2016, Apple unveiled the iPhone SE, its first iPhone launched apart from annual and “canonical” outings. Its strengths resided in three aspects: its compact design inherited from the iPhone 5S, its aggressive performance/price ratio for an iPhone, and emphasis on the environment with many recyclable or recycled components. Four years later, Apple renews this model with the iPhone SE (2020). What are its strengths now ? This model is still relevant these days ? This is what we will see with this full test.

Apple iPhone SE 2020 The video test

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Apple iPhone SE 2020 Technical sheet

Model	Apple iPhone SE 2020
Dimensions	6.73 cm x 13.84 cm x 7.3 mm
Screen size	4.7 inches
Definition	1334 x 750 pixels
Pixel density	326 pp
Technology	LCD
Sock	Apple A13 Bionic
Graphic chip	Apple GPU
Internal storage	128 GB, 64 GB, 256 GB
Camera (Dorsal)	Sensor 1: 12 Mp
Front photo sensor	7 MP
Definition Video Recording	4K
Wireless	Wi-Fi 6 (AX)
Bluetooth	5.0
5g	No
NFC	Yes
Fingerprint	Yes
Connector type	Lightning
Battery capacity	1821 Mah
Weight	148 g
Colors	Black, white, red
Price	150 €
Product sheet

This test was carried out from a copy purchased by us.

Apple iPhone SE 2020 Design

With its borders, the iPhone is really compact ?

On paper, with a screen of 4.7 inch 16/9, we can say that the iPhone is a particularly compact phone, at a time when smartphones all have more than 6 inch screens. It was however one of the great markers of the 2016 iPhone SE. However, the iPhone takes up the design of the iPhone 8 with its very large borders all around the screen. Is it really so compact that this ultimately ? Yes, it is. Even by comparing it with an iPhone X, however not much bigger, but totally border, The difference is sensitive in hand.

Borders at the front // Source: Frandroid

It holds well in hand // Source: Frandroid

It’s simple, I have no trouble reaching the top of the screen, even with the thumb. Especially for the first time in a long time, the phone was easily forgotten in my jeans’ pocket. After several years seeing many large smartphone formats scrolling through writing, it is really refreshing to come back to something more reasonable.

The borders

Size put aside, the design of this iPhone SE really took a stroke of old in 2020 with its large borders. The screen is found on a fairly limited part of the front panel, which can have consequences quite harmful to use. We will come back later. We would be curious to discover an iPhone with the same format, but a screen with finer borders, with a design closer to the iPhone X.

Finishes and connectors

For the rest, Apple offers us a phone here for excellent finishes, but we expected no less from the brand. Everything is perfectly balanced, with a lightning port exactly in the middle of the low edge, surrounded by two perfectly symmetrical speakers. IPhone 8 design requires, 3.5 mm jack port on this new phone. The old iPhone has always. On the other hand, we find the plastic antennae bands on the sides, which had been more discreet in recent years.

The device comes out slightly // Source: Frandroid

No jack // source: Frandroid

The camera comes out slightly from the phone, but not to the point of making it completely wobbly. Placement of the sensor in the corner of the back requires a little adaptation so as not to spend your time covering it with its index finger, when you hold the smartphone on the side.

Good point inherited from its design, it is water resistant and dust with IP67 certification. It’s quite rare on this price segment.

Touch ID and the Taptic Engine

User identification is done by a fingerprint reader located under the screen. No we do not mean under the surface of the screen, like most borderless smartphones in 2020, but in the front of the phone, below the screen. Apple reuses its good old Touch ID here that we had left with the iPhone 8. If the sensor still works as well, even when we wear a mask unlike the first versions of the Face ID, it inevitably takes up space at the front. Personally, I have always preferred Touch ID to Face ID, but I hope that Apple will one day find a way to integrate it properly under the surface of the screen.

Note that this sensor does not really hide a button. From the iPhone 7, Apple has indeed replaced its “Home” button often failing in the long run with a Tapic Engine vibration engine hidden under the Touch ID sensor. After an adaptation time, you end up having the effect of actually pressing a button. This is a detail, but this vibration engine is really of very good quality and rare are the Android smartphones to offer this experience unfortunately.

Apple iPhone SE 2020 screen

Apple is one of the last market manufacturers to use the LCD so much in its smartphones, especially with regard to their prices. OLED technology is now widespread, and the announcement of a new iPhone with an LCD screen always leaves us a mixed impression. However, the brand with shown with the iPhone 11 that it could offer excellent quality LCDs and perfectly calibrated.

The iPhone sends a 4.7 -inch screen with a definition of 1334 x 750 pixels. It is a flat screen, protected by Gorilla Glass and which offers True Tone, which adapts the white balance to environmental lighting around the smartphone. We made our smartphone under our colorimetric probe with the help of Calman software. It delivers a maximum brightness of 520 cd/m² for a contrast of 1500: 1. The color temperature of 6568K is very close to the ideal. The screen covers 72 % of the DCI-P3 spectrum with a very good calibration. The raised deltae is on average at 2.9, it is below the perceptible difference by the human eye estimated at 3.

Apple therefore once again offers an excellent LCD screen, although missing a little resolution, but the competition today offers very good OLEDs at this level of price.

Apple iPhone SE 2020 software

We are not going to present iOS 13 again which has animated all Apple mobile products since the end of 2019. Rather insist on the strengths and weaknesses of the bone when it is specifically the iPhone is. If you already have an iPhone, the initialization of the smartphone is done very quickly, and it is actually enough to approach your old phone during installation to transfer data fairly quickly to the other to another. This is where I spotted a first little software defect, an insignificant detail, but bearing questions from me.

The interface of the data transfer system was not displayed as well on the iPhone SE 2020, as on the iPhone X. These small details, I have found it in several places: the control center which allows you to quickly manage certain phone settings is truncated on the iPhone SE, and certain applications are not perfectly displayed. For the moment, it is never binding on use, unlike the old iPhone where certain applications had completely become incompatible with the phone on the small screen. Navigation in the system is done with the central button, and Apple does not offer to activate navigation by gesture offered on its iPhone border, which would relegate the button to the simple use of a fingerprint reader, but would facilitate the passage from one device to another when you are already used to new navigation.

This all the same raises the question of the support of the 4.7 -inch screen by Apple and the developers in the coming years when the rest of the range offers larger diagonals. In the same vein, iOS does not really benefit from the place offered by the screen in the status bar and for good reason, this location is covered by the notch on the other iPhones today. The screen is also a little small for reading content on the web, and the virtual keyboard is necessarily a little more compact.

That was for fears. Among the qualities we must mention the very long follow -up offered by Apple on iPhone. It’s simple, the old iPhone dating from 2016 is today always up to date and functional, if we have the exceptions of the few problems mentioned above. In any event, the iPhone SE Nouveau should benefit from the same excellent follow -up which is today one of the great forces of Apple.

Unsurprisingly, the iPhone fits perfectly with the new ecosystem pushed by Apple. You can access Apple Arcade games, but also the content of Apple TV+ whose subscription is offered for a year with the phone at the time of the purchase.

Apple iPhone SE 2020 Performances

The big “novelty” of this iPhone SE 2020, when compared to the iPhone 8, is therefore above all its Apple A13 SOC. This is simply the overpowered chip that we already know in the iPhone 11 and the iPhone 11 Pro. Here, the iPhone is the advantage of offering a screen with a low definition, which should have a positive impact on the performance of the device. On the other hand, it should be noted that he incorporates less RAM (only 3 GB) than the iPhone 11 (4 GB).

Apple iPhone SE (2020)	Apple iPhone 11	Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max	OnePlus 7 Pro	Huawei P30 Pro (Perf On)
Sock	Apple A13	Apple A13	Apple A13	Qualcomm Snapdragon 855	Histilicon Kirin 980
Antutu 7.X	468 807	424 355	427,770	373 182	315 754
PCMARK 2.0	nc	nc	nc	9,744	9 173
3DMARK SLINGSHOT EXTREME	3990	4,664	5 258	5,577	4,243
3DMARK SLINGSHOT EXTREME GRAPHICS	4516	6 127	5,783	6 228	4,374
3dmark Slingshot Extreme Physics	2833	2,540	3,989	4,084	3,841
GFXBENCH AZTEC VULKAN / METAL HIGH (Onscreen / Offscreen)	60/30 FPS	60/29 fps	48/28 fps	15/16 FPS	16/13 FPS
GFXBENCH Car Chase (Onscreen / Offscreen)	60/63 FPS	60/60 FPS	48/61 fps	21/42 fps	29/33 FPS
GFXBENCH Manhattan 3.0 (onscreen / offscreen)	60/156 FPS	60/156 FPS	60/156 FPS	55/101 FPS	59/89 FPS
Sequential reading / writing	nc	nc	nc	1,436/388 MB / s	903/232 MB / s
READING / READY	nc	nc	nc	43K / 7.2K IOPS	43.4K / 66K IOPS

I have not encountered any problem to run the most demanding games of the App Store. We have of course tested Fortnite Battle Royal, which runs with a 100 %3D resolution, details set to the maximum, and at 60 frames per second. I noted a little phone heating after a good game session, but not enough to get below 50 frames per second. Same bell sound for call of duty mobile which turns perfectly on this iPhone.

In addition to these excellent performance, the choice of this chip is a good sign for the lifespan of the smartphone. Apple should continue to take care of it for several years, and the performance of the A13 chip should hold the road for time. The longevity of the iPhone is generally quite good on this point.

Apple iPhone SE 2020 Camera

We are now used to seeing smartphones with 2, 3, 4, see even 5 photo sensors on the back. The iPhone SE is therefore a small homecoming, with a photo module with a single wide-angle sensor of 12 megapixels, with a Focal F/1.8 Open. You will therefore not have the right to follies zoom, or a super ultra-angle, but a simple versatile camera.