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Art et designTranscription
00:00Hey what's up guys, MKBHD here, and as you may or may not have heard, a new iPhone went
00:08on sale today.
00:10It's the new second generation iPhone SE.
00:13It costs $399.
00:16So in 2020, a brand new iPhone for $399.
00:20Now originally I wasn't going to talk about this until I had it in hand, but hey, quarantine
00:24content, right?
00:25Why not talk tech for a little bit?
00:26And there are just so many interesting conversations to be had because of this phone at this price.
00:32Fun fact, I already did talk about it in depth on the Waveform podcast, so if you want the
00:36long-form discussion version of this, it's the link below, you can listen to it anywhere.
00:41But yeah, there's a lot to talk about.
00:43So first of all, Apple's having themselves a little hit year with minor refreshes so
00:47far in 2020, right?
00:48We had the MacBook Air, which is basically a new keyboard and internal spec bump, same
00:53design, and now it's everyone's favorite laptop.
00:56We got the new iPad Pro, which is basically the same iPad Pro with a LiDAR camera and
01:02an ultra-wide and a new GPU core, bam, that's just extending their lead as the best tablet.
01:08And so now we have the new iPhone SE.
01:10So just so we're all on the same page, what is this iPhone SE?
01:13Well, if you picture the body of an iPhone 8, literally, like iPhone 8 cases will work
01:17with this new SE.
01:18So imagine an iPhone 8, Touch ID, fingerprint reader, and bezels, the whole thing, the 4.7
01:25inch Retina HD LCD display on the front, IP67, wireless charging, aluminum rails,
01:31the whole thing.
01:32You've seen an iPhone 8.
01:33But then on the inside, it has new internals.
01:34So it's a spec bump again.
01:36So you've got the new A13 Bionic, which is the same chip in the $1,000 iPhone 11 Pro
01:41and 3 gigs of RAM.
01:42And some other little things, if you're paying attention, they moved the Apple logo down
01:45to the middle of the back of the phone now to match all the newer iPhones.
01:49So that's how you'd be able to tell what's an SE and what's an iPhone 8.
01:53And they're dropping it in three colors.
01:55It is red, black, or white.
01:57And all three colorways will have the black front bezels, even the white one.
02:01So the white iPhone 8 had white bezels.
02:03The white iPhone SE has black bezels.
02:06So that's nice.
02:07But really, it's a pretty simple formula.
02:09Some people have called this a parts bin phone just because Apple's recycling some things
02:14they have, you know, take the A13 over here, take the iPhone 8 body.
02:18They've done this with the iPad in the past, but hey, they slapped the iconic, much loved
02:23SE name on it.
02:25Now it's everywhere.
02:26Well, actually, it's the price that's making it a crowd favorite.
02:29That's why it's everywhere.
02:30But the SE name was smart too.
02:32So I have a couple of thoughts on what make this so crazy and so interesting.
02:35And I'm curious what your guys' thoughts are.
02:37But number one, will this be the best camera in a budget phone?
02:43And I think it's very possible, at least top two.
02:45Like right now, if you've watched any other smartphone videos of mine, you know the obvious
02:49recommendation for a budget phone with a great camera has been Pixel 3a.
02:53By a mile.
02:54Because there really isn't any competition in this price range for a great camera.
02:58This new iPhone SE coming along will have basically the same hardware as the iPhone
03:038's camera.
03:04A single 12 megapixel shooter back there, plus the benefit of new image processing from
03:09the iPhone 11, thanks to the A13 bionic.
03:12So I suspect it's reasonable to assume this camera will be at least as good as the iPhone
03:178, if not a little bit better, thanks to software.
03:21And I think that puts it right up there against Pixel 3a.
03:24It might not beat Pixel 4a when that comes out as far as camera quality.
03:28But video quality, I'm going to say this one's a safe bet for best video quality in a budget
03:33phone.
03:34And number two, Apple joining the spec for low budget race makes it really tough for
03:42a lot of the Android manufacturers that have been absolutely feasting down there.
03:46See, for the longest time, there has never been an option to buy a new iPhone at that
03:51low of a price.
03:52We've seen, you know, every year a new iPhone comes out, it's $800, $900, $1,000, even up
03:57from that.
03:58And so they'll maybe bump down the price of older iPhones down to $600, maybe $500.
04:04But as soon as you wanted to go lower than that, there was no new iPhone.
04:08And so that's where OnePlus and Xiaomi and Samsung would all be waiting for you.
04:13And now, now there's a new iPhone with an A13 Bionic for $399.
04:20And that's an easy choice for a lot of people.
04:23That's going to sweep up the rest of the sales that they were missing underneath the price
04:27of the lowest iPhone they had before.
04:29So that is scary if you're one of those Android manufacturers that's been basically thriving
04:33at that lower price because of the lower price.
04:35Like it just became a really easy choice for a lot of people.
04:38I'm super curious actually to see the day one, week one sales for this iPhone SE.
04:42And number three, is this more likely to be the best budget phone of the year or the
04:50best compact phone of the year?
04:53We actually talked about this exact question on the Waveform podcast.
04:56And the answer we sort of landed on was probably best compact phone, 4.7 inch display in the
05:02iPhone 8 body size is compact by today's standards.
05:06It's not the good old precious truly SE days that I definitely miss, but we're really
05:13not expecting too many other flagship quality phones at a smaller size.
05:19So maybe it's a lock already for compact phone of the year.
05:22But I think we are likely to see more options to come out and compete at this price.
05:26So we already know Pixel 4a is probably coming up soon.
05:30Samsung's always dropping stuff at this price point.
05:32We always see all the other competitors very active from 300 to 600 bucks.
05:36So we're expecting more competition there.
05:38But yeah, as far as small phones, it's really easy to talk about how this is not a new design.
05:43Obviously touch ID is old and big bezels on the front are old, but I'll get back to that
05:48in a second.
05:49That's not exactly what people are paying attention to at a $399 price.
05:53But anyway, my bottom line right now, we've been exchanging thoughts about this on Twitter,
05:57but I think this is Apple's best deal ever, which maybe isn't the highest bar ever from
06:04a company that's also selling wheels to their computer for $700.
06:10So you know, it's a great deal from Apple, but it is also one of the best deals in all
06:14of tech.
06:15But you really have to think about what most people want, what 95% of people want.
06:20I think we kind of sometimes catch ourselves in this tech bubble where we're always looking
06:24at the bleeding edge, high tech stuff, but really it's a small percentage of us.
06:29Maybe 5% of us that care about the design and being bezel-less and having a hole punch
06:35versus a notch camera, refresh rates, all this sort of stuff.
06:40It's a small percentage.
06:41So on the face of it, this looks like a phone with pretty much no downsides at this price
06:46for like 90% of people.
06:48Go ask your mom or dad or your grandparents or your aunt or uncle if they care about the
06:53screen-to-body ratio or the spec sheet of your phone.
06:56The answer is probably no, and if you told them they could get a brand new iPhone for
07:00$400 and it has the new A13 Bionic and it's a pretty great camera and you can get it in
07:05red, black or white, which is kind of what I'm into, it seems like a no-brainer.
07:08I mean, we still should reserve judgment for the full review when we actually get to use
07:12this thing, but I'm thinking, okay, what do people care about a lot in a new phone?
07:17Screen, and you know, this happens to be a 4.7-inch screen, but it's the same pixel
07:22density, same color accuracy as the iPhone 11, so that's fine.
07:26They care about camera, and this is an iPhone camera.
07:29This is ideally iPhone 8 quality or better, seems pretty good.
07:34They care about battery life, and honestly, an A13 Bionic in a screen this small, probably
07:39going to do fine with battery, and then price, and this is a $399 phone, and it's an iPhone,
07:45so it's familiar.
07:47People know Touch ID, people know iOS, and something that's underrated with Apple stuff,
07:53we don't talk about this that much, but software updates.
07:56The software update support for this $399 phone, because it's an iPhone and it'll get
08:01iOS updates for probably four to five years, is probably the best for any $399 phone.
08:07So there you have it, a lot of interesting stuff coming from this iPhone SE announcement.
08:13You know, usually when we're talking about new tech, we're talking about the highest
08:15end, the bleeding edge of stuff, and that's what I like to focus on, but I guess the
08:20benefit of the world we live in is now that all this stuff is getting so good, you can
08:25bring down almost the bleeding edge tech way down in price and get stuff like a $399 iPhone
08:32that undercuts every single phone OnePlus has come out with for the past two years.
08:37It's a crazy time to be alive.
08:39Either way, that's been it.
08:41Thanks for watching this quick first impression, and catch you guys very soon in the next one.
08:45Peace.