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Apple iPhone SE (2022) review: The bare necessities

By Kenny Yeo - 28 Aug 2022
Launch SRP:

Camera system and sample images

The camera system

The camera hardware is unchanged but it benefits from new image signal processing techniques thanks to the A15 Bionic chip.

The hardware of the camera system in the latest iPhone SE is identical to its predecessor, which itself is based on the iPhone XR. That means a 12-megapixel f/1.8 rear-facing camera and a 7-megapixel f/2.2 front-facing camera. Certainly, it’s by no means cutting-edge, but much of Apple’s photography prowess actually lies in its software and post-processing. And that gets a boost thanks to the phone’s A15 Bionic processor, which enables new photography features such as Deep Fusion and Photographic Styles.

And along with the A15 Bionic, also Apple’s newest Smart HDR 4 technology which has cleverer noise reduction and more natural tone mapping techniques and algorithms. That said, the iPhone SE is not without its limitations. Because of its older sensor and lens, Night Mode is unavailable on this phone.

Photographic Styles come to the iPhone SE which applies your custom tone and warmth settings in real-time and mixes it into the A15 Bionic’s image signal processing pipeline. (Image source: Apple)

In well-lit situations, the iPhone SE takes excellent photos. And unless you blow them up to their full resolution, it's hard to tell the difference between a photo taken by the iPhone SE and an iPhone 13 or 13 Pro. That’s not to say that the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro aren’t better because they are, but the difference is not as great as you think. Honestly, the iPhone SE takes great photos with natural-looking colours and lots of details. Just take a look at the sample images below (and compare them with those we've taken previously on the iPhone 13 series).

Where the iPhone SE struggles is when the lighting conditions are poor. It still takes decent photos if your hands are steady, and it certainly passes if you are only sharing it on phones and social media. However, view the image in its full resolution and you can see that it is actually pretty blurry and noisy. Scroll to the bottom and see the comparison photos I took using the iPhone SE and an iPhone 13 Pro of a maneki-neko in a dimly-lit environment. Consequently, I think the biggest thing most people will miss is Night Mode.

Video used to be a strong suit of the iPhone SE. Back in 2020, very few Android phones in this price bracket could even record 4K videos, much less at the quality that the old iPhone SE was capable of. The competition has moved on and many Android phones in this price bracket can take 4K video. Nevertheless, the iPhone SE still has a slight edge here because its video quality remains very good. But the competition is gradually catching up.

 

Sample images

Click to see image in full resolution.

Click to see image in full resolution.

Click to see image in full resolution.

Click to see image in full resolution.

Taken with iPhone SE. Click to see image in full resolution.

Taken with iPhone 13 Pro. Click to see image in full resolution.

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8.5
  • Design 7
  • Features 8.5
  • User-Friendliness 9
  • Performance 9
  • Value 9.5
The Good
Fantastic performance
Camera is good in most light
Takes nice 4K videos
Excellent build quality
Guaranteed software update for years
Genuinely great value
The Bad
Dated design
Battery life isn't great
Small screen
No Night Mode
No headphone jack
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