iPhone SE review: a blazing fast phone for small-handed or cash-strapped buyers
This Is What Using The New Small iPhone Is Actually Like — Wait, iPhone 5s? Is dat you? — Jenny Chang / BuzzFeed — Apple's newest device is, at its essence, an iPhone 5s updated with the 6s's most important features.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's March 2016 launch put 6S-class power into a 4-inch body at $399 — 12MP camera, Apple Pay, but no 3D Touch — and the Macworld hands-on confirmed the chassis is essentially unchanged from the 5s, right down to the first-generation Touch ID sensor. BuzzFeed's verdict lands on the same axis as the rest of the launch coverage: this is a spec-refresh of 2013 hardware, not a new design.
The reason the review matters beyond launch week is what the SE line became. By 2020 The Verge was arguing the era of comfortably one-handed phones was over, and its 2022 SE review still called the design tired while crediting the price-performance formula. This review is the starting point of that arc.
First-order effects
- Buyers with small hands or tight budgets get iPhone 6S-level speed, camera, and Apple Pay in a 4-inch body for $399 — flagship internals without paying flagship prices.
- Apple gets a sub-$400 entry point almost for free: reusing the 5s chassis and older Touch ID means no new industrial design or component ramp, just an internals swap.
Second-order effects
- The feature triage reviewers note — no 3D Touch, first-gen Touch ID — sets the template for how Apple will differentiate the SE from its flagship line: performance parity, deliberately withheld premium features.
- A current-generation Apple SoC at $399 pressures the mid-range segment where cheaper Android devices compete, giving upgraders off older iPhones an iOS option that didn't previously exist at this price.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — and it does across the corpus — the SE hardens into a recycling program: the 2020 model stretched the same idea to 4.7 inches, and the 2022 review still flagged a tired design, meaning the line serves as a legacy-form-factor outlet rather than a design direction.
- The niche this phone serves keeps shrinking: The Verge's 2020 verdict that one-handed phones are finished suggests each SE generation targets a smaller remaining base of small-phone loyalists and price-sensitive upgraders.
The trend: Apple's SE line institutionalizes the recycle-the-old-design, drop-in-new-internals budget iPhone — even as the small-phone audience it originally served steadily contracts.