Apple should have followed Google’s Pixel 6A playbook with the iPhone SE

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

If you are looking for the best phone on the market, there is a great phone under $500. It uses the same chipset as the company's more expensive flagships, it has a very good 12-megapixel camera, and it has a long lifespan ahead of it with software support. I wish I could recommend it as freely as the current category winner: thePixel 6A. The phone is a better one than the SE should have been. What Apple should have done differently is listed here.

A 6.1-inch screen isn't perfect. In a world where faster refresh rates are becoming the norm, it is not good outdoors. It's good enough. The 60Hz screen of the iPhone SE isn't because it's too small for a phone in the future. If I think it's too small, then it's too small.

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The screen is where the tradeoffs were made to hit a lower price point. A small screen isn't something you can just change. The 6A is the only phone in the mid-range class that does wireless charging. Most people are able to live without that. A reasonably large screen isn't a convenience feature, it's your whole phone.

a too-small screen isn’t something you can just make do with

Storage was where Apple went too small. There is a great price for the iPhone SE. 64 gigabytes of storage isn't enough for all the apps we use and photos and 4K video we capture. The base model of the Pixel 6A costs a little more than the other models, but still has 128 gigabytes of storage. Considering that the phone is designed to last for four or five years, it is a bare minimum.

The iPhone SE that I tested for a few weeks is already at 43 gigabytes, just between the system files, apps, and my photo library. If you shoot a lot of 4K video you might be able to hit 64GB in a couple of years. Even at a great price, 64 gigabytes isn't enough space. The smart move was to start at a higher price with liveable storage.

The 6A and SE have cameras with OIS that are very good for the middle class. Night mode was excluded from the SE due to Apple's decision to put its camera behind the rest. The reason for this is that it helps Apple differentiate its higher-priced phones from this entry-level offering.

It sucks to say the least. Night mode is available on even $300 phones, and they don't use a flagship-level chip. The 6A uses an older camera module than the flagship and the Motion Mode feature is not enabled. You know what it includes. It's night mode. The essentials are what the SE needs, and night mode is one of them.

There are some great options under $500 between the Pixel 6A and the A 53 5G. Most people can get by without the features that those models exclude. Apple users don't have an equivalent option The next version of the SE might be a chance for Apple to borrow something from the other side of the world.