iPhone SE (2020) vs. iPhone 11 Pro By CNET

The iPhone 11 Pro is the current king of iPhones, but it starts at $1000 in the US, whereas be $400 iPhone s8 packs a lot of the same internals as this guy, so I wanted to see how they compare both. These phones have apples, a 13 Bionic chip for an iOS and a guaranteed iOS updates for the next couple of years. Look I know if you can afford the iPhone 11 Pro. This is probably the phone you're going to buy, but I wanted to see what that $600 difference really makes, let's start with size, designs and screens. So first up, these are significantly different form factors. The 11pro is Apple's newest design, complete with notch and face ID, whereas the SE hops back to older iPhones such as the iPhone, 8 and earlier bezels, are back baby, because that is what the iPhone SE will give you.

So, let's take a look at them, side-by-side. First up the iPhone SE, with that 4.7-inch screen the iPhone 11 Pro 5.8 inches and the biggest of them all is the 6.5 inch 11 pro max. You can see that the iPhone SE is basically an iPhone 8 body, complete with the home button, with the brains of an iPhone 11, the sweet spot for me in terms of usability and how it feels in the hand, is really the 11pro I. Just think that 5.8-inch screen size is just the right mix for me, but going back to the SAE, it's just really easy to use one-handed and it's so much more pocketable. There's also a couple of differences.

Construction wise apart from the physical design, the aluminum or aluminum frame on the SAE compared to the stainless steel on the 11pro and also the glass back, is slightly different to there's that matte glass finish compared to the shiny ones. On the s8 and color option wise, you get five color options on the 11pro range compared to three on the s8 LCD versus plan. Look I'm not going to sit here and tell you that LCD is magically better screen than OLED, because it just isn't. But you have to make some compromises if you are going to pay $400 for a phone, the difference is not as significant as I expected when I came from the iPhone 11 Pro to use the iPhone SE colors are as vibrant to me, but obviously the blacks weren't as deep, and the dynamic range wasn't as good on the iPhone SE. The contrast ratio is also incredible on the iPhone 11 Pro, so the screen technology might not make that much of a difference to you.

I would say if you are doing video, editing, shooting 4k, video, editing and photos or watching a lot of movies, and you really want to take advantage of HDR. Then the iPhone 11 Pro is gonna. Look so much better, but if you are doing things just like you know, being on Instagram on Twitter and just looking around an email and looking at some photos, the iPhone SE is pretty good touch. I'd versus face ad is the next point of difference. Personal preference completely I have to say that having used face ID for the past few years on the newest iPhones, it was a lot of muscle memory to go back to using touch.

I'd I was expecting to keep looking at the phone, and it would just unlock, but once I remembered how to use touch ID, it's actually for me. I love it a lot, because it's just so much easier to do things like Apple Pay, really quickly and also first thing in the morning touch ID does not judge me like face. I'd, do I come out of bed with crumpled face and messy hair touch. I'd works every single time face ID. You know one time out of ten.

It will just judge me and be like that's not really you, the iPhone 11 Pro is rated IP 68, which means it can survive at depths of four meters up to 30 minutes, the iPhone SE is ip67, so that means one meter at 30 minutes. But honestly, these phones are probably more durable than you think. I've tested the iPhone 11 Pro and the regular iPhone 11, and I've taken them two three times they're rated depth and they both survived, so I would expect the iPhone SE would deliver a fairly similar result regardless these phones are going to be totally fine if you accidentally drop them in water or use them in the shower shouldn't shower with your phone, but hey, you probably can, if you want also a little Easter Egg for you. This is the exact phone that I drowned, underneath the Monterey Bay, and it's still working six months later, one of my favorite parts about testing. These phones are getting to take a lot of photos and videos and the cameras three on the iPhone 11 Pro versus one on the iPhone SE, surprisingly close okay.

So if you buy the iPhone SE, you miss out on an ultra-wide lens and a 2 x telephoto, but the regular wide-angle camera is actually very similar to the regular wide angle on the 11pro. Just take a look at some of these photos side by side, you'll notice that they are very comparable. Just like the results we saw when we compared the iPhone SE to the iPhone 11, it's really only when you start to zoom in to that 100% crop that you'll see the differences start to become clearer. Both of the phones have a smart HDR mode that does a good job of evening out shadow and highlight details the iPhone 11 Pro. Does it just a little better than the SE? However, the trick that the iPhone 11 Pro does have up its sleeve is deep fusion.

Now this is Apple's way of saying some fancy computational photography tricks to improve the sharpness and detail of photos taken in medium lighting conditions. Now that means not in bright outdoor situations and not at night, so everything kind of in between and if you take a look at this shot of the orchid, and you zoom in to the hundred-percent crop, you'll see what I mean the shot on the 11pro just looks more detailed and more sharp than the equivalent I took on the iPhone SE. Both phones also do portrait mode, but in a slightly different way, thanks to the multiple lenses on the 11pro edge detection is a lot better. So the transition between your subject and the background is smoother. Also, the SE can only do portrait mode photos on people, so not pets, not objects, not anything else like the 11pro can, and personally I prefer the look of the photos from the 11pro on portrait mode, just because the field of view is more flattering on the SE, because it's a wider lens, it's taking the photo from things, can look a little distorted the biggest difference that you'll, probably care about on these two phones, when the cameras are concerned is night mode, the 11pro hazard and the SE doesn't and really when you compare the shots side-by-side, the 11pro blows the SE out of the water I'm.

Sorry, it's just not much of a comparison there, but you can still take a fairly usable shot on the SE. You just have to keep it stable, but it just won't look as good as night mode. Both phones also shoot 4k. Video at 60 frames a second and honestly, the fact that you can do that on a $400 phone, and it looks almost as good as the thousand-dollar phone is astounding, and it's a perfect feature of the s8. That being said, the dynamic range you'll get on the 11pro is much better.

Just take a look at this shot. You'll see the detail, that's maintained on the 11 pro's image on the house, the sky. In between that tree, you can actually see it, whereas on the SE it kind of gets lost and the highlights get blown out and crunchy selfie time. Okay, sorry I had to take some selfies to test it out, and the front-facing camera on the iPhone SE is actually pretty decent compared to the true depth camera on the front of the 11pro I. Think, if you want to do something like portrait mode, the 11pro definitely takes the cake here.

It just looks a little more smooth and more natural. If you want to do that, blurred background effect, but honestly I couldn't really separate them that much on selfies I think they both look pretty good. But if you want to record 4k video, that's only possible on this selfie camera on the 11pro, whereas it's only 1080 on the iPhone SE and the 11pro does slow fees did I or do you care I? Did it once and I never did it again. It was pretty fun, but I definitely wouldn't miss it. If I was going to get the iPhone SE overall I was really surprised at how well the SE stacked up against the more expensive phone.

Yes, you don't get an ultra-wide lens, and you don't get telephoto, and honestly I love having those three different fields of view to choose from, but for $400 I think those sacrifices make sense and the rear camera is perfect. If you want to take just general shots in most situations that aren't at night, the iPhone SA really does hold its own. Let's talk battery because that is incredibly important and the iPhone SE has a significantly smaller battery than the 11pro. You know by now that there's no way that this phone can last you as long as the 11pro or the 11pro max. If you want to find out the full results of our battery tests, you can find those in the reviews on CNET I want to tell you what happens when I use them anecdotally, so being at home, I've been using my phone pretty heavily over the past few weeks, and the 11pro can easily get me more than an entire day use out of it.

It is possible to get the SE to get a full day, but it does drain a lot faster and when I was using it as heavily as I was the 11pro I just couldn't get it to last me, the entirety of the day without needing a little of a top-up, the standby time, though, on the SE is perfect. So I noticed when I wasn't using it heavily and just leaving it sit. It really didn't drain the battery much at all, I. Wasn't that surprised, although I was a little disappointed that I had to charge this a lot more than the 11pro? One important caveat is that because of the current situation, I've been using both of these phones, primarily on Wi-Fi rather than being out and about in the real world roaming on LTE, so I expect when I am outside once more that that might affect battery life as well. Both of these phones have wireless charging and when it comes to plugging them into an outlet, obviously both use lightning.

The charger that comes in the box of the iPhone 11 Pro is an 18 watt charger and hope it's fast I, really like it going back to the 5 watt charger, that's in the box on the iPhone SE, it's fine! It does the job I, just really like the faster charging option that you can get on the 11pro by default in the box. Yes, you can buy that 18 watt charger and use it with the iPhone SE. It doesn't come in the box, though it's not worth $600 for me, but I like the fact that you get it. We'd get a lemon bribe performance now I ran a couple of benchmarks on both of these phones, and I was genuinely surprised at the results, because in a lot of cases, the SE running the 13 Bionic chip was actually doing equivalent or sometimes better than the 11 crow. So I was very surprised, but not surprised, because it's technically the same in Turtles, there's less RAM on the SAE, which does play a difference when it comes to doing things like loading apps but doing side by side.

Performance tests are to me a lot more useful than benchmarking, so I laid them both down, and I started them up from cold I opened the same apps and I. Just did the same number of things on each phone and I found that overall, the SAE was doing a great job in keeping up or even surpassing, the 11pro for the $600 difference, you're not really losing out on all that. Much. If you choose the SE in some cases, it does better than the 11pro. So now, let's touch on everything else that I haven't yet mentioned, starting with storage, so it's starting at 64 gigabytes on both and that's the base price, so $400 for 64 gigabytes on the iPhone SE $1000 for 64 gigabytes on the iPhone, 11 Pro, and then things start to separate a little.

Obviously, the price increases with the more storage that you buy. If you want 512 gigabytes and if you're shooting on a 4k video, then the iPhone 11 Pro is the only one that you can get that goes to 512 gigabytes, the iPhone SE stops at 256, but it has the interim 128 gigabyte storage option, whereas the iPhone 11 Pro only goes 64, 256 and 512. If you like to listen to music loud on public transit, let's be honest: we've all done it once or twice and annoy people. Then it's going to sound a little better on the iPhone 11 probe, and it does on the iPhone SE, so music or movies. If you're listening without headphones, just sound a little clearer, more defined a little more bass on the 11 per than on the iPhone SE now I said at the top that both of these phones are essentially future-proofed in terms of iOS updates for the next couple of years, and that's true, but there is one more piece of internal Hardware on the 11pro that you will get.

That is not included on the SE, and that is apple's u1 or ultra-wideband chip. Now, at the moment, it doesn't really do that much. It's just useful, better and faster airdrop transfer, but this little chip has a lot of going for it in the future, and I can see it used for a lot more than just airdrop for things like unlocking your car remotely, perhaps I, don't know that's what the room is the same, but if you are interested in a little more future proofing than the 11pro has it with that chip and the SE does not finally add emoji and emoji that move with your face. Well, you can do that on the 11pro thanks to the true depth, camera the iPhone SE, you can just send stickers and stuff like that, make you memory, but you can't get it to move with your face. Huh, I, don't know: do you care, I? Think it's kind of cute.

You might think I'm insane I mean I'm insane I've been in the house for like eight weeks, but that's okay, 400 dollars versus $1,000 look I mean that is a no-brainer I, like the fact that this is a significantly cheaper phone that has most of the same internals. It has great performance, and the camera is also perfect. There's no question that dollar for dollar this is the better value phone than the 11pro there's just something about that screen something about the size. It feels better in my hand and the ultra wide-angle lens on the 11pro that I really like and I. Also like the fact.

The battery lasts me a lot longer than the less expensive phone, so I think for me: I'm choosing the 11pro. But honestly, this phone is really, really good value and if I was watching, my pennies and I wanted an iPhone. This is the one that I would choose thanks for watching the comparison, let me know which phone you are choosing down in the comments below and also if you want to find out some more comparisons of cheaper alternatives to big-name tech products. You can check out the videos over there and there's also some related content that you might enjoy there just give it a click. Alright, see you later bye.

Source : CNET