iPhone SE is the Tom's Guide Awards 2022's value champion

iPhone SE is the Tom's Guide Awards 2020's value champion

(Prototype credit: Tom's Guide/Apple)

The fact that an iPhone is the winner of our award for Best Value might audio surprising, every bit Apple products accept a reputation for existence on the pricey side. Simply with the new iPhone SE, Apple has redefined what customers should expect from a $400 phone.

The new iPhone SE inherits the premium glass and aluminium chassis of the iPhone 8, helping information technology immediately stand out among its plastic rivals. It too uses the same four.7-inch LCD display and a Touch ID abode button, which proved to be invaluable as Face ID became harder to employ in the era of face masks.

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Using the same A13 bionic chipset every bit the far more expensive iPhone eleven and iPhone 11 Pro, the iPhone SE provides more power than fifty-fifty Android flagships that cost three times every bit much.

Software is a central part of why the Apple experience draws in so many people, and considering of these impressive guts, you tin enjoy all of it unhindered on the iPhone SE. And because of its newer chip, you arguably get a better bargain with this than by buying an older flagship iPhone, since the SE will offer more power and will receive Apple tree's iOS updates for longer.

The SE continues to clobber the Android competition in photography likewise. Y'all might only become a single camera front and back, but over again Apple leverages its software power to corking reward. Portrait style works actually well, specially for a telephone without auxiliary time-of-flight or LiDAR sensors to help it out, and information technology can yet shoot 4K video similar any other big smartphone released this year.

Apple has created a phone that volition likely act equally a benchmark for years to come up, although we're great to see how it stacks up against Google's upcoming Pixel 4a. It's going to be very hard for even the all-time upcoming phones to answer the question, "can information technology exercise more than the iPhone SE for the coin?" The iPhone SE isn't a perfect product, but it'south the perfect iPhone for its price, and well worthy of the commencement-ever Tom's Guide Award for Best Value.

Richard is a Tom's Guide staff writer based in London, covering news, reviews and how-tos for phones, gaming, audio and whatever else people demand advice on. Following on from his MA in Magazine Journalism at the University of Sheffield, he'due south also written for WIRED U.One thousand., The Register and Creative Bloq. When not at work, he's likely thinking most how to brew the perfect cup of specialty coffee.