The iPhone SE is launching in India on the 8th of April. That’s just 10 days away! YAY!!
However, the excitement seems muted because of a big factor … THE PRICE. Like we’d mentioned in our coverage of the phone’s launch, the entry level variant (16GB) is going to cost … brace yourself … ₹39,000!!
The Price Goof-up by Apple
The high price broke a lot of hearts because most people, us included, had thought it was going to be around 30K. Even Apple had thought that that was a good enough price for the SE. In fact, their initial press release had ₹ 30,000 as the price on it.
Six hours later, Apple retracted their earlier notice and changed the price to ₹ 39,000. There’s no official confirmation for the price of 64GB variant, but we can safely assume it will be around 45-47K. We feel so cheated!
A Performance Beast
The big question on everyone’s mind is obviously this: Is ₹ 39,000 the right price for iPhone SE? Is it worth paying that much money for an entry level phone?
But here’s the thing – the iPhone SE is not an entry level phone. It is a far superior phone to the 5s in every possible way. Just look at the spec-sheet.
The SE is solid not just on paper, but also in performance. In a review written for the Wall Street journal by Geoffrey A. Fowler, the writer found the battery life of SE to be significantly higher than that of the mighty iPhone 6s!
“In my lab stress test, […] the SE lasted 10 hours—more than two hours longer than both the iPhone 6s and iPhone 5s, and nearly three hours longer than the Galaxy S7,” he writes.
Not a Budget Phone!
All things considered, here’s the truth. The price upset us because we were assuming that the SE would be a budget phone. And with recent developments all indicating the same, who can blame us?
Not three months ago, the price of 5s was reduced to just 21K. Suddenly, the possibility that Apple could give us a budget phone dawned on us and significantly impacted our price expectations from a smaller iPhone.
But, small though the SE may be, it is NOT a budget phone!
The iPhone SE is a fully loaded, state-of-the-art smartphone, with a smaller (read: more convenient) screen. It even out-performs both the iPhone 6 and 6s, making it the best smartphone in the market.
With that in mind, the price tag of ₹ 39,000 doesn’t come as quite a shock, does it?
The Lovable 4-inch Form Factor
For someone like me who doesn’t watch too many videos or play games on his phone, a 4-inch screen is perfect. And, I’m not alone in my love for a compact form factor in smartphones. There are others like me who share this sentiment. This makes SE a great choice for us – it’s small, affordable, has a good battery life, and packs a punch!
As a generation, we’ve gotten so caught up in the craze for huge screens that we’ve sacrificed convenience and ease of use! Can you really deny how cumbersome those gigantic phones are? They’re prone to falling, they don’t fit in our pockets, they even bend, for crying out loud!
A 4-inch screen, on the other hand, fits so beautifully in the palm of my hands. It’s sheer joy using smaller phones!
All in all, for the number of features the SE is offering, I don’t mind shelling out 39K for it. If you still think the price is too high, wait for a couple of months. The price is going to drop, after which, the phone might be available for around 35K.
So, on April 8th, I am bringing home my iPhone SE. What about you?
