Apple just introduced the third-generation iPhone SE, and it has some nice improvements, including support for sub-6GHz 5G and an A15 processor. But Apple is also claiming it has longer battery life, and it seems that’s in part because the phone has a physically larger battery — a fact about the new iPhone SE that the company confirmed on background in a group briefing with reporters.
Apple hasn’t shared the battery capacity, so we’ll have to wait for teardowns to see exactly how much juice it has. But comparing the new SE’s tech specs page with the old one, Apple is promising some decent improvements.
For the third-generation SE, Apple is promising up to 15 hours of video playback, up to 10 hours of streaming video playback, and up to 50 hours of audio playback. The old SE, on the other hand, got up to 13 hours of video playback, up to eight hours of streaming video playback, and up to 40 hours of audio playback.
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23299188/Screen_Shot_2022_03_08_at_1.15.16_PM.png)
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23299191/Screen_Shot_2022_03_08_at_1.15.49_PM.png)
Apple also saw good battery gains by putting bigger batteries in the iPhone 13 lineup, so it’s not too much of a surprise to see the company repeat that decision with the new SE. But you’ll still get better battery life from buying one of the iPhone 13 models.
The Mini, which has the weakest battery of the bunch, gets up to 17 hours of video playback, 13 hours of streaming video playback, and up to 55 hours of audio playback. Those are all higher than the third-generation SE, even though the SE has the same chip, is a physically larger device, and doesn’t support battery-hungry mmWave 5G. And Apple chose to keep the same exact dimensions from the second-gen iPhone SE to the third. If it had decided to make the phone even just a bit thicker, it might have been able to improve the battery even more.
