HomeFeatured Write a review of an iPhone SE 3? Easy, just a few lines: an iPhone 8 with the processor of an iPhone 13 inside. In other words an old Fiat 500 with an electric motor. Think about how disconcerting the assembly would be. Technically that would be all there is to write to give an idea of what the new Apple phone stands for. But in reality (risk of dismissal from Macitynet staff aside) this simplistic temptation must be put aside because iPhone SE 2022 presents numerous food for thought and one of its philosophy deserves to be deepened and explained to arrive at a reasoned judgment.
How iPhone is made SE 3
In reality, a simple, not simplistic thing to say is immediately there: iPhone SE 3 is not different from the iPhone SE 2 (reviewed here). If we exclude the new “nuances” of white (now called galaxy) and black (midnight) you should have the goldsmith's scales to understand which is the new and which is the old, since the only difference compared to the 2020 model is the weight, now reduced by 4 grams.
To tell the truth iPhone SE is identical to iPhone 8. Indeed, the appearance recalls that of the iPhone 6 which dates back to 2014. Therefore, defining the design as “dated” should not therefore sound like a ' offense but a fact. The single camera, the wide black borders around the screen, the display that doesn't go from edge to edge for some will mean nostalgia effect for someone else a démodé product.
the three colors and design of the iPhone SE
Round edges, water resistance, hardened glass
Among the other details that take us back in time there are the classic rounded profiles, more comfortable to hold than the square ones of the new iPhones (but also quite slippery) and water resistance. iPhone SE 3 like iPhone SE 2 will not be damaged if it stays one meter deep for up to half an hour.
On the other hand, the glass is new, harder than the previous one . We do not know which glass we are talking about (it is possible that the strategic and historical alliance with Corning is at stake) but certainly not the very hard one used for the front of the iPhone 13, or the Ceramic Shield. Since Apple does not define this latter cover as “glass”; it follows that for Apple iPhone SE 3 “it has the strongest glass ever used in a smartphone”.
No, it's not an iPhone 6 but an iPhone SE 2022 Edition
Good old Home Button
Returning to “once upon a time” let's talk about a capacitive button (not electromechanical as was the one in the iPhone 6) behind which the Touch ID is hidden the fingerprint reader. We do not belong to the chorus of those who criticize iPhone SE 3 because there is no Face ID.
Sure the use of Face ID allows for smaller phones and bigger screens (iPhone mini is an example) but we bet we are not the only ones to think that fingerprint reading is more comfortable what to do “cuckoo” for the benefit of Face ID, perhaps removing the mask or emerging from behind a scarf or sunglasses.
The fingerprint reading with Touch ID is comfortable, ergonomic, quick, efficient in all situations. We haven't used an iPhone with Touch ID for a while and we realized how much we were missing …
The Home button of the iPhone If it is comfortable and functional
Mom I have shrunk (too much) it screen
As much as we missed Touch ID, we didn't miss a screen as small as that of the iPhone SE 3 . The 4.7-inch (1,334 x 750) LCD display was prodigious in 2014 when it was introduced with the iPhone 6; in 2017 when it was transported on the iPhone 8 it was average, now it is really out of the market but above all definitely uncomfortable .
Just try a game, open an Internet page, launch a movie to regret the 6.1-inch screen of the iPhone 13 Pro that we use every day. The text seems very small; we can enlarge it but then you have to scroll continuously to read. Even pressing the buttons to control Youtube becomes complicated. Does this mean that the iPhone SE 3 screen is a bad screen? Not at all.
Although it is an LCD and not an OLED it has bright and very faithful colors, it is bright and has engraved and well-defined images . But everything that was born for today's mobile world (applications, games, Internet pages, including Apple services) simply no longer has any consideration for such small screens.
iPhone 13 Pro, iPhone SE 3 and iPhone 12 mini 
The Weather app; the disadvantage of the iPhone SE 2022 is clearly visible 
Even in the App Store an iPhone SE 3 loses the comparison 
iPhone SE shows much less text than OLED phones, including iPhone 12 mini
The processor that can't be faster
If there is one aspect where it is impossible to make fleas for the iPhone SE 2022 it is the processor . As is well known, this is the A15 which has been used on all iPhones since last autumn and which still today is unmatched in terms of performance by the competition.
In the Android world, a low-end phone corresponds to a low-end processor; in the world of Cupertino, however, this is not the case. Thanks to A15 there is not a single service among Apple's key ones, either FaceTime or Apple Music, iCloud, iMessage, App Store, Apple TV Plus, that cannot be exploited with satisfaction.
In fact, iPhone SE 3 has the fastest processor on the market so it can run anything out there today. This is clearly a huge strength of the iPhone SE over the competition and will benefit anyone who wants to buy a phone to keep it as long as possible.
Such a powerful processor leads to an even greater regret for the tiny screen size; iPhone SE 3 thanks to its processor could do much more if only it had a bigger screen.
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Geekbench measures the performance of iPhone 13 Review iphone se 33465 
iPhone SE 3 offers practically the same performance as iPhone 13 Pre-review iphone se 30001 
The Metal Score of the iPhone 13 Pre-review iphone se 33464 
iPhone SE is losing ground in this area mainly due to the lower amount of RAM (3GB vs 6GB) iphone se review 30002
The camera you need
The photographic component is a fundamental element of a smartphone and when you browse the specifications of the iPhone SE 3 you run the risk of being disappointed. On paper it would be an iPhone 8, so a 2017 phone: single lens, 12 megapixel, ƒ / 1.8 aperture. No super wide angle and no zoom. But as Apple explains, when we talk about photography referring to an iPhone we must talk about the system and not the component and the system of iPhone SE allows you to have good results.
Above the comparison with the iPhone 13 Pro. It is noted that it has a more precise color range, it interprets the color of the objects in a more precise way (note the color of the beans or lemon) but even those of the iPhone 12 Pro are saturated and realistic, the white balance produces pleasing images and there is a certain richness of detail as well. The merit is certainly of the image processor of A15 which introduces functions such as Deep Fusion and Smart HDR4. There are also photo styles that allow you to add a touch of creativity and even the portrait function.
The result (above, always compared with the iPhone 13 Pro), perhaps also due to the presence of a dated sensor, can be seen when the light is not good, a situation where the images are not very sharp and the colors faded. The worst iPhone SE gives it when the night mode that debuted two and a half years ago with the iPhone 11 must necessarily enter action. Here it is not and the photos with very low light are unacceptable (look down)
Even when there is a part of the shot in shadow and a part in light, despite smart HDR4, iPhone SE gets little detail from the less lit areas. With night mode (and perhaps a new generation sensor), the iPhone SE photographically would have defended itself well across the board with a large part of the competition sporting two, three and four lenses. In any case it remains capable of offering satisfactions in most “normal” situations.
The front camera is 7 megapixel, the same as the iPhone 8 but again thanks to the processor there are portrait modes such as bokeh, Smart HDR4 and photographic styles. Even on selfies we can talk about large enough if there is the right light but if the environment is not well lit, the shots suffer from the same problem of quality denoted by the rear camera.
A small note also on videos that always benefit from the power of the A15 processor as long as, as repeated above several times, the light is good. If the scene is dark, subjects lose detail. In any case it is difficult to criticize a phone like iPhone SE in the field of video when, despite the lack of cinema mode, it offers 4K resolution at 60 Fps.
Battery OK
One of the worst defects of the iPhone SE 2020 was in the autonomy ; a bit like it happened with the iPhone 12 mini it was very difficult to get to the end of the day . iPhone SE 2022 takes a step forward . Thanks to the optimization of consumption of the A15 processor and battery chemistry, Apple estimates a duration of two additional hours compared to the iPhone SE.
T basically we have always arrived in the evening without sparing us anything : 5.50 hours of screen on and 120 activations of the display, about ten minutes of navigation, several photos, a couple of videos . Probably with moderate use it can be up to a day and a half.
This is more than enough autonomy , especially if we consider that iPhone SE, due to its hardware features (see the chapter above: screen), is certainly not a phone aimed at those who make it. an intensive use especially in the multimedia field.
Where is MagSafe?
Excellent charging speed: half an hour is enough to go from zero to 65% of autonomy. iPhone SE also charges wirelessly like all other iPhone models for years now. There is no compatibility with MagSafe present in all other iPhone models from last year to today. Apple explains that the choice comes from reasons of cost and size but probably behind there is also something that has to do with the marketing of the product. Pity…
Memory
iPhone SE arrives with a memory size of 64, 128 and 256 GB. We would be tempted to say that the basic version has too little space but in reality it is not: even 64Gb is sufficient . After all, the operating system occupies about ten GB and even by loading an important number of first-rate applications (Gmail, Google Maps, Skype, Whatsapp, just for a few examples) it will hardly exceed 20 GB. At that point there will be room for several thousand photos.
Of course with 64 GB of memory you have to forget about movies , to download movies and tel. efilm from Netflix, Apple TV + or Disney + and to pack the memory of games but it seems to us that if the aspirations are these the iPhone SE is not the phone for you. In any case, the 128GB version costs 50 euros more. The 256 Gb version was deleted a few months ago and has now been reintroduced but frankly it seems excessive to us.
The 5G
What else to say? Oh yeah: in the iPhone SE 2022 there is also 5G. American colleagues talking about high-speed cellular networks are not too thrilled that there is a lack of support for millimeter waves that guarantee higher speed. We cannot find a fault in this gap because in Italy for now (and for who knows how long) there is no mention of mmW band; in reality we also add that the moment the presence of 5G does not seem to us a huge advantage.
In Italy not only for now there is no talk of mmW networks but the same 5G is far from being indispensable and perhaps it is even less so for the target audience of the iPhone SE.
Of course, like the processor, this is another phone aging police but it won't be because it supports 5G that you buy a phone like this .
Conclusion
Trying to draw conclusions the first thing that comes to mind is that iPhone SE is the very new inside the very old , an old FIAT 500 with the engine of a Tesla. The processor and the form factor are decisive elements in a phone and the generational distance they have in the new model is such that one of the two always prevails over the other, bringing advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation.
iPhone SE 3 works like iPhone 13 Pro Max in everyday life, but costs less than half. At the same time does not allow the screen size to adequately exploit services and applications created for phones more modern . iPhone SE 3 with its A15 suggests that it will be supported for a long time (at least 8 years if you look at what happened with the iPhone 6) but one wonders what sense will a phone with a display from 4.7 inches in 2028 with iOS 22.
Probably the answer on the sense is obtained when you think that for Apple iPhone SE 2022 is the phone for those who do not care about the size of the screen but now want to have access to Apple services, spending as little as possible and will only buy a new one when he can't do without it. If you recognize yourself in this profile, you can now buy with confidence: with iPhone SE 3 you will have a very fast, pocket-sized, robust, reliable iPhone capable of lasting many years, at least as long as the iPhone 6 or iPhone 7 that we bet you have in your pocket.
If you are not reading these notes on a phone of seven or eight years ago, your identity and you want to spend little, we advise you to buy an iPhone 12 mini or perhaps an iPhone 12. Or to resist another year; iPhone SE 4 will be quite another thing.
Pro
Cons
Price and availability
iPhone SE of the third generation is on sale with a price of 529 € for the 64 GB version, 579 € for the 128GB version and € 699 for the 256GB version. Three colors available: Galaxy, Midnight and Product (RED).
iPhone SE 2022
iPhone SE 2022 64 GB
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iPhone SE 2022 128 GB
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iPhone SE 2022 256 GB
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