Gadgetory

classifying the iPhone se has been one of the most divisive conversations I've seen yet on pocketnow.com is this thing a flagship is it a mid-range er is it entry-level so we figured the best way to examine that conversation and to answer that question would be to put it in a straight-up showdown between some other Android devices purposely built for the mid-range I'm one Carlos back now for Pocket now and here's our iPhone se vs. Android mid-range comparison first a little housekeeping we've got to put this phone somewhere and we decided that this is a mid-range device it represents the entry level for an Apple product and that it replaces the three-year-old iPhone 5s and there are only a couple of areas where this thing will truly compete against top-tier Android offerings comparisons are always tricky because at some point we just have to pick two or more phones to pit up against each other and the reasonings for which devices we pick are pretty subjective so we had to come up with a few rules as to which phones we were going to pick to compare against the iPhone se we wanted to make sure that they weren't top-tier devices that manufacturers were specifically building a lesser phone to compete in a middle price tier and seeing as how consumer facing smart phones can be priced anywhere from 50 bucks to almost a thousand we're going to put that mid pack pricing tier in between those two bookends which is right where the iPhone se lives for this comparison I've selected two Android devices which bookend the iPhone se by hundred dollars in either direction the huawei GX eight at $2.99 the iPhone se at 399 and the HTC One a9 at 499 all of these manufacturers make devices in tiers above the phones represented on this table but all of these devices also represent premium billed for mid-range or mid pack pricing all three phones have similar camera hardware and that they feature 12 to 13 megapixel one third inch image sensors with native 4x3 aspect ratios and all three phones have respectable fingerprint sensors onboard but instantly we run into an ergonomic discussion a 4-inch screen versus a 5 inch screen versus a 5.5 inch screen the iPhone se design is built on brevity a 1 thumb on the run kind a usage HTC is doing a great job of balancing screen size and form factor but it does start to veer into two-handed territory when you really want to dig into emails or texts or turn-by-turn navigation and that issue is just magnified when we step up to a larger phone like the GX eight will have to have a whole separate video detailing the differences between a flagship and a phablet but the GX eight does start to blur the line between a regular-sized phone and a bigger productivity focused device area of subjectivity number one do you need the phone that's going to be a little bit more efficient at that brief interaction getting out of my car grabbing my camera bag and punching out a quick one thumb text message reply there are a few phones that do that easier than the iPhone se but the flip side of that is foreign screens not that great for more in-depth interactions I've personally gotten to a point where I actually do enjoy riding out shorter articles directly from my phone using a little Bluetooth keyboard and that usage is just not as nice on a 4-inch screen I mean my eyesight is pretty good but it's a bit small both the HTC and the kwame are utilizing Qualcomm 600 series processors decidedly mid-range territory the iPhone se is using the a 9 chipset found in the iPhone 6s from a horsepower perspective the iPhone se is a clear winner now all three phones do a reasonably good job of navigating their respective UI switching between apps but you will run into a little less lag and a little less jank on the iPhone and that's handily represented when we start talking about things like gaming not only is this a flagship grade chipset but we also have a lower resolution screen so there's just fewer pixels for that chipset to push so if you're playing puzzle swap or candy crush style games yeah all three of these phones are going to do just fine but if you start stepping up into more graphics intensive territory games like asphalt 8 or Marvel future fight the iPhone is going to provide you a far more fluid playback framerate than what the HTC or the huawei can deliver but again areas of subjectivity gaming on a 4-inch screen can sometimes be kind of tough especially if that game gets really involved the aforementioned future fight there are menus and control options that my fat little fingers just can't interact with consistently and if you're into tower defense games there is not a lot of real estate to control what's happening in that gameplay so while there's a noticeable power advantage how you you that power is also affected by the other trappings of the device a perfect example is watching video are you just scanning through your Facebook feed and you see a little video clip yeah the iPhone is going to be fine but if you're sitting down say you're on an airplane and you want to watch a longer form piece of content again orange screen kind of small five inch screen a little bit better 5.5 inch screen you actually get the lean back a little in your chair but screen differences extend beyond just resolution and surface area the Huawei and the iPhone are utilizing IPS LCD technology and HTC is moved over to an AMOLED screen for the a9 funnily enough unlike a samsung amoled screen the HTC's display doesn't get as dim as I would like it to say you're reading reddit in bed at night and the iPhone screen is on right now at its dimmest setting which is actually pretty surprising performance for a backlit LCD but where that performance flips is when we start talking about a high brightness mode especially when you're outside in direct sunlight and here the AMOLED does slightly outperform the really nice high quality LCD panel in the iPhone se and when you're out about you'll probably want to take advantage of things like the cameras on these phones that you can capture those memories and share them online optically all three of these phones perform pretty similarly to each other we've got very similar image sensor sizes and pretty similar resolution on each of those sensors and a pretty similar focal lengths for all three phones so the iPhone is the narrowest closer to a 30 millimeter equivalency and all three of these phones even have dual LED color tone flashes built into them comparing things like pixel level detail and good light or depth of field blur yeah all three of these phones are pretty close where we see standout performances unsurprisingly on the device that's most powerful the iPhone se has a faster 1080p mode with a 60 frame per second frame rate and then also a UHD video mode so it can shoot those 4k crispy detailed videos that we all know and love and it also happens to be the most consistent performer for image processing you know juicing up the color on those HDR photos are stitching together your panoramas however in this showdown the iPhone does actually have a small issue versus the Huawei and that the Huawei GX 8 has optical image stabilization onboard which does give you a little bit more of an advantage for low-light photography the Huawei can hold its shutter open a little bit longer to soak up just a little bit more light and it makes it easier to get those low light exposures right on the first try and for selfies the iPhone se just isn't much competition for either two android phones with that 1.2 megapixel FaceTime camera HTC is serving up the ultra pixels and a native 16 by 9 aspect ratio while the GX 8 moves up to an even higher resolution five megapixel image sensor and the widest field of view of all three phones this is definitely one area where Apple certainly did compromise the hardware on the iPhone se and we mentioned lifestyle features like the fingerprint scanner and I really have to say Huawei has probably the best implementation and the fastest hardware for scanning a fingerprint and unlocking your device the SE small form factor makes it really easy to reach down there and hit that home button but it still does subtly just ever so slightly change your grip on the phone climbing up to 5-inch screen devices like the a9 I'm just not a huge fan of putting the fingerprint sensor down in the chin bezel of the phone under the screen it's a little bit more of a contortion trick to get that thumb down under the screen so that you can unlock the device lastly we should talk about audio performance and that's an area where both HTC and Apple excel sure we don't have front-facing stereo speakers on the a9 and we won't have them on the HTC 10 but boomsound still does influence the quality of the amp built into the headphone jack for these phones and compared to the iPhone they're both really good minimal distortion minimal crosstalk between your stereo channels if you listen to a lot of music on your phone you're investing in higher quality audio files you have a really nice pair of headphones it's a it's may be worth it to step up to a device that can properly drive that software and that hardware the gx8 will put that in good territory but not great territory and I suppose we should probably wrap this up to this videos long enough already there are no clear winners here folks like I said at the top of this video all of this stuff becomes highly subjective just down to what phones we selected to do this comparison that's why it's vitally important that for every situation where you're making a purchasing decision that you're sitting down and you're really weighing the pros and cons on how you're going to spend your money maybe you want screaming performance in a smaller form factor device or maybe you just need a little more screen real estate for more in-depth interactions or maybe top tier audios your game and you're really into Google services or someone might just like the design which is a tough call for the HTC One a9 because it's basically just an iPhone 6 and outside of these three phones this situation is even further complicated when we start looking at last year's flagships and of course we want to hear from you classifying the iPhone se has been one of the more controversial topics we faced here recently at PocketNow and comparisons are always hotly debated videos for us so let's try and keep those comments civil but I do want to see some rough-and-tumble debates as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more reviews and comparisons like these and hit that thumbs up button for a little extra positive reinforcement for pocket now I'm Juan Carlos Wagner you can catch me on Twitter and Instagram as some gadget guy and I will catch you all on the next video