Why your next iPhone should be the 2025 iPhone SE

“Apple” and “affordable” don’t often belong together in the same sentence. The company is very open about chasing a “premium” market, which means buyers with a lot of disposable income. It’s hard to imagine the $3,500 Vision Pro headset existing otherwise.

Indeed, the company tries to upsell iPhone shoppers whenever possible, making it seem like you’re missing out if you don’t buy the iPhone 16 Pro. In truth, though, most people shouldn’t drop $1,000 on an iPhone or even $800. In fact, if you can wait a few months, your next buy should probably be the fourth-generation iPhone SE, which is expected to release this spring.

An iPhone with genuine bang for the buck

New specs with reasonable prices

The iPhone SE has long been Apple’s answer to snaring “budget” buyers. You shouldn’t buy the third-generation iPhone SE, though — while it starts at $429, it dates back to 2022, and includes outdated design elements like Touch ID, a 4.7-inch LCD, and 64GB of base storage. The latter two specs are pathetic, frankly, considering that even $200 Android phones now include 6-inch screens and 128GB of storage. If you need an affordable iPhone right now, you’re better off buying a refurbished iPhone 14.

If you can wait until March or April, though, the fourth-generation SE should finally catch up with recent flagship iPhones. The most noticeable change is rumored to be a 6.1-inch OLED display, not only presenting more content, but enabling better colors and contrast. The leap from LCD to OLED shouldn’t be undersold — it makes images pop, and it’s easier on the eyes when iOS’s Dark Mode is enabled. With Dark Mode and the right wallpaper, you can even extend battery life, since OLED screens shut off individual pixels to achieve true blacks.

The device should finally bring Face ID and USB-C to the SE, too, but the real attraction for many people will be the inclusion of the same A18 processor and 8GB of RAM found in the iPhone 16. That’s necessary for Apple Intelligence, but the knock-on effect is that games and other apps will run just as fast as on an $800 iPhone 16. The iPhone SE 4 could cost more than $429 — but it’s still expected to start below the $500 mark.

So what are the sacrifices involved? For one, buyers will probably be stuck with a single, 48-megapixel rear camera, going without ultra-wide or telephoto lenses. There also won’t be a Camera Control button or a Dynamic Island. As some consolation, the phone is at least rumored to be getting a customizable Action button in place of an unchangeable mute switch.

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The iPhone 16 and 16 Pro are overkill for casual smartphone users

Who uses an ultra-wide camera every day?

I bought an iPhone 16 Pro this fall, but that’s because I was upgrading from an iPhone 13, and I really do use my smartphones for professional purposes, including testing, product photos, and event coverage. With my old phone, I was regularly frustrated by its limitations.

Most people don’t need ultra-wide or telephoto cameras, though, if all they’re doing is taking photos of friends, family, and the occasional note or document. In fact, I’ve railed for years against Apple making ultra-wide secondary cameras on standard iPhones, since it’s more likely you’ll need to get closer to a subject than shoot tight rooms or expansive vistas.

Similarly, a Camera Control button just makes shooting easier in some circumstances. It’s unnecessary, and some people even ignore it, finding it awkward to adapt to.

There’s a better argument to be made for Dynamic Island support, and the always-on display technology on Pros, which makes StandBy and lock screen widgets more useful. But all told, the fourth-generation SE should be more than enough for the average person.

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Would you sign up for an iPhone hardware subscription service?

Subscription services are practically everywhere these days. Movies, TV shows, music, video games, books: these and other forms of digital media are all accessible via the business model of recurring payments. In the software world, this paradigm has proven extremely lucrative. It guarantees a steady inflow of revenue, cuts out distribution intermediaries, among other benefits. The next logical step in this never-ending march towards subscription dominance is, of course, subscription-based hardware offerings.Apple has long been rumored to be considering its own iPhone hardware subscription service, in which you pay a recurring fee in exchange for a yearly upgrade to the latest handset on the market. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, it appears that Apple is now walking back its efforts to build out such a hardware program.As subscription fatigue continues to set in, more consumers are beginning to reminisce of the days of one-and-done product purchases. We’ve seen particular ba

The iPhone SE’s ‘best before’ date

Buy in 2025 or forever hold your peace

A gigantic asterisk to this recommendation is that Apple doesn’t update the iPhone SE on an annual schedule. After the first generation in 2016, the second didn’t appear until 2020. We did get the third in 2022, but even if the fourth does appear in 2025, we might have to wait until 2027, 2028, or even 2029 for a fifth.

Why does this matter? While the SE 4 will be a great deal in its first several months, that value is going to diminish pretty quickly. The iPhone 17’s launch in September 2025 will unleash a flood of discounted Phone 16s and 15s, which will probably be tempting for people who do care about having a Dynamic Island and multiple cameras.