iPhone SE versus Pixel 6A: what Google got right and Apple got wrong - The Verge

The Google Pixel 6A gets a lot right that the 2022 iPhone SE doesn’t, like a sizable 6.1-inch screen, a good camera with night mode, and reasonable base-level storage.

There’s a great phone under $500 that I’d recommend to just about anyone looking for the best midrange phone on the market. It uses the same chipset as the company’s much more expensive flagships, and it includes an IP67 rating, a very good 12-megapixel camera, and a long lifespan ahead of it with software support for many years to come. It’s not the iPhone SE, which I wish I could recommend as freely as the current category winner: the Pixel 6A. It’s a better phone, and it’s what the SE should have been. Here’s what Google got right — and what Apple should have done differently.

The Pixel 6A’s 6.1-inch screen isn’t perfect. It’s not great outdoors, and it’s a 60Hz screen in a world where faster refresh rates are becoming the norm. But here’s the thing: it’s good enough. The iPhone SE’s also-60Hz screen isn’t because, at 4.7 inches, it’s just way too small for a phone in 2022. I say this as someone who loves small phones, so if I think it’s too small, then it really is too small.

The 2022 iPhone SE strikes a minimalist figure.

    Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
  









  
    










  





  
    The Pixel 6A mimics the 6 and 6 Pro’s design language.
  
  
    Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
  

You can’t have everything from a midrange phone, and the screen is where both Apple and Google made some tradeoffs to hit a lower price point. But a too-small screen isn’t something you can just make do with. Take wireless charging — the SE includes it, which virtually no other phone in the midrange class does, including the 6A. But that’s something I think most people can live without. On the other hand, we look at our phone screens ten thousand times per day; a reasonably large screen isn’t a convenience feature — it is your whole phone.

Another place where Apple went too small: storage. The iPhone SE starts at $429 — a great price! But that only gets you 64GB of storage, and that is not enough for all the apps we use and photos and 4K video we capture these days. The Pixel 6A’s base model costs a little more at $449, but it offers 128GB of storage. That’s not a huge amount, especially considering that the phone is designed to last for four or five years, but it’s what I would consider a bare minimum.

Related

https://www.theverge.com/23288604/apple-iphone-se-versus-google-pixel-6a-screen-camera-night-mode

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