Apple Announces New iPhone SE With A15 Bionic and 5G Connectivity

At its "Peek Performance" event, Apple today announced the third-generation iPhone SE, featuring the A15 Bionic chip, improved battery life, 5G connectivity, a new camera system, and more, all for a starting price of $429.

iPhone SE 3 stacked
The new iPhone SE features the same 4.7-inch display as the current model, but now offers the toughest glass in a smartphone on the front and back — the same as on the back of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro.

The device's new 12MP Wide camera system offers a range of improvements and computational photography features including Deep Fusion, Photographic Styles, Portrait Mode, and Smart HDR 4.

The new iPhone SE contains the same A15 Bionic chip from the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro. With a 6-core CPU, the A15 Bionic means that the iPhone SE is 1.8x faster than the iPhone 8. The 16-core Neural Engine, aimed at machine learning tasks, performs 15.8 trillion operations per second, making it 26x faster than iPhone 8. The 4-core GPU delivers 2.2x faster speed than the iPhone 8.

iPhone SE 3
The A15 Bionic also gives the new iPhone SE longer battery life than the previous-generation and older 4.7-inch iPhone models despite having a compact form-factor and 5G connectivity. It continues to support fast charging and be compatible with Qi-certified chargers for wireless charging.

The new iPhone SE is available in two new colors, Midnight and Starlight, alongside PRODUCT(RED). The new iPhone SE starts at $429, up from $399 on the 2020 model, and is available with 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB of storage. Preorders begin on Friday, March 11, with the first devices shipping on March 18.

Related Roundup: iPhone SE
Buyer's Guide: iPhone SE (Caution)
Related Forum: iPhone

Top Rated Comments

sw1tcher Avatar
28 months ago

Well, this is a bit disappointing.
What were you expecting though?

An "SE" is never revolutionary. It's always used an older iPhone's body design but with an updated A series processor.

We won't see an "SE" with the newer iPhone notch body until the next (4th?) iteration.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
AmazeSE Avatar
28 months ago
Apple told better battery life. But how much better is it? That they didn't tell :(
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
erikkfi Avatar
28 months ago
Why would anyone buy an iPhone that doesn't include the revolutionary, definitely-not-a-gimmick Cinematic mode for video?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
highvoltage12v Avatar
28 months ago
So this is the new new new (3x) iPhone SE? How much faster is it then the 2nd gen iPhone SE? Why compare it to the iPhone 8.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
scaramoosh Avatar
28 months ago
I thought they'd at least just make the XR the new SE.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gbynum Avatar
28 months ago

Is 5G really important to SE users? I thought a refreshed design full screen with TouchID on the power button (like the iPad Air) would have been better.
I happen to be a <cough cough> T-Mobile subscriber. Their low-band (600 MHz) 5G is very important to coverage. FWIW, we are with them because my wife travels overseas and the free data without a local SIM is very nice.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
iOS 18 Siri Integrated Feature

iOS 18 Rumored to Add These 10 New Features to Your iPhone

Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iPad And Calculator App Feature 1

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...