iPhone SE 2020 First Look: Not Just an iPhone 8 with iPhone 11 Brains By iFixit
A sequel to 2016’s iPhone SE has been rumored for years, and it’s finally here—sort of. It bears the SE moniker, but it looks like an iPhone 8, and the spec sheet reads like an iPhone 11. Hey Siri, what the heck is this thing? Wait... don’t answer that, we’ve got X-rays from Creative Electron and they’re already showing us something new! We’re seeing some subtle changes to the antenna hardware. It may look iPhone 8-ish on the surface, but you can’t get gigabit LTE and Wi-Fi 6 with iPhone 8 parts. Reviewers keep calling this a “parts bin” phone, and that may be partly true, but maybe there’s more to it than everyone thought.
Let’s pop it open for a quick first look and explore some more. Just a little heat and an iSclack gets the iPhone SE open, and sure enough, it’s an iPhone! Rinse and repeat with the iPhone 8, and we can see we’re dealing with the same display cable design —three cables run between the display assembly and the iPhone’s logic board, hiding under some shiny metal brackets. In fact a side by side comparison reveals that these phones are almost identical, down to the layout of chips on the logic board. So, what makes the iPhone SE different from the iPhone 8? Well, our first difference shows up underneath the battery connector cable. While the battery is identical to the iPhone 8’s when it comes to specs, 6.96 watt hours, Apple has redesigned the connector on the iPhone SE to be just slightly longer than the 8’s, making it impossible to connect an SE battery to an 8 or vise versa. This new connector is the same one found in the iPhone 11.
It’s possible that this new connector allows the battery to report more detailed usage information, but it’s equally possible that it was just what Apple had on hand, since more iPhone 11s are being manufactured now than older iPhone 8s. With all the visual similarities, we were curious if Apple was using the same display part as the iPhone 8. Apple erased 3D touch with the launch of the iPhone 11, so it’s no surprise that this 2020 iPhone SE doesn’t have it. No one but Apple really knows why 3D touch bit the dust, but some speculate that its removal was to create more space for a bigger battery. The SE battery has the same capacity as the 8 though, so could this display secretly have 3D touch capabilities, just disabled in software? Both the display on the iPhone 8 and the new SE are secured with a ton of tiny y000 screws and our initial parts testing showed that both displays work in both phones—though of course we lose true tone and some other functionality.
Rumours suggested that this new SE might have the same camera as the iPhone Ten R, but the camera module itself looks a lot more similar to the iPhone 8’s. They’re even interchangeable—the iPhone SE camera module works in the iPhone 8, and vice versa. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re identical though! Catch our full teardown next week, where we’ll dissect the camera modules, investigate displays, and dive deeper into parts compatibility. In the meantime, expect our written teardown on Monday, and if you’re in The US or Canada, get excited—we’re giving away an iPhone SE! That’s right a brand new one- not one we’ve already taken apart I promise. All you have to do for a chance to win is take our quiz and answer the questions correctly.
We'll have a link to it in the description below. And as always, give this video a thumbs up if you liked it, and let us know if there’s anything else you’d like us to investigate for the full teardown.
Source : iFixit
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