Display

The display on the iPhone SE is one of its selling points, but not due to its specs. The iPhone SE takes the place of the iPhone 5s in Apple's iPhone line, and like the 5s it has a 4-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1136x640. While there's no way to confirm whether or not it's the exact same panel, you'll see in a moment that the characteristics are similar enough that it's probably safe to assume that it is. To evaluate the iPhone SE's display I've run it through our standard display test bench that examines peak brightness and black levels, along with the accuracy of greyscale shades and both color saturations and color mixtures.

Display - Max Brightness

Display - Black Levels

Display - Contrast Ratio

Apple rates their iPhone displays for a brightness of 500 nits. There's always some degree of variance, but it's always the good sort where you're getting more than you paid for. In our iPhone 5s review we saw that it had a peak brightness of around 500 nits, while the iPhone 5c reached nearly 600. This iPhone SE is similar, with a peak brightness of 598 nits. I wouldn't expect this on every unit, but it's just interesting to note because I've never encountered an iPhone 6 or 6s that was so far above the spec.

The black level on the SE at peak brightness is quite high. Part of this is due to the fact that the screen has a bright backlight, but ultimately even with the high peak brightness the contrast ratio is well behind what you get on other phones, and even compared to our 5s unit it's quite low. It's important to note that Apple only ever rated the 4-inch iPhones at 800:1, but when you put the phone side by side with modern IPS displays on devices like the iPhone 6s, and the LG G4, the black ends up looking more like a dark grey.

Display - White Point

Display - Grayscale Accuracy


SpectraCal CalMAN

The iPhone SE does quite well in our greyscale test. As usual, there is a degree of blue shifting, but it’s not too severe and the CCT average is below 7000. The gamma is quite straight, and in the end there aren’t any shades of grey with a DeltaE greater than three, which is generally the goal. With an average DeltaE of 1.87 there’s really not much more you can ask for.


SpectraCal CalMAN

Display - Saturation Accuracy

The iPhone SE renders primary and secondary colors with a high degree of accuracy. The DeltaE for many colors is below one, which means the error cannot be perceived by the eye even with the colors side by side with the true reference color. In the absolute worst case you get saturations with a DeltaE of 2 which is quite impressive. With an average DeltaE of 1.24, there’s really not much that Apple could improve here.


SpectraCal CalMAN

Display - GMB Accuracy

Given that accuracy with color mixtures is just a function of saturation accuracy and greyscale accuracy, it’s not surprising to see the iPhone SE perform well here. There isn’t a single DeltaE error over three, and in general most are between one and two. The overall error is 1.46, and there’s little improvement that Apple could actually make to the accuracy of color mixtures.

Ultimately the iPhone SE ships with a solid IPS display. At 1136x640 it’s definitely not the highest resolution display on the market, but Apple does give you best in class color accuracy, and at 326ppi it’s still high enough resolution to not have really obvious aliasing. Apple was definitely not going to move to 1704x960 on their $400 4-inch smartphone, and a boost in resolution will likely come with whatever Apple’s next 4-inch iPhone is.

Given that Apple is in the process of moving their devices to the wider DCI-P3 color gamut and likely moving the iPhones to a 3x scale resolution, it’ll be interesting to see where the iPhone SE’s display stands relative to the next generation of iPhones. With sharpness and color accuracy being equivalent between the SE and the 6s, the only significant difference in quality right now is the lower contrast ratio on the SE. Apple most likely plans to keep the SE around for two to three years, and so that gap will widen as time goes on.

Battery Life and Charge Time Camera
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  • Alexey291 - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link

    So it's kinda buggy, badly built but you love it? Kay
  • whiteiphoneproblems - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link

    Yep - two minor bugs. Never owned a phone (by any manufacturer) that was bug-free!
  • Impulses - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link

    They sound more like hardware faults or QC issues than bugs to me, but maybe we have different definitions of said word...
  • whiteiphoneproblems - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link

    That other guy called it "buggy"; OK word by me, I guess. The power button issue has been widely reported (think it goes back to the 5S), so don't know if a hardware swap would be worthwhile. (With a case, it's barely noticeable.)

    Don't know if the brightness thing is software or hardware. Maybe it's calibrated to work that way for this model? I can investigate further, I suppose.

    All told, the advantages of this phone far outweigh these imperfections for me.
  • Klug4Pres - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link

    I see a problem with Apple's strategy here.

    People who cannot afford Apple's larger phones do not necessarily want a smaller phone.

    There is also the old problem that people who want large screen phones do not necessarily want gigantic bezels on their phones.

    Might there be better ways to differentiate the product line?
  • Guspaz - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link

    I helped my mother buy an iPhone SE yesterday (which was tricky since we visited 6 cellphone stores, all of which were sold out, before we finally found a store that had one in stock). She was upgrading from an iPhone 4S, since it was getting on in years and they'll likely discontinue software support for it this fall.

    For her, it was the perfect choice: she didn't like the iPhone 6S due to the much larger screen, and the much larger price. The iPhone SE sells for $579 CAD, while the iPhone 6S sells for $915 CAD (or at least it did yesterday in-store, looks like it's gone down to $899 since), which is a big price difference.

    She was happy. A lighter phone without much of a size increase, at $336 cheaper than the 6S.
  • UtilityMax - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link

    The fact that your ma likes a phone with a small screen does not disprove the previous argument. Apple has a huge problem on its hands. There are plenty of great android smartphones with large screens sold for under $400, heck many are priced exactly at around 200 bucks. Throwing a bone in the form of cheaper and smaller iPhone SE to the consumers looking for value will not appease most of them them.
  • michael2k - Tuesday, May 17, 2016 - link

    On the other hand, Apple has no competition in this space, as everything else in this size is significantly slower in CPU, GPU, and NAND.

    So people who want a small phone can get the SE, and have the fastest and most powerful phone. People who want a large phone can get the 6S and still have the fastest and most powerful phone.
  • jerrytouille - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link

    Which CPU did the SE tested have: Samsung or TSMC?
  • Spectrophobic - Monday, May 16, 2016 - link

    Doesn't matter. Margin of error difference.

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