iPhone SE Review

[Bouzoo]

32 minutes ago, Kierax said:

Just because it's not innovative, does not make it boring Linus. 

It's the same few years old exterior with the same 8 months old interior w/o few functions like the 3D touch. I can see why one can think it's a boring phone and personally agree that it is, I've tried it just yesterday.

Then again, that's a personal opinion.

[euzen01]

I think that Linus's take on it is very accurate and insightful.

[WasThatDave]

1 hour ago, euzen01 said:

I think that Linus's take on it is very accurate and insightful.

It's not super accurate. Them releasing the old design was to gain the customers that weren't willing to upgrade ( like myself ) who enjoyed the rectangular design more then the curved 6s. Apple received a lot of backlash when they released the 6 and 6s for the curved design. Apple is not going to stop innovating. They simply packed the best features of the 6s into a form and design that people were asking for. I mean take a look at Apple's new 16nm A10 chip. Not that everything Apple touches is gold *cough* iTunes and Appstore *cough* *cough* but its a widely accepted fact that Apple has the best mobile phones. But Apple is not designing their phones for the budget minded. Like if you've got the money buy an iPhone but if you're on a budget buy Android. I think Linus is too biased and can't make a real unbiased review. Like you've got to take a step back and ask yourself "who is this product made for?" and if its not you then who? Take the product and review it pretending to be the target consumer. Because not every product is made for every type of person. And bias, like Linus', really ruins a good review.

[Mrhappyjolly]

Interesting review albeit - in my opinion, flawed viewpoint. You talk about this device as a bleeding edge enthusiast. As an enthusiast wanting an iPhone, you naturally would be looking for the bells and whistles of a 6S would you not? I personally don't want to carry a phablet in my pocket (I'm 6ft 2ins and wear XL gloves FYI!) I find them too large. I love the classic design of the 4S which served me well for many years until I decided to swap it for a used 5S.

The SE interests me a lot as I actually think it's relatively good value for money. Comparing hardware to a 6S they perform basically the same (although I didn't know about the lack of image stabilization and first gen finger print reader (annoying!) - but thanks) yet in the UK the 64gb SE is £180 cheaper than the 6S. "bargain!" (- £439 for a phone is still ridiculous money IMO)

Going back to the design, I personally still really like it. It feels rugged and the chamfered/beveled edges mean I feel confident that it's not going to slip out of my hand when using it. Playing around on a 6S, because it was so thin, I felt like I was always nearly going to drop it and I'm not clumsy - also who wants a camera sticking out the back? Is a classic car not worth my attention because the design is "old"? What about the value of the look and design being simply correct first time out and change for change sake in later generations being inferior? Check out all the iterations of the ford mustang and you'll see what I mean. I digress.. 

 

I wanted a smaller iPhone having not had good experiences with android in years past (although some time ago) with top notch performance. I liked the form factor of the 4/5 generation so this ticks the boxes for me. I've never used the right click feature on a phone so I won't miss what I never had - and unless of course you can convince me it's worth £180 as a feature in and of itself.

 

I said at the start of this comment that it was interesting. After watching this video I think I've gained a clearer understanding of how LTT reviews stuff on it's channel. Up to this point I gave you the credence you rightly deserved and weighted your views on products I was planning on purchasing quite heavily (keyboards, mice, monitors, headphones and such like) I think that is going to change, as I don't think you are reviewing as well as you once did sadly.  You used to sticking to the pros and cons of the product, rather than the conclusions of what or where the manufacture's business model is going - which I enjoyed, if it was crap you said it was crap, and if it was great with some caveats - I was able to make an informed decision on if a product was worthy of my attention. It's a phone review, keep talking about Apple as a business in the WAN show. I hope someone from LT reads this. 

[Mrhappyjolly]

5 hours ago, euzen01 said:

I think that Linus's take on it is very accurate and insightful.

you're a lemming. Your avatar says it all really. Sorry to sound offensive but if you can't draw a conclusion of your own. well.. lemming.

[Guest]

Am I the only one who is going to bring up the dbrand problem in the video. I 100% understand that sponsors are important, but I think we are going down a slippery slope, I honestly believed that the phones in the intro were the stock colors, they already influenced my opinion even before anything happened in the video. The Aesthetics is just as important as the hardware, You wouldn't review a gtx 980 and swap out the cooler with a third party sponsors one and start running benchmarks with no statement about the changge, this is no different. You should start the video by saying, "these phones were provided by Dbrand and have custom skins on them". Its just my opinion on the matter. Whats everyone elses?

[Lehti]

A custom skin doesn't affect the performance of a smartphone, unlike a cooling solution, so I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make.

[Guest]

I know in probably going to get hate on this, but even linus said this phone is the same old crap, meaning that the real only difference is the housing, which we cant see, because linus had all the phones covered up in skins, it skews the review...

[Lehti]

You can go to www.apple.com and have a look at it. Again, what's the problem? How does that skew the review in any meaningful way? And besides, an opinion on the looks of a device is the single most subjective thing in a review. Even I disagree with Linus' opinion on this phone's looks, but that doesn't mean that all the point he made in the review are invalid, donnit?

[RedRound2]

At least I thought Linus would be smart about this review. It was never meant to be the new iPhone of 2016. Of course it doesn't have any innovative features as we've already seen those features for a few years in Apple's own lineup.

This phone is a direct answer to those people who likes small phones and Apple did a great job at it without cutting too much corners to differentiate it from their flagship.

[mikeeginger]

Linus the master troll 

[FPSwithaWacomTablet]

Haha...

What?

[Tieox]

21 hours ago, Bouzoo said:

It's the same few years old exterior with the same 8 months old interior w/o few functions like the 3D touch. I can see why one can think it's a boring phone and personally agree that it is, I've tried it just yesterday.

Then again, that's a personal opinion.

 

For me it's a neat phone, I don't require a mobile monitor as a mobile phone, and the less gimmicks means less to go wrong in my mind.  I am the kind of person who upgrades their handset when the old one is dying, not when a shiny new one has been pumped out.  

 

The iPhone SE looks to be right up my street.  It's far from boring.

[Bouzoo]

25 minutes ago, Kierax said:

The iPhone SE looks to be right up my street.  It's far from boring.

Don't get me wrong, if you think that, then that's great. As I said, my personal opinion.  

[GoZone]

22 hours ago, Bouzoo said:

It's the same few years old exterior with the same 8 months old interior w/o few functions like the 3D touch. I can see why one can think it's a boring phone and personally agree that it is, I've tried it just yesterday.

Then again, that's a personal opinion.

It's good but its just trying to make smaller phones relevant to the market still, and not the iPhone 7.

[Sunshine1868]

@LinusTech, you should review the phone as a phone, not as "the next big thing". You bashed the phone for being a marketing move and not a design move... and then you went on to talk about Apple in general. 

I'd rather you didn't review apple products than constantly berate the products and the company as a whole.

 

(yes, I am aware you gave an iPhone your "phone of the year award", but still, it seems every under-handed joke you throw out on your channel is directed toward Apple)

[minibois]

This review kinda sounded subjective tbh.

It's just a whole bunch of "yeah it's a pretty good phone, but Apple has made previous phones which makes this one less special"

[LAwLz]

Not a very good review but I can't blame you for that. There isn't much to say about the product unless you go in-depth.

 

It's just the same iPhone shell we had years ago, with the internals of the new iPhone (minus some things). If you thought the iPhone 6S was too big but still want an iPhone then get this one.

That's everything you need to know about the iPhone SE in 2 sentences.

[daniielrp]

My fiancee just got the SE, and at first I was wowed by how good the design still looked (i really don't like my 6s design - antenna lines, enormous bezels, camera bulge eurgh) but after using I really missed the big screen, I surprisingly missed 3D touch, and did find it a bit 'chunky', and she can't track flights of stairs climbed as their is no barometer. If they could follow Sony's lead with the compact series and cram everything in to a smaller form factor, at the same time reducing bezel size to give us more screen in the same space, then I'd be sold. 

[Yongtjunkit]

On May 1, 2016 at 0:54 PM, LinusTech said:

Amazon: http://geni.us/282y

NCIX: n/a

 

Check out dbrand skins here:  https://dbrand.com/linus-se

 

The Apple iPhone SE. Possibly the most boring thing they've done since.. the last iPod refresh?

 

Vessel: https://www.vessel.com/videos/JisgM1jvr

YouTube: 

 

It's a budget iphone not a high end iphone.

[WasThatDave]

4 hours ago, daniielrp said:

My fiancee just got the SE, and at first I was wowed by how good the design still looked (i really don't like my 6s design - antenna lines, enormous bezels, camera bulge eurgh) but after using I really missed the big screen, I surprisingly missed 3D touch, and did find it a bit 'chunky', and she can't track flights of stairs climbed as their is no barometer. If they could follow Sony's lead with the compact series and cram everything in to a smaller form factor, at the same time reducing bezel size to give us more screen in the same space, then I'd be sold. 

it would be great if they could do that. but then again that would mean compromises. Sony makes a lot of compromises to cram everything in there. It's just something Apple isn't willing to do on this current gen small phone. Which is why I buy iPhones lol. As close as you can get to a no compromises Smartphone.

[xnamkcor]

2 hours ago, Yongtjunkit said:

It's a budget iphone not a high end iphone.

Just like the Mac Mini was a budget Mac. It was still a horrible price for the hardware.

[The_Prof]

It's really interesting how people use larger screens on their phones, I, for one, use a sony xperia x10 mini, and so many people comment on how small my phone is, often saying; "How can you type on that?" But to me, small screnns are the normal.

[Yongtjunkit]

10 hours ago, xnamkcor said:

Just like the Mac Mini was a budget Mac. It was still a horrible price for the hardware.

The iPhone se has not a bad hardware for it though, just 1st gen touch id, not a 5mp front camera, no 3d touch, a 4 inch phone,no barometer . It has the same a9 processor and the gpu in the iPhone 6s and has 2gb of ram. Kind of decent specs for me, I can't even trigger 3d touch on the iPhone 6s display at the apple store so no point getting a photo with 3d touch for me.

[Sunshine1868]

11 hours ago, xnamkcor said:

Just like the Mac Mini was a budget Mac. It was still a horrible price for the hardware.

...not everybody uses their computers for gaming bud; some people use them for home computers that don't have a hard workload but would still like a nice looking, quiet, high end, and convenient piece of hardware.