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John Kim / CNET
By packing big Chip A13 in your little iPhone SE, Apple has made its budget smartphone a more attractive product at the right time for a coronavirus– spoken world. Where most budget phones lower costs by using low-end processors, the new $ 400 iPhone SE uses the same flagship chip that powers the $ 1,450 iPhone 11 Pro Max, which was launched last year.
That processing power means this newer iPhone, while lacking some iPhone 11 features like Face ID and an ultra-wide-angle camera, still has new capabilities that require the A13 chip. These include the latest portrait mode effects to blur backgrounds behind photo subjects, the six studio lighting effects Apple also offers, the newest HDR technology to handle scenes with bright and dark elements, and 4K video at 60 frames per second. .
“The Apple A13 is a remarkable piece of silicon,” said Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart. “It beats everything else on the market at any price.”
The A13 processor outperforms what’s on all current Android phones, not just cheap models that budget-conscious shoppers might be looking at. The iPhone SE scores 1,328 in the Geekbench single-task performance speed test, which matches the iPhone 11 and far exceeds the iPhone’s strongest competitor, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, which has a score of 835.
Spending limits during the pandemic
The balance of price and performance is good news for shoppers concerned about COVID-19, the coronavirus disease that killed tens of thousands of people and stagnant businesses around the world. In their review, CNET’s Patrick Holland Praises iPhone SE 2020 as a great value
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iPhone SE reminds us how much we missed the start button
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Lower-priced iPhone SE arrives as there are likely to be financial concerns keep customers away from high-end models and towards more affordable alternatives.
“With an impending recession … we see some possibility of a stronger downward shift towards the iPhone SE,” Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi said in a research note on Wednesday.
A modern but low-budget iPhone also helps Apple keep its iOS ecosystem running, providing much more money beyond the phone’s initial sale. With that iOS base, Apple is expanding its business to services like Apple TV Plus, Apple music, Apple arcade Synchronization and backup of iCloud data and the 30% that the company charges developers who sell applications through their App Store.
A13 chip power
The A13 chip, its full name is A13 Bionic, is the product of a gigantic engineering effort. It has 8.5 billion transistors, the little on-off switches that do everything from simple math to artificial intelligence algorithms that process voice commands.
Two main processor cores handle critical performance tasks like playing games or scrolling through busy Facebook sources. They’re paired with four smaller, low-power cores for background tasks like playing music and keeping the phone running when it’s idle in your pocket.
The processor also has great modules for graphics and AI processing. Other dedicated modules handle photo processing, video decoding, HDR video, cryptography, and judging the distance of subjects from the camera. Apple can turn off entire modules or parts of them that are not needed to extend the life of the battery.
“We only activate the least amount of logic on the chip, dramatically reducing power,” said Sri Santhanam, Apple’s vice president of silicon engineering, at the iPhone 11 launch event in 2019.
The A13 will not look as advanced when the successors arrive. But it has enough power to work on a design that, aside from software updates, probably won’t be updated annually like flagship iPhones. the first iPhone SE came in 2016 but Apple continued to sell it in 2019.
“By using its most powerful processor now, Apple says it can sell the iPhone SE unchanged for years to come,” Greengart said.
