iPhone SE vs Galaxy S7 vs LG G5 [CHART]
There has been an awakening. Have you felt it? A new iPhone has just been announced. Apple has gone against their traditional release cycle to announce the iPhone SE, a throwback to the days of 4-inch phones. It was only a couple years ago that Apple made the leap from 3.5-inch to 4-inch displays, but eventually they embraced big phones and went to 4.7-inch for the standard model.
The iPhone SE is essentially an iPhone 6S Mini. It’s not meant to be a “cheap” model like they did with the iPhone 5C. This is simply a smaller iPhone. For that reason, we’re comparing it with the most recent Android flagship devices: the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5. It may not be a fair fight, but Apple says the experience is the same as the full-size iPhone 6S.
Display
The display size is the big feature of the iPhone SE, and for once it’s not because of how big it is. The 4-inch display is more than a full inch smaller than the “standard” offerings from Samsung and LG. Apple claims that people love smaller phones. We certainly agree that small phones are nice, but for our money 5-inches is a perfect size. Anything less starts to feel like a toy.
Resolution also takes a big hit. The iPhone SE display has less than 1280p resolution. Apple will claim that your eyes can’t tell the difference, and for most people that might be true. We promise the displays on the Galaxy S7 and LG G5 will look much nicer. If you really care about phones, you’ll be able to see the difference.
Camera
The iPhone is famous for having a great camera, but in the last year Android devices have really caught up. The iPhone SE has a 12MP shooter, the same size as the Galaxy S7’s camera. We’re sure photos from the iPhone SE will look great, but the Galaxy S7 is already better than the iPhone 6S. There’s no reason to believe the iPhone SE will be better than the 6S. We’ve yet to really test the LG G5. Our guess is it will also perform better than the iPhone.
Battery & More
Here’s where the iPhone SE really lags behind. Apple claims you will have the same experience as their full-size devices, but the specs beg to differ. Despite the same Apple A9 processor, the rest of the specs don’t look great. The battery is a measly 1642mAh, RAM is only 1GB, and they are still selling a 16GB model.
The specs of the Galaxy S7 and LG G5 blow the socks off the iPhone SE. Much bigger batteries, more than double the amount of RAM, and the powerful Snapdragon 820 processor. You also get things like microSD cards, removable batteries, and water resistance. Is it completely fair to compare the iPhone SE to these devices? On paper, no, but Apple’s boastful talk about this phone demands this comparison.