Why Does Apple’s New iPhone SE 3 Look So Similar to the SE 2?
Following its release in early March of this year, the Apple iPhone SE 3 received overwhelmingly positive reviews. However, some reviewers emphasized that the SE 3 doesn’t look all that different from its predecessor in terms of exterior design features.
It’s important to note that a smartphone’s evolution isn’t a process dictated by looks, but it’s also understandable why some early reviewers expected more changes in that department. Even though a new phone looking similar to an older model is a reasonably superficial drawback, many consumers desire noticeable improvements in exterior design.
The issue with expecting a distinct design is that, nowadays, almost every new smartphone looks quite similar to its predecessor. Surface-level impressions simply don’t take into account all the necessary context, such as technical improvements and retail price relief.
In order to make a fair judgment of the SE 3’s capabilities, let’s take a look at all of the factors that set it apart from not only the SE 2 but other comparable smartphones as well. Read on to find five reasons why Apple’s SE 3 proves that looks are indeed not everything.
Powerful architecture
The iPhone SE 3 uses Apple’s A15 Bionic chip, which is currently the fastest smartphone processor ever created. The A15 has a 6-core CPU, a 4-core GPU, and a 16-core Neural Engine, the latter of which contains Apple’s latest machine learning technology.
Astonishingly, the Neural Engine can perform over 15 trillion operations per second. Compared to Apple’s previous chip, the A14, that’s close to a 50% increase in computational power over the course of a single generation. With that kind of technical performance behind it, it’s no wonder that the SE 3 is twice as fast as older iPhones.
Whether you’re playing video games with demanding graphics, editing large videos and photo albums, or juggling multiple applications simultaneously, the SE 3 is powerful enough to operate flawlessly under a variety of stressful conditions.
5G support
Seeing that 5G infrastructure is currently in the process of being rolled out across the globe, now is the ideal time to own a smartphone that has 5G support. The incredibly low latency and near-instantaneous data transfer rates of 5G mean that all of your online activities will be faster and more efficient than ever before.
According to multiple cellular service providers, 5G will be 10-20 times faster than 4G. Although that figure translates to a broad range of potential speeds, we can expect to have data transfer speeds of over 1GB per second. To put that into perspective, 4G only has a maximum speed of 200MB per second.
With the SE 3’s 5G support, video streaming can potentially hit resolutions of 4K without any buffering or audio lag. Thanks to lower latency, multiplayer games will become far more reactive to your input, and download and upload speeds will be vastly improved.
HDR Camera Technology
Along with their renowned Photographic Styles technology, Apple has managed to squeeze Smart HDR 4 onto the long list of the SE 3’s impressive capabilities. This means that the SE 3 can optimize every photo and video you take, applying filters and compressing textures before you’ve even begun editing.
Although the SE 3 only has one camera, that’s all you really need at the end of the day. Some people prefer the bulky albeit impressive cameras of a more expensive smartphone. In contrast, others are perfectly content with a single camera that’s more than capable of producing crisp visuals and an accurate color spectrum.
Speaking of crisp visuals, the iPhone SE 3 has a 4.7-inch display. Despite the fact that that’s over an inch smaller than the iPhone 13, it’s more than enough screen space for a mobile phone. It’s comfortable to hold and doesn’t require any awkward hand movements to reach from one end of the screen to the other.
Value
The SE 3 currently retails for less than $500. It’s almost $200 cheaper than the iPhone 13 Mini and less than half the price of the cheapest iPhone 13 Pro Max variant. It boasts features typically reserved for higher-end smartphones, yet it’s affordable enough to appeal to the most frugal of consumers.
The SE 3 has the same durability rating as the iPhone 13, a better camera than a budget phone needs, and a processor magnitudes faster than any other phone in its price range. Apple has done more than enough to make the SE 3 a marked improvement over the last generation, with more features than a budget phone should ever need.
Even though the SE 3 has a slightly higher price than the SE 2, it clearly has more than enough improvements over its predecessor, making it a worthy purchase for consumers who have budget constraints to worry about. Ultimately, it’s a deceptively powerful smartphone that punches well above its weight class.
