- The iPhone SE. (audience applauds) - When the first iPhone SE was unveiled six years ago, I was mad. Because I just bought an
iPhone Six a few months prior. And the phone I really wanted was this. Ugh. It was such a surprise because it provided the
latest power in camera in the last package for the least price. Which at 399 was really good. This new third generation iPhone SE appears to adhere to the
original's philosophy. But a lot has changed since then. And that's affected the why
of this phone's existence, the where of its place in
the smartphone landscape and the who of who it's for. And I'd argue that these
changes have made the iPhone SE less desirable than ever. They upgraded the wrong things. (soft music) If you put this iPhone SE
next to its predecessor or the iPhone Eight for that matter, you would not be able to tell
the difference between them. The list of updates for this new, for this new iPhone SE is quite small. You get a slightly bigger battery, slightly tougher glass and A15 processor with one
extra gigabyte of RAM and 5G. Oh, and for the first time
ever, a price increase of $30. 5G is notably unnotable. It's a big driver for this price increase and yet I cannot tell
when it's been useful. Here in humble Canada, I'm getting maybe double
download speeds if I'm lucky. I'm not getting 5G here. Let me just turn it on to 5G always. Any luck? No. Okay. But so 105 down and 28.6 up, that's not bad for LTE. Why do I need 5G? So if you're streaming video
on this 720P iPhone screen, you're using 10 megabits per second, tops. That's a lot of overhead
for little utility. The A15 chip on the SE
needs a disclaimer too. In Geekbench, it matches
closely with the iPhone 13 Pro in graphics performance even
though that phone's A15 chip has five GPU cores
instead of four in the SE. But when I exported RAWS to JPEG, this phone couldn't keep up
with any of the iPhone 13s or the A14 powered iPhone
12 Mini for that matter. So it's a fine performer,
but perhaps not the best. And then there's what's not been updated. The camera remains the same and it still doesn't have night mode. There's also no MagSafe
and that's really annoying. It also doesn't bode
well for MagSafe's future considering that the first
SE didn't get 3D Touch. And look what happened to that feature. And then what else? Nothing. And that puts the SE in a peculiar spot. (soft music)
(plane engine roaring) The market for this $430
phone is increasingly small. The only people that I could
conceivably recommend this to would be people who have
an iPhone Seven or older. So my parents. People who are getting a
smartphone for the first time, teenagers, and people who do not
wanna leave touch ID. Also my parents. Which considering the pandemic
we've been going through and the uselessness of face ID during it, now makes sense. (soft music) Altogether, it's not a large group of what I imagine are mostly boomers. Everyone else has moved on
to something more modern. So I'm not surprised that
already a month after release, reports have emerged that Apple is cutting production of
the device by around 20% due to the less than anticipated demand. The group that's left for this iPhone will love the familiarity
this unchanged design brings. But I can't help but worry
about the impact on usability this cramp screen imposes
on those with aging eyes who need to make text bigger. (soft music) This is the smallest screen
on any mainstream smartphone. So what if you want a bigger screen? Well, I'll tell you but first lemme tell you about
this video sponsor, Anker. Since the iPhone SE no longer
comes with a charger anymore, you should check out
Anker's Nano Pro 21 Charger. In its small and colorful package, you get Anker's active shield technology as well as a power tuner chip to get the fastest and safest charge. And if you need to charge even more, they also have a 40-watt dual
charger available as well. Check 'em out at the link
in the description below. Now, if you want a big screen phone, you're gonna have to venture
out of the Apple garden because there are a lot of
compelling looking, big screened Android phones. At the same price as this iPhone SE, you can get the highly
regarded Google Pixel 5A or the brand new Samsung Galaxy A53. Both have significantly
more features than the SE. Multiple cameras, larger
screen and double the storage. The pixels still got a headphone jack. And the Samsung has facial recognition, an under screen fingerprint reader and a high refresh rate display. (soft music)
(whooshing sound) Yes, I switched to Android
and it is quite revealing. You might think that this
Samsung would trounce the iPhone. And you know, yes, this high
refresh rate screen is nice right up until you reach
a hiccup on an animation. Then it's really annoying. Stutters become even more
obvious and they happen a lot. The Pixel 5A has less
pretense and bloatware. So it performs better. In Geekbench, these compare more closely against the original iPhone SE rather than the current one. And exporting RAWS, they take forever. I'm frankly staggered at the stark difference in performance. 5G wise, the Samsung
is significantly better for some weird reason. This is an American Verizon phone on a Canadian Tellus network. And it only displays that it's connected to an LTE network yet blasts
through uploads and downloads. If you do care about the
camera on your phone though, the SE is not really for you. Its improvements only come
from the A15 chip's processing but with no night mode. So you're only gonna notice an improvement if you compare it to a
multi-year old iPhone. Against the Androids, it comes
down to subjective opinion. And whether you value an ultra wide camera over good video recording. The Samsung looks awful. I'm still surprised at how
slow the Samsung Galaxy A53 is. It means that at this price point you have a choice between
a phone that is basic, has no new features, a tiny screen, but with incredible performance that'll easily last you six years or you can get a phone full
of all the latest features, the most camera and OLET screen, but will be slow and only get slower. If you have to go Android, the pixel 5A is the one I'd go with. Though that's not available
here in Canada unfortunately. But even though the
iPhone SE is much faster than any Android phone in its price range, I still think you can get
a better deal on an iPhone. (soft music) Remember my rant in the iPhone 13 review about how complicated it is
to buy a phone these days? The whole Excel spreadsheet thing? Well, it applies here too. If you want an iPhone SE, here in Canada a few discount carriers are getting rid of
second generation models for less than $200 over two years. If you can snag that, that's a great deal. But what if you wanna have
your cake and eat it too? Recently, a friend of mine asked me to help her buy a new phone. And I was able to help
her find an iPhone 12 Mini with 128 gigabytes of storage for $385. That's a complete no brainer. Prices have climbed a bit now but they still match the current SE. For my American viewers, the 12 Mini is also
currently on sale as well. You can get one with AT&T for $315 or free with Verizon. Though those are all with a
burdensome three-year contract. (soft music) What was amazing about
the original SE was that for the lowest price, you
got a device that was better than the iPhone Six Apple sold
at the time for more money. It really was a good deal and perfect for small
phone lovers like me. In fact, I even bought one. This is so tough because
despite touch ID's merits, I think that in 2022, this
form factor just looks ancient. If Apple were to maintain
the true spirit of the SE with this release, they
would've given us an A15 powered maybe MagSafe compatible, 5G
capable phone in an iPhone 11 or 10R body. For 429, that would've been
amazing, but they didn't. It leaves an awkward gap which I guess is still
filled with the iPhone 11 which has the old SE's A13 chip. But it also has night mode
in an ultra wide camera for $70 more. Well, that means that if you need an inexpensive
iPhone this will do, but I do still think it's worth the effort to go and find a better deal
because they're out there. Thanks for upgrading the least
amount of this Mac address. Now I'm curious. If you agree with me that this should have been
in an iPhone 11 body, give this video alike. And if you're still gonna
use your existing iPhone ever longer, great idea. Might as well subscribe. Now in the comments I'm curious how many of you still like this touch ID iPhone Six form factor. Are you gonna get one 'cause this is probably the last there're.
