Apple iPhone SE 2020 Camera review

[satysin]

Am I alone in preferring the iPhone SE 2020 camera over the iPhone 11 camera in their examples? Not always but way more than I expected anyway.

It sounds a little hyperbolic but for $399 the iPhone SE 2020 seems to be shockingly good value.

[m0xte]

If you buy it with AppleCare ($79) and sell it after 2 years when that expires the total cost of ownership and the associated risk of owning it is unbeatable. Works out at around $12 a month.

[throw_this_one]

I have the SE 2020. It's awesome. Battery life and screen brightness outdoors is the only weakness. Perfectly smooth, processor is amazing.

I also don't like the swipe gestures. Plus having a $1k+ phone on me while biking would make me kinda nervous.

[DavideNL]

I agree... and what annoys me also is i can't quickly "tap and hold" on notifications on the lockscreen, for example to complete reminders. There seems to be no (hardware related) reason why this would not be possible. (on the X and 11 this is done with 3D-touch.)

[doe88]

Ah! I thought of buying one and using it as bike computer on my bike, do you think the screen brightness would be an issue for this use case?

[fierarul]

So... this would be a good iPhone 6S upgrade?

[masklinn]

It's the iPhone 11 hardware in an iPhone 6S~8 body so yeah.

[steve_adams_86]

I made a comparable upgrade path and I’m unexpectedly stoked with where I landed with the SE. It’s a wonderful little device in its own right, and a significant upgrade over a 6S. I didn’t expect to like this phone as much as I do.

Someone else mentioned the screen brightness isn’t great outdoors. It’s perfectly usable but my previous phone was noticeably better. It really doesn’t matter to me, though. I’m typing this without issues in direct afternoon sunlight.

[pi-rat]

Yes, it's also really future proof with that A13 chip.

That said though, the 6S is surprisingly good even today. Doesn't feel slow for normal tasks, and probably supported for at least one more OS upgrade cycle. Impressive little 5 year old phone.

[switz]

If it had a headphone jack...

[taf2]

Yes

[jeffbee]

Would be a lot more useful in practice if they did all of the benchmarks after touching the lens. Flare when you point it at the sun? No kidding.

[oldstrangers]

So it competes favorably with the Google Pixel 3, released in 2018.

[reaperducer]

According to this†, the Pixel 3 stops receiving updates next year. We know that Apple supports its phones for at least five years, so this iPhone should last until 2025. Seems like a pretty good investment for $399.

† https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en

[baxtr]

I don’t believe that’s a relevant comparison. AFAIK Pixel always has been the Android flagship. iPhone SE clearly isn’t its iOS equivalent. It speaks to a completely different audience / sub-market.

[scarface74]

Well let’s see in four years which one is still likely to be getting operating system and security updates.

The original iPhone SE released in 2016 will be supported at least through September 2021.

[oehtXRwMkIs]

I think the Pixel 3a is a more relevant comparison. Very similar score to the SE and also a budget phone.

[Eridrus]

The score itself is identical to the Pixel 3A, which is from last year.

But these scores are very subjective, so....

[speedgoose]

It's a shame Huawei isn't allowed to have Google services on Android anymore. Their flagships smartphones have the best cameras in test, by far.

But an Android phone without Google is not very attractive in the western world.

[sahoo]

You can always install gappa bundle

[chvid]

Amazing testing work; interesting to read about the company behind it:

https://corp.dxomark.com

[antoniuschan99]

iPhone SE has one camera, no night sight, latest A series chip, Fingerprint ID.

11 has a wide angle camera, night sight, larger screen, latest A series chip , Face ID.

[kyskyskys]

iPhone SE (1st generation) is still supported. iPhone SE 2020 is branded to manipulate consumers.

[reaperducer]

Off topic irony:

A web site focused on visual quality uses #777777/#FFFFFF for its main content, rendering a FAIL for text readability on WebAIM.

https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/

[frou_dh]

It's now officially against the rules to post these. See third from bottom: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[reaperducer]

While the budget-friendly Apple device offers comparable quality in many respects to the more expensive iPhone 11, its single camera setup falls short for zoom and bokeh shots compared to our top performers.

So, a $399-$549 phone doesn't perform as well as a $999-$1,449 phone. Shocking.