Apple's little guy does it all

APPLE has gamely responded to popular demand for a smaller but |top-quality phone by bringing the power and excellent features of its flagship iPhone6s, such as the 12-megapixel iSight camera, to the four-inch iPhone SE.

Even as other brands join the trend of display screens of five or more inches, Apple refuses to abandon its compact model, of which more than 30 million units were sold last year.

The iPhone SE has a body of bead-blasted aluminium with a satin-like finish, matte-chamfered edges and the Apple logo inset in stainless steel inset of matching tone. You can buy it in silver, space grey, gold and rose gold.

A slim 7.6mm and 113 grams in weight – about the same as the iPhone 5s it replaced – the SE can be easily operated with one hand.

The four-inch Retina display is bright and colourful at 1,136-by-640-pixel resolution at 326 pixels per inch. The contrast ratio is a high 800:1.

Apple boasts that the SE is the most powerful phone of its size thanks to a third-generation 64-bit A9 chip, the same one found in the iPhone 6s. Because of this chip, the CPU in the SE is twice as fast as that of the iPhone 5s and the GPU (graphic processing unit) is three times faster. 

In my test, all the apps ran fast and smooth and video and audio files played without a hitch. The touch screen and menus were very responsive. I played the Samkok Junior game and the even more intense AG Drift Racing 3D in app form and noticed no hesitation in either.

Meanwhile the battery lasts twice as long as the one in the iPhone 5s because Apple’s M9 motion coprocessor is embedded in the A9 chip, not separate as it was in the 5s. Thus tasks are offloaded from the main processor and advanced sensors kick in for tracking fitness activities.

With M9 integrated, the SE doesn’t have to waste power “waking up” the phone for certain commands to get a response. M9 keeps Siri and other apps on alert for voice commands like “How’s the weather today?” (Siri will read a summary aloud, from any requested district, in response to commands in Thai).

A touch-type fingerprint scanner embedded in the Home button lets you ensure security without having to unlock the phone first. Touch ID is also convenient in letting you buy apps from the Apple Store.

Even more speed comes from LTE 4G, again 50 per cent faster than the iPhone5s, reaching 150Mbps depending on your service provider. You can also tap into up to 19 LTE bands for better roaming around the world.

I used TrueMove H’s LTE network and the connection speed was incredible. I could download and install apps and back up pictures to the cloud really fast. The Ookla Speedtest app measured downloads at 53.91Mbps and uploads at 21.23.

And then you have the ability to use 802.11ac, which allows Wi-Fi connections at twice the speed of the 5s. On my home router, Linksys WRT1200AC, the connection speed was blazing fast.

Add to this Voice-over LTE and Wi-Fi calling for high-quality wideband phone calls, and Bluetooth 4.2 for connecting to an Apple Watch, external speakers, enabled headsets and more.

When it comes to taking photos, the SE has a camera with the same features and quality as the 6s, though the lens isn’t quite as good.

The 12-megapixel iSight camera will get sharp photos with saturated colours and high detail, much like the 6s. It comes with an advanced technology called Focus Pixels (sharper, less noise), an Apple-designed image processing processor, True Tone Retina flash and improved face detection. 

I was able to confirm in my test everything Apple says about the camera, capturing crisp and colourful photos even in low light.

Apple got the idea for Focus Pixels from DSLR cameras, affording faster auto-focus, which I found to be quite impressive when adjusting between close and distant subjects.

True Tone automatically alters the colour and intensity of the flash in more than 1,000 combinations, making sure that the colours appear as natural as possible. Selfies look great even when taken in a darkened environment, like a concert hall. The Retina display generates combinations of flashes to match the ambient light.

Like the 6s, the SE has the Live Photos feature that records five seconds of video before and after the shutter is pressed, which is then combined with the photo display to “bring the still images to life”. On viewing, the videos play briefly before and after the individual still photo. The whole “show” can be shared via iMessage, iCloud, AirDrop or Tumblr.

Panorama shots are possible at 63-megapixel resolution, much higher than the iPhone 5s could afford, and you can take 4K video at 3,840x2,160-pixel resolution. The SE has built-in video stabilisation, continuous auto-focus and face detection. Super-slow motion video is possible at 1,080p resolution at 120 frames per second and 720p at 240fps.

The video stabilisation means you can shoot clips while walking – no need for a tripod – so time-lapse movies are also enabled.

The iPhone SE runs on iOS 9.3.2 – the latest from Apple – and has a beautiful interface and several useful functions and apps.

One app I found particularly useful is called Health, a fitness-tracking program that makes use of the M9 coprocessor to record steps taken and distance travelled.

Night Shift automatically reduces the blue spectrum on the display at specific hours of the night so your sleep won’t be affected. The iPhone SE with 16 gigabytes of internal storage is selling for Bt16,800, and the model with 64GB is Bt20,800.

 

Key Specs

- Operating system: iOS 9.3.2

- Networks: LTE (Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 29), CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100 MHz), UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1700/2100, 1900, 2100MHz), GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900MHz)

- Chip: A9 with 64-bit architecture, M9 motion coprocessor

- Display: Four-inch Retina display with 1136x640 pixels, 800:1 contrast ratio

- Cameras: 12MP iSight camera with f/2.2 lens; 1.2MP FaceTime HD camera with f/2.4 lens

- SIM card: Nano-SIM

- Storage: 16/64GB

- Sensors: Touch ID fingerprint sensor, three-axis gyro, accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor

- Battery: Up to 14 hours talk time on 3G, up to 13 hours of Internet use on LTE

- Dimensions: 123.8x58.6x7.6mm

- Weight: 113g