New iPhone SE (2022) review live: camera samples, battery life, design discussed and more
Refresh
Battery life
So let’s begin with the battery – the new iPhone SE doesn’t, outwardly, have any changed characteristics. It’s the same shell as before.
However, there’s a lot of hope that things are improved inside, as it appears that things have been redesigned to allow for more battery space, which is a must as this phone comes with 5G.
As we saw with the iPhone 12, this can be a real problem for battery life – Apple solved this in the iPhone 13, but the battery space needed to increase for the new iPhone SE, otherwise any 5G usage would have sucked down too much power.
Lance managed to get around 12 hours’ usage on the iPhone SE in his review, and I largely agree with that finding – and it’s a shame. The iPhone 13 series has really given us an iPhone that can last longer than 24 hours (especially the iPhone 13 Pro Max).
I’ve been experimenting with charging the iPhone SE (2022) at different times – for instance, I left it overnight on 52% charge, and 8 hours later it was down to just 47%.
That’s good, efficient power sipping on Wi-Fi.
Then I left for work, using it to stream audio, take a couple of pictures, download a video on 5G, (attempt) to watch said video if the ads hadn’t got in the way, and do some small spreadsheet viewing.
Four hours later, it had dropped around 35% of battery life through realtively hard usage – this, to me, is about right.
Over the course of my time with the phone, I definitely felt like I’d returned to ‘old iPhone’ battery, where it’s a bit slippy and makes you wonder where the charger is – it makes me feel like the iPhone 13 mini is a better buy (or even the larger models) if you care about longevity.
Initial thoughts
So, welcome to the live blog – let’s get cracking. I’ve been using this as my main device for the best part of the last week – here are my initial thoughts, and as I mentioned, do tweet if you’ve got anything you want to know:
- The design is super thin and lightweight
- Touch ID is nice to have, but actually feels a bit archaic
- Pictures are much improved over the SE 2020, despite no new hardware
- The screen is just… fine for the price
- Incredible power on board
That’s just a flavor though – I’ll have plenty more to say over the next few hours.
