Tech review: with the cheaper, smaller iPhone SE, Apple opens itself up to millions more customers
Far from undercutting its existing products, the little brother to the iPhone 6S should help the company expand its market share in China and India, and gives owners of older models more options for upgrade
Small, medium or large? Seems like there’s a right size for everything these days – including mobile phones.
Apple introduced the original iPhone with a 3.5-inch screen and kept that size through the iPhone 4S before screens started getting bigger. It’s just in the past two years that Apple started rolling out two iPhones per year with differing screen sizes; from the 4-inch iPhone 5S to the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus.
I’ve read that 25 per cent of iPhone users did not upgrade to one of the larger iPhones. Indeed, Apple kept selling the iPhone 5S with its smaller screen and 2-year-old processor as the “entry level” iPhone, and it was apparently selling pretty well.
I like to keep my phone in my back pocket, and I found the iPhone 6S Plus just too big. I also know iPad mini owners who think the larger iPhones are just too close in size to their iPads. Plus a lot of people like using their phone one-handed, and the 6S made that almost impossible.
Thankfully, Apple decided to listen to the market and introduce the iPhone SE, which is basically the guts of an iPhone 6S crammed into the case of an iPhone 5S.