The 2022 iPhone SE: A Decent Entry-Level Option

As I put the 2022 iPhone SE through its paces, I was excited to see how it would stack up against its predecessor in terms of performance, camera capabilities, and battery life. But, as I soon discovered, this mid-range smartphone is not without its compromises.

The first thing that struck me about the 2022 iPhone SE was its speed compared to the last generation SE running on LTE in my testing, but asterisk 5G availability and results are wildly inconsistent across carriers and localities, so some of you might have to take this with a grain of salt now. We cannot talk about all of this crazy performance and new 5G capabilities on this iPhone SE without touching on the battery life for context.

Over the years, as Apple scaled up its flagship phones to be larger and more powerful, this afforded newer iPhones physically bigger batteries. However, Apple shooing power-hungry hardware into the 2020 and 2022 iPhone SE older chassis is the most glaring compromise. The battery, which Apple claims will last two hours longer while streaming video, I'll leave the scientific test to the actual reviewers, but I did observe that the 2022 SE held a charge a bit longer past my workday compared to the outgoing SE and that's with 5G on.

While as a whole this battery does still leave more to be desired in the scheme of mid-range smartphones like the Galaxy A52 5G, which has a 4500 milliamp hour battery. Lastly, there's the camera, which in terms of optics and sensors surprises surprise is exactly the same as the last-gen iPhone SE in the front and rear. The selfie camera, however, is in dire need of an upgrade – 7 megapixels doesn't really cut it anymore.

However, the 12-megapixel shooter in the rear is still surprisingly good, thanks to the extra goodies brought by the A15 Bionic specifically Smart HDR4 helps a lot to rein in highlight and shadow detail, and Deep Fusion helps sharpen and reduce noise in the image. It's certainly not as good as the iPhone 13 camera and is still missing features that its bigger brother has like night mode and the new cinematic video function.

But standard photos and videos from the 2022 iPhone SE look stunning, especially when you consider its price point, which retails for $429 for the 64GB model – up $30 from the last generation while the jump to the A15 Bionic is partially to blame shared responsibility likely goes to the sheer component cost of the 5G modem that Apple sources from Qualcomm.

Now is that price hike worth scrutinizing? Some might think so, but I think that the performance, camera, and future-proofing gains are totally worth it if you've been on the fence about buying an SE to begin with. However, as some of you mentioned on Twitter, Apple still sells the 64GB model of the iPhone 11 for $500, and it's a compelling alternative.

For $70 more, you're buying into a phone with a bigger battery, newer design, a bigger LCD screen, and a secondary ultra-wide camera lens. However, the main omissions are the lack of 5G, older camera processing, and less powerful hardware. Personally, while it might sound weird to some, those omissions are enough for me to lean toward the 2022 iPhone SE.

For my money, I would just spend the extra $50 and get the upgraded 128GB of storage. The 2022 iPhone SE is not the sexiest, most exciting entry-level iPhone that enthusiasts speculated and wished for but that doesn't make the phone any less decent of an iPhone. Apple is dealing in the art of towing the line with the iPhone SE – it's not giving too much, not giving too little while making the phone look attractive to the average customer who wants a cheaper iPhone and the convenient products and services that it offers.

I think many people would be happy owning one, and by that logic, I think that the 2022 iPhone SE is a good iPhone SE. But I know that a lot of you are particularly vocal about your smartphone, so let me know what you guys think about the iPhone SE 2022 in the comments below.

Also, if you guys like this video, please do me a favor and hit that thumbs-up button – it really helps me out with the algorithm and otherwise. Thanks for watching this video on Dinky Channel, and I'll catch you guys in the next one!

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is the brand new 2022 iphone se and like clockwork tech enthusiasts have a plethora of takes on its existence but i think they're getting it all wrong let's talk about it hello and welcome to denki channel my name is ken there's a lot of sentiment going around amongst fellow tech enthusiasts that the 2022 iphone se is the most boring iphone in years however it plays a more important role in apple's smartphone lineup than being interesting to us nerds as the cheapest iphone they offer at retail it's the most accessible gateway into the apple ecosystem and interesting or not it's also popular as a result my own personal interest in the iphone sc goes back to when they announced the 2020 model which surprised me in the best way possible apple squeezed their most powerful processor at the time the a13 bionic into their cheapest phone at 400 and even with the compromises necessary to get there its performance punched way higher than it had any right to now this decision made a whole lot of sense after all the release gap between the first and second generations of iphone se was about four years all this extra performance headroom is rather justified in the scheme of future proofing so that the sc could hold its own in the market and in people's pockets for another three four or even five years but apple still decided to bestow upon us a new iphone se for 2022 and with that said i have two questions why so soon and is it really as lackluster as people make it out to be to answer this question of why the 2022 iphone se even exists let's take a closer look to see what changed as some of you already know on the surface it looks exactly the same as the outgoing model using the iphone 8 as its base the 2022 iphone se still looks good front to back and is honestly a great size in hand however in 2022 it does look outdated compared to current iphones and the rest of the market for me personally this is not a deal breaker and a lot of people do like this design but it does make me wonder how long it's going to stick around for though fans of touch id will certainly hope that the design sticks around for years to come also on change for this year's sc is the screen it's the same 4.7 inch 720p resolution ips display it looked good in 2017 it still looked good in 2020 and in my opinion it still holds up in 2022 contrary to complaints i've seen about it on twitter sure it might not be as flashy or exciting as the wide vibrant contrasty amoled displays we see in current mid-range and flagship phones however at 326 pixels per inch it's still plenty sharp to my eye at normal viewing distance and the ips displays apple uses on their phones get decently bright at over 600 nits on top of that yielding better color accuracy over its oled counterparts which is certainly a plus point if you plan on doing any sort of content creation on it feel like a lot of social media people use iphones there are reasons for that we're not getting into that in this video and of course this year's iphone se is also stupid powerful just as the se utilized apple's newest soc in 2020 the 2022 iphone se carries a similar amount of performance to the current iphone 13 and 13 pro whether you plan on doing intensive stuff like content creation or gaming or if you just want your iphone to perform consistently well until the next iphone sc comes out it's hard to deny that the power brought by the a15 is this phone's best value proposition however we're not done yet as there are more welcome additions to this 2022 iphone se that are welcome with asterisk attached one standout over the previous generation is the inclusion of 5g where cellular carriers here in the united states were rolling out 5g when the last generation sc came out in 2020. now in 2022 the carrier push for next gen cellular is nothing short of aggressive and there's minor speculation pointing out that this might be the inside baseball reason as to why the iphone se was even updated this year sometimes these phone manufacturers are at the whims of the cellular carriers that sell their phones at retail the new ses sub 65g sustained better connection and speed compared to the last generation se running on lte in my testing but asterisk 5g availability and results are wildly inconsistent across carriers and localities so some of you might have to take this with a grain of salt now we cannot talk about all of this crazy performance and new 5g capabilities on this iphone se without touching on the battery life for context over the years as apple scaled up its flagship phones to be larger and more powerful this afforded newer iphones physically bigger batteries on the flip side apple shoehorning power hungry hardware into the 2020 and 2022 iphone ses older chassis the most glaring compromise is the battery apple claims it'll last two hours longer while streaming video i'll leave the scientific test to the actual reviewers but i did observe that the 2022 sc held a charge a bit longer past my work day compared to the outgoing sc and that's with 5g on though as a whole this battery does still leave more to be desired in the scheme of mid-range smartphones like the galaxy a52 5g which has like a 4500 milliamp hour battery and lastly there's the camera which in terms of optics and sensors surprise surprise is exactly the same as the last gen iphone se in the front and the rear the selfie camera is in dire need of an upgrade 7 megapixels doesn't really cut it anymore however the 12 megapixel shooter in the rear is still surprisingly good while it's absolutely tempting to lay judgment on its paper specs alone remember processing and computational features are just as important when it comes to smartphone cameras and the 2022 iphone se does improve over its predecessor thanks to the extra goodies brought by the a15 bionic specifically smart hdr4 helps a lot to rein in highlight and shadow detail and deep fusion helps sharpen and reduce noise in the image it's certainly not as good as the iphone 13 camera and is still missing features that its bigger brother has like night mode and the new cinematic video function but standard photos and videos from the 2022 iphone se looks stunning especially when you consider its price point which brings me to my last point the price the 2022 iphone se retails for 429 dollars for the 64 gigabyte model up 30 dollars from the last generation while the jump to the a15 bionic is partially to blame shared responsibility likely goes to the sheer component cost of the 5g modem that apple sources from qualcomm now is that price hike worth scrutinizing over some might think so but i think that the performance camera and future proofing gains are totally worth it if you've been on the fence about buying an se to begin with however as some of you mentioned on twitter apple still sells the 64 gigabyte model of the iphone 11 for 500. and it's a compelling alternative with some caveats for 70 dollars more you're buying into a phone with a bigger battery newer design a bigger lcd screen and a secondary ultra wide camera lens with the main omissions the lack of 5g older camera processing and less powerful hardware personally while it might sound weird to some those omissions are enough for me to lean toward the 2022 iphone se though for my money i would just spend the extra 50 and get the upgraded 128 gigs of storage the 2022 iphone se is not the sexiest most exciting entry-level iphone that enthusiasts speculated and wished for but that doesn't make the phone any less decent of an iphone apple is dealing in the art of towing the line with the iphone se it's not giving too much not giving too little while making the phone look attractive to the average customer that wants a cheaper iphone and the convenient products and services that it offers i think many people would be happy owning one and by that logic i think that the 2022 iphone se is a good iphone se but i know that a lot of you are particularly vocal about your smartphone so let me know what you guys think about the iphone se 2022 in the comments below also if you guys like this video please do me a favor and hit that thumbs up button it really helps me out with the algorithm and otherwise thanks for watching this video on dinky channel and i'll catch you guys in the next onethis is the brand new 2022 iphone se and like clockwork tech enthusiasts have a plethora of takes on its existence but i think they're getting it all wrong let's talk about it hello and welcome to denki channel my name is ken there's a lot of sentiment going around amongst fellow tech enthusiasts that the 2022 iphone se is the most boring iphone in years however it plays a more important role in apple's smartphone lineup than being interesting to us nerds as the cheapest iphone they offer at retail it's the most accessible gateway into the apple ecosystem and interesting or not it's also popular as a result my own personal interest in the iphone sc goes back to when they announced the 2020 model which surprised me in the best way possible apple squeezed their most powerful processor at the time the a13 bionic into their cheapest phone at 400 and even with the compromises necessary to get there its performance punched way higher than it had any right to now this decision made a whole lot of sense after all the release gap between the first and second generations of iphone se was about four years all this extra performance headroom is rather justified in the scheme of future proofing so that the sc could hold its own in the market and in people's pockets for another three four or even five years but apple still decided to bestow upon us a new iphone se for 2022 and with that said i have two questions why so soon and is it really as lackluster as people make it out to be to answer this question of why the 2022 iphone se even exists let's take a closer look to see what changed as some of you already know on the surface it looks exactly the same as the outgoing model using the iphone 8 as its base the 2022 iphone se still looks good front to back and is honestly a great size in hand however in 2022 it does look outdated compared to current iphones and the rest of the market for me personally this is not a deal breaker and a lot of people do like this design but it does make me wonder how long it's going to stick around for though fans of touch id will certainly hope that the design sticks around for years to come also on change for this year's sc is the screen it's the same 4.7 inch 720p resolution ips display it looked good in 2017 it still looked good in 2020 and in my opinion it still holds up in 2022 contrary to complaints i've seen about it on twitter sure it might not be as flashy or exciting as the wide vibrant contrasty amoled displays we see in current mid-range and flagship phones however at 326 pixels per inch it's still plenty sharp to my eye at normal viewing distance and the ips displays apple uses on their phones get decently bright at over 600 nits on top of that yielding better color accuracy over its oled counterparts which is certainly a plus point if you plan on doing any sort of content creation on it feel like a lot of social media people use iphones there are reasons for that we're not getting into that in this video and of course this year's iphone se is also stupid powerful just as the se utilized apple's newest soc in 2020 the 2022 iphone se carries a similar amount of performance to the current iphone 13 and 13 pro whether you plan on doing intensive stuff like content creation or gaming or if you just want your iphone to perform consistently well until the next iphone sc comes out it's hard to deny that the power brought by the a15 is this phone's best value proposition however we're not done yet as there are more welcome additions to this 2022 iphone se that are welcome with asterisk attached one standout over the previous generation is the inclusion of 5g where cellular carriers here in the united states were rolling out 5g when the last generation sc came out in 2020. now in 2022 the carrier push for next gen cellular is nothing short of aggressive and there's minor speculation pointing out that this might be the inside baseball reason as to why the iphone se was even updated this year sometimes these phone manufacturers are at the whims of the cellular carriers that sell their phones at retail the new ses sub 65g sustained better connection and speed compared to the last generation se running on lte in my testing but asterisk 5g availability and results are wildly inconsistent across carriers and localities so some of you might have to take this with a grain of salt now we cannot talk about all of this crazy performance and new 5g capabilities on this iphone se without touching on the battery life for context over the years as apple scaled up its flagship phones to be larger and more powerful this afforded newer iphones physically bigger batteries on the flip side apple shoehorning power hungry hardware into the 2020 and 2022 iphone ses older chassis the most glaring compromise is the battery apple claims it'll last two hours longer while streaming video i'll leave the scientific test to the actual reviewers but i did observe that the 2022 sc held a charge a bit longer past my work day compared to the outgoing sc and that's with 5g on though as a whole this battery does still leave more to be desired in the scheme of mid-range smartphones like the galaxy a52 5g which has like a 4500 milliamp hour battery and lastly there's the camera which in terms of optics and sensors surprise surprise is exactly the same as the last gen iphone se in the front and the rear the selfie camera is in dire need of an upgrade 7 megapixels doesn't really cut it anymore however the 12 megapixel shooter in the rear is still surprisingly good while it's absolutely tempting to lay judgment on its paper specs alone remember processing and computational features are just as important when it comes to smartphone cameras and the 2022 iphone se does improve over its predecessor thanks to the extra goodies brought by the a15 bionic specifically smart hdr4 helps a lot to rein in highlight and shadow detail and deep fusion helps sharpen and reduce noise in the image it's certainly not as good as the iphone 13 camera and is still missing features that its bigger brother has like night mode and the new cinematic video function but standard photos and videos from the 2022 iphone se looks stunning especially when you consider its price point which brings me to my last point the price the 2022 iphone se retails for 429 dollars for the 64 gigabyte model up 30 dollars from the last generation while the jump to the a15 bionic is partially to blame shared responsibility likely goes to the sheer component cost of the 5g modem that apple sources from qualcomm now is that price hike worth scrutinizing over some might think so but i think that the performance camera and future proofing gains are totally worth it if you've been on the fence about buying an se to begin with however as some of you mentioned on twitter apple still sells the 64 gigabyte model of the iphone 11 for 500. and it's a compelling alternative with some caveats for 70 dollars more you're buying into a phone with a bigger battery newer design a bigger lcd screen and a secondary ultra wide camera lens with the main omissions the lack of 5g older camera processing and less powerful hardware personally while it might sound weird to some those omissions are enough for me to lean toward the 2022 iphone se though for my money i would just spend the extra 50 and get the upgraded 128 gigs of storage the 2022 iphone se is not the sexiest most exciting entry-level iphone that enthusiasts speculated and wished for but that doesn't make the phone any less decent of an iphone apple is dealing in the art of towing the line with the iphone se it's not giving too much not giving too little while making the phone look attractive to the average customer that wants a cheaper iphone and the convenient products and services that it offers i think many people would be happy owning one and by that logic i think that the 2022 iphone se is a good iphone se but i know that a lot of you are particularly vocal about your smartphone so let me know what you guys think about the iphone se 2022 in the comments below also if you guys like this video please do me a favor and hit that thumbs up button it really helps me out with the algorithm and otherwise thanks for watching this video on dinky channel and i'll catch you guys in the next one