Despite orders for the iPhone SE opened on March 24 with the phone's availablity on March 31, South Africa isn't on the list of launch countries. Picture: Independent Media Despite orders for the iPhone SE opened on March 24 with the phone's availablity on March 31, South Africa isn't on the list of launch countries. Picture: Independent Media
Durban - Regular readers of this column will know I’m a sucker for big smartphones. They used to be called phablets but that clumsy term has grown increasingly irrelevant in recent years as virtually every handset has swelled in size from around 3.5 inches to 5 inches and over, with many now pushing the 6-inch mark.
Apple was the last big-name holdout. For several years iPhone owners would look pityingly at the Android or Windows slab in my hand as if to ask, “How can you live with that huge thing?”
Then Apple finally joined the big-phone brigade in September 2014 with the launch of the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch 6 Plus and suddenly phablets were fabulous among the iPhone fanboys and girls.
Well maybe not all of them. Because, while Apple has sold tens of millions of its bigger iPhones, an unknown – but apparently significant – number of the Apple faithful have been hanging stubbornly on to their iPhone 5s, 5Cs and 5Ss, simply unable to part with their smaller 4-inch screens.
I know several of them personally. They’ve been holding off upgrading to a newer model because they’re all significantly bigger than their current iPhones that fit so comfortably in their hands.
Most of them are women, but I know at least one guy who likes to carry his iPhone 5S around in a front pocket of his pants, which is too small to take anything bigger without producing an awkward bulge or risk bending the phone when he sits down.
So Apple’s release this past Monday of the petitely-proportioned iPhone SE makes a lot of sense.
It’s got a 4-inch display just like the iPhone 5 and 5S, but inside it’s a brand-new device with plenty of bells and whistles to get iPhone fans excited about.
For a start, it’s got all the processing power of its bigger flagship siblings thanks to the A9 processor purring away under its very fetching steel-and-glass exterior. This translates into double the processing power and four times the graphics performance of the iPhone 5S.
It’s also got the same excellent 12-megapixel rear camera as found in the iPhone 6S, although the journalists who attended the launch in San Francisco seemed less enamoured with the front-facing “selfie” camera.
Video capture promises to be an altogether more up-to-date experience with support for Live Photos, 4K video recording, and slow-motion video.
The iPhone SE also has Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint sensor and support for NFC and Apple Pay, although there’s still no word on when the latter will be launched in SA.
Apple’s also promising that the SE will deliver better battery life than the underwhelming 5Ss.
One mod con that’ll remain the preserve of iPhone 6S and 6S Plus owners is 3D Touch, no huge loss in my opinion.
There will be two versions of the iPhone SE to choose from, the 16GB, $399 (R6070) model and the 64GB, $499 (R7600) model in your choice of silver, gold, space grey, and rose gold.
Orders will open on March 24, and the phone will be available on March 31.
Alas, South Africa is not on the list of launch countries, but Apple says the SE will be available in more than 100 countries by the end of May.
Will there be a demand for it? Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of product marketing, certainly believes so.
“Some people simply love smaller phones. And the 4-inch phone is often their first iPhone. Some people asked and pleaded with us. So we’re calling it the iPhone SE, our most powerful 4-inch phone ever,” he said at the unveiling.
I Apple may just be on to another winner. The prices aren’t exactly bargain basement, but they’re still significantly cheaper than top-end devices like Apple’s own 6S range and Samsung’s Galaxy S7 line.
There’s also very little competition in this size category with Sony the only company I can think of that makes flagship-quality compact smartphones.
We’re all different and for some, bigger isn’t better. If you’re one of them, the iPhone SE may just be the smartphone you’ve been waiting for.
@alanqcooper
Sunday Tribune
