Apple is anticipated to announce a brand new iPhone SE as early as subsequent week, and it might mark a significant shakeup to the corporate’s reasonably priced iPhone, including in Face ID and killing off the traditional residence button. We now have a reasonably good concept of what’s coming after months of leaks and rumors, so right here’s all the pieces we count on to see subsequent week.
There received’t be a house button…
The largest change is that Apple is upending the iPhone SE’s design, after leaving it broadly unchanged for the reason that sequence’ inception in 2016. The 2022 SE is the final iPhone nonetheless utilizing a house button, with a thick bezel across the high and backside of the display. However rumors say Apple will now ditch the button, slim the bezel, and add Face ID.
The end result might be a cellphone that appears just like the iPhone 14 from the entrance. Like that cellphone, it’s anticipated to put its Face ID sensors in a notch, relatively than utilizing the much less obtrusive Dynamic Island design that was launched within the 14 Professional and has been utilized in each iPhone since then. Apple can’t resist preserving its SE sequence just a bit behind the occasions.
We’ve seen the notched design in a video shared by the leaker Majin Bu, which exhibits them dealing with what is probably going a non-functional dummy unit, utilized by case producers to design and take a look at their equipment.
…however there might be an Motion button
Bu’s video means that the SE 4 will embrace a customizable Motion button, however not the Digicam Management launched on the iPhone 16.
Like different SE fashions it seems to stay to a single rear digital camera. One leaked spec listing means that the SE will use a 48 megapixel sensor on the rear, with a 12 megapixel selfie digital camera on the entrance, however that is an space the place there have been few experiences to date.
It’s not going to be a small cellphone
The redesign will enable the 2025 SE to have a bigger display than the 4.7-inch panel utilized by the 2022 mannequin. It’s anticipated to as a substitute use a 6.1-inch show, the identical dimension as the usual iPhone 16, and also will improve to OLED.
The larger display means the cellphone as an entire might be bigger than any earlier iPhone SE, and there’ll not be any iPhone smaller than the usual mannequin. If we assume the brand new cellphone can have related dimensions to the iPhone 16 then it might be 9mm taller than the 2022 SE, and weigh about 25g extra.
Lightning is out, USB-C is in
It’s just about sure that the cellphone can have a USB-C port relatively than Lightning, permitting it to as soon as once more be offered within the EU. The earlier SE mannequin was discontinued in EU markets together with each different iPhone utilizing a Lightning port.
It’ll be some of the highly effective iPhones round
On the within, Bloomberg reports that the cellphone will use the identical A18 chip because the iPhone 16 and 16 Professional fashions. That’s the identical method Apple has used for its final two SE telephones, which have paired the newest silicon with extra dated designs. The A18 is anticipated to be mixed with a rise to 8GB of RAM, the minimal required to run Apple Intelligence, the corporate’s AI instruments that present notification summaries and different performance, and are actually enabled by default. That will all make it extra highly effective than 2023’s iPhone 15.
It would even beat this 12 months’s iPhone 17 sequence to feature Apple’s first in-house 5G modem, changing the Qualcomm elements that iPhones have used previously. Apple has been creating its personal modems for over half a decade, however Bloomberg warns that the primary iteration is a “downgrade” from the modem within the newest flagship iPhones, and received’t help mmWave 5G, solely sub-6 — although that was true of the final iPhone SE too.
Whereas earlier rumors have pointed to a launch in March or April, Bloomberg experiences that Apple will announce the cellphone subsequent week, although doesn’t count on it to go on sale till later within the month. It predicts a worth of “roughly $500,” increased than the 2022 mannequin’s beginning worth of $429. That could be offset by a default storage spec of 128GB, that means there would not be any 64GB iPhone in the marketplace.
There’s additionally a risk that it received’t be referred to as the iPhone SE in spite of everything. Two leakers have predicted that it’ll as a substitute be referred to as the iPhone 16E, although for the reason that SE title has popped up extra typically we predict that’s nonetheless extra doubtless.
If Bloomberg is true, we don’t have lengthy to attend to search out out for certain. The SE can be the primary of a number of massive iPhone launches this 12 months, with Apple tipped to disclose a slimmer iPhone 17 Air in addition to “main updates” to the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Professional.