- I'm Andru Edwards and you're watching Gear Live.
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- Apple announced the iPhone SE last week.
It's Apple's budget-priced phone that doesn't
skimp on power or functionality, and I think
it may be the perfect device for keeping buyers
in the Apple ecosystem for years to come.
In this episode, we open up the iPhone SE,
and I explain why I think it's a Trojan Horse
that android doesn't have an answer to.
What's going on TechSquad, Andru Edwards here.
We're talking about this guy right here.
This is the new iPhone SE.
We're going to be unboxing it in just a minute.
Big shoutout to Apple for sending it over
for us to check out.
Now if you're interested in the iPhone SE,
I will leave a link down in the description below.
Now getting started here, this version
that Apple sent over is a 256 gigabyte product red edition.
Inside the box we find the typical manuals, stickers,
and sim ejection tool, along with the iPhone SE itself.
A lightning cable for charging and syncing,
and a five watt AC adapter for charging from the wall.
One item of note, the iPhone SE does support
fast charging as well, so if you have a faster
charger, you can use that instead, or you can pick up
Apple's 18 watt charger as an alternative.
The fast charger will give you 50% charge in 30 minutes.
Now at first glance, I think a lot of people
are seeing this as a simple upgrade, or even an upgrade
that can be overlooked, but I actually think Apple
nailed the execution of the iPhone SE perfectly
for a specific target demographic.
Now I know a lot of hard-core techies fail to see this
sometimes, but there are a lot of people out there
who only upgrade their phone every three to four years.
They buy it, and they hang onto it until it breaks
or becomes too slow due to age or other issues.
So today, these would be customers with an iPhone 6
or 6S or something like a Samsung Galaxy S6.
There's also a portion of users who simply don't want to
use a large phone.
Prior to the announcement of the second generation
iPhone SE, Apple's entry-level pricing on their
newest phones was $699 for a 6.1 inch iPhone 11.
If you're used to having a 4.7 inch phone in your pocket
and wanted to maintain that size, before the
announcement you'd have to buy an iPhone 8,
which was released in 2017, making it a couple
generations behind in processing power.
There is the smaller 5.8 inch iPhone 11 Pro,
but that starts at $999, a price that a lot of
these customers simply aren't willing to pay for a phone.
In fact, price is the next topic that we need to focus on.
This is where customers are all over the map.
I know several of you viewers out here on this channel
who buy multiple flagship phones per year.
You love tech, you love trying anything new,
and you don't want to miss out
and I totally understand that.
Now there are other people who upgrade annually,
and buy the best phone out there, and others
every two years and buy the best phone they can afford,
and then there are those who want something inexpensive
that they don't have to baby, that gets the job done,
phone calls, texting, email, web, maybe a little bit
of Facebook and Instagram thrown in.
Lastly, there is familiarity.
While some people clamor for change, even change
for the sake of change, which we see wherever Apple
releases a S year iPhone, and we hear people screaming
about how it isn't really new,
because it looks the same as last year.
Now alternatively, there are others who don't
want change at all.
They want the experience that they're used to.
They know it.
They're familiar with it, and they don't
want to learn anything new.
The home button and touch ID fall into that category.
So what Apple did with this phone is answer all of these
concerns for this demographic of consumer.
We've got a phone that under the hood, is as new
and as fast as Apple's most expensive iPhone 11 Pro Max,
thanks to the inclusion of the A13 chip and
three gigabytes of RAM versus the two gigabytes
found in the iPhone 8.
It's a phone that fits in your hand without
compromising on functionality.
Where else can you get a sub 5-inch phone for $399
with the same flagship-class specs that are found
in the top-of-the-line model from any other manufacturer.
This is an area that android devices here in the US
just aren't able to touch.
The cheaper the phones get, the more compromises we see.
Cheaper casing material, bad cameras, no water resistance,
but that isn't the case here with the iPhone SE.
Now I am not the only one who is thinking this way
about the iPhone SE.
In fact, Jon Rettinger and I had Mr. Mobile, aka
Michael Fisher, on our Geared Up podcast, and
here's an excerpt of what they had to say.
- The best that android is going to be able to offer
to compete at this price point is either a year-old
flagship at a discount, which is still a great way
to go, or a phone similar to what we expect the
Pixel 4A to be, that has diminished components, so
the facial unlocking is not there, the (mumbles) stuff
is not there, but a less powerful processor.
So you compare the 765 to the Snapdragon 865.
By all accounts, it's between 40 and 50% less powerful.
And you may never notice that difference in
most of what you do.
But there might be times when you do.
When you compare the 865 to the 813, by all accounts
it's closer, but the 813 is a more powerful chip.
You compare the 813 to the 765,
it's a night and day experience.
That's why I think Apple, what they did,
android does not have an answer for right now.
- All right, if you look at what Google was able to do
with the 3A, what features they had to cull to hit
the price point they wanted, which was 399 at launch,
that phone didn't have wireless charging,
it didn't have any dust or water resistance certification.
The iPhone SE 2020 will have both.
And everyone of course, always talks about the
Apple ecosystem and my mind always goes to is,
yeah, it works really well with your computer.
If you have a MacBook, you can do (mumbles),
but it's more than that.
It's about the fact that if it breaks, you can
go to an Apple store.
There's a massive retail presence with a large
repairability, the value arguments
just never end with Apple.
And again, it makes this thing at 399 just this.
This utter nuclear device, unless it really screws up
somehow, or unless the camera is a total disaster area,
but I don't see that happening with what Apple's
learned from the iPhone 11 series.
It's best cameras. Yeah.
- And if you're not familiar with Mr. Mobile,
or Jon Rettinger, these are two guys who carry
android phones with them as their primary devices.
And even they can't see how the android side of things
can answer what the iPhone SE is delivering.
Of course I've already touched on the price.
I can't think of a better value in smartphones than
the iPhone SE.
Can you?
If so, leave a comment down below.
One thing you have to remember though,
aside from the devices itself, for that $399,
you're also getting long-term software support as well.
Apple typically supports a processor generation with
about five years of updates.
That means if you buy an iPhone SE today,
I wouldn't be surprised if it runs IOS 18,
five years from now.
Again this is why I look at the entry-level
android space here in the US and I can't name
one phone in that price range that will see
half a decade of major OS update support.
It's a smart play by Apple to get people into
or keep people in the ecosystem.
Sell them a phone for 399 that they'll keep for
years, and maybe they'll try out the free one year
of Apple TV plus.
Maybe they'll check out Apple music or join several
iMessage group chats.
That's the brilliance of the iPhone SE.
You're giving them the fastest processor in the
best-selling smartphone form factor of all time,
at a fair price, with the opportunity to create
long-term, loyal customers.
There's no way that you're fitting the latest Qualcomm
Snapdragon 865 into a sub-fiber smartphone,
and this allows Apple to corner this market
with a phone that checks all of these boxes.
But hey, now I want to hear from you.
Do you agree?
Do you disagree?
Leave a comment down below, and I will meet you there
for further discussion.
I want to thank Apple once again for sending over
the iPhone SE for us to check out.
There will be a full review coming here on the channel,
so hit subscribe if you don't want to miss that one.
And by the way, if you want to hear even more about the
iPhone SE and what some of the top tech creators
out there think, be sure to check out the Geared Up podcast.
Geared Up is a show that I do each and every week
with Jon Rettinger where we talk about the latest
in tech gadgets and games.
Head to your favorite podcast player,
and search for Geared Up.
Two words, not one, for even more tech goodness.
Now as we're approaching 215,000 subscribers
on YouTube and 150,000 on Instagram, I just want to give
a big shoutout and thank you to everyone out there
who listens, shares, subscribes, follows, et cetera.
If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be able to do what I do.
So thank you.
'Til next time, as always, I appreciate the support.
I'm Andru Edwards and I will catch you in the next video.
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