IF YOU LIKE YOUR iPHONE AFFORDABLE AND RETRO, then Apple’s iPhone SE 2022 edition might be your perfect phone. It keeps the SE series design language firmly rooted in 2017 – that was the year Apple launched the iPhone 8, the design of which it employed for 2020’s SE 2, and has stuck with for this new phone.

The power & the glory

All those things you loved from the iPhone SE (2020) remain in the iPhone SE (2022). There’s been no change to the thin and light body, no reintroduction of the 3.5mm headphone jack, no removal of the Touch ID. The Liquid Retina display is untouched. The cameras –a 12MP rear and 7MP front – are the same, too.

The difference, and it is bigger than you think, is the new A15 Bionic, the very same Apple Silicon you’ll find in Apple’s iPhone 13 line. It’s a powerful mobile CPU that – to date – beats even Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 CPU (in Geekbench scores). It’s a lot of power and headroom for a tiny, 4.7-inch screen smartphone that doesn’t even have a depth sensor on the front. Still, the A15 Bionic is up for anything, from shooting and editing 4K videos to playing intense action games like Call of Duty and PUBG.

Inevitably though, there are limits to what’s on offer here compared with Apple’s flagship phones. All the A15 Bionic-sporting iPhone 13 phones support the new Cinematic mode video (bokeheffect), but there’s no such video control on the new iPhone SE, although it is capable of timelapse night photography. If you can cope with the limited screen space, then this is a great budget handset.

Verdict

Faster and better-connected than its predecessor, and at the most attractive price possible for a new 5G iPhone. But it lacks the better screen, cameras and ultra-modern specs of the 13s.

★★★★☆

The new iPhone SE (2022) is available in (PRODUCT) RED, Starlight and Midnight colours and has a slightly retro, iPhone 8 look about it…

Smart HDR 4 automatically refines the contrast, lighting and skin tones for up to four people, so everyone will always look their best in your photos