Angela Lang / CNET
Four years after the launch of the original, Apple announced the new iPhone SE back in April. I imagine fans of smaller phones collectively jumped for joy when hearing the news. The iPhone SE, which looks like a iPhone 8 but has the iPhone 11is powerful A13 chipset, uses a 4.7-inch display.
Apple claims that it is a “small” phone. And it is the smallest (and cheapest) iPhone currently available in Apple’s lineup. It is also relatively compact by current phone standards, especially compared to, say, the popular Samsung Galaxy S20, which has a 6.2-inch screen.
But at 4.7 inches, the 2020 iPhone SE is roughly 20% larger than the original iPhone SE, which had a 4-inch screen.
If you lean for something really small, the iPhone SE 2020 does not deliver on that front. Apple’s decision not to build a brand new 4-inch phone tells. It signals that the company will probably never bring it back small iPhone, despite how few people desire it. That is not to say that Apple will not reduce the size of some of its upcoming phones. De iPhone 12 range is rumored to have a phone with a 5.4-inch screen, but that’s not a small phone.
Personally, I am everything for it. Because we’re in 2020 and I want a big phone. And because large screens simply provide a better, more immersive user experience. For me, “portability” takes a backlog compared to those benefits. From making credit card payments and participating Zoom call after following a banana balls recipe on YouTube, I spend more time than ever for my phone, for better or worse.
And when I use my phone for hours on end, I want to enjoy using it. Or at least, I do not want to bother looking at my screen while performing more unpleasant tasks (such as paying a credit card bill, for example). Big phones can do that for me.
But my perception of what’s big and what’s small in terms of phones has evolved over the years. I was not always such a fan of big screens, nor do I subscribe to the axiom “bigger is better”. In fact, I once adored my 4.7-inch iPhone 8, which I stuck to for years. I loved how it was purse-friendly and quite difficult to use with one hand. But when I upgraded to the 5.8-inch iPhone X in 2018, it is almost punishable to go back to something smaller.
See again:
iPhone SE reminds us how much we miss the home button
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Every time I use mine iPhone 8, I can close my eyes as I try to navigate the interface, which now looks disturbingly at me. Reading news and watching videos on the iPhone 8 had become an unusual experience compared to the iPhone X. However, I believe there is an upper limit to how big these phones should grow.
Telephone makers have made ever larger handsets as the years go by. They know that screen size is one of the most important features of a phone. But the trend of the jumbo phone really started in 2011 with the first Galaxy Note. Samsung took a gamble and launched the 5.3-inch Note, which at the time looked enormous, or as one analyst put it, like a “dork flag. “The comment started mania with big phones, and is one of the reasons Apple finally released my favorite 5.8-inch iPhone X in 2017.
Now phones are even bigger. Take a look at some of the phone releases from 2020 to date: Within the Galaxy S20 family of phones, the S20 Ultra has a massive 6.9-inch screen. Oppo launched its super premium 6.7-inch Find X2 Pro, and Motorola unveiled the 6.7-inch Edge Plus in April, the first true flagship in years. Plus there are rumored that Apple will release an iPhone 12 Pro Max that could also go as big as 6.7 inches. Sorry fans of small phones, it’s clear the big phone trend is here to stay.
