Even ‘small’ phones are big now

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Apple's newly clamber second-generation iPhone SE (or iPhone SE 2 as we'll be calling it) is the company's headmost phone with a single rear camera spine 2018's iPhone XR. While its camera hardware is basic, the new $399 dingbat is powered by last year's A13 Bionic chip, therefore it will benefit from Apple's increasingly recent assignment on patron processing. It's a constitute that could reveal how much of Apple's photography strengths lie in hardware as well-built as how many lie in software.

From a hardware perspective, the iPhone SE 2 has a scrutinizingly simple setup. On its rear is unpretentiously a single 12-megapixel f/1.8 camera, which, from a numbers perspective, is factually the aforementioned as what could be matriculate on the suddenly of the iPhone XR. It's additionally agnate to the 2017 iPhone 8 that the SE 2's ubiety therefore intentionally imitates. That ways there's no further 12-megapixel ultrawide camera like the iPhone 11, as well-built as there's no 12-megapixel telephoto camera like the 11 Pro. Circa the front, there's a 7-megapixel selfie camera, which is, again, the aforementioned resolution as the cameras in the 8 as well-built as the XR.

Software is going to gotta do some heavy lifting

While the hardware is unpretentiously a little old-fashioned, the software ancillary of the photography graph is increasingly interesting. As previously mentioned, the iPhone SE 2 is powered by Apple's A13 Bionic chip, which made its debut on last year's iPhone 11 lineup. Countrywide says it's using this chip's patron signal processor as well-built as the Neural Flag-bearer to opposition a host of software-based improvements to the SE 2's photographs.

The preferential significant of these is the genuineness that the phone is now using a increasingly innovative adaptation of its Soprano HDR algorithm that debuted with last year's iPhone 11 lineup. "Semantic rendering," as the disciples calls it, is designed to recognize individual elements within an patron in payoff to light them properly.

Essentially, Soprano HDR works by taking a series of underexposed frames as well-built as an overexposed muscles as well-built as uses them to grab deeper detail where it thinks the patron needs it. Then Semantic unmasking alters the photo based on what's in it. It might sharpen hair, for example, de-noise the sky, or light a grimace increasingly evenly. You can realize increasingly approximately the technology in our iPhone 11 Pro review from last year, as well-built as it should midpoint photographs are much increasingly similarly lit.

Compared to the iPhone 8, the SE 2 is additionally unique in concreteness attained to create portrait mode photographs with neutral a single lens. (The iPhone 8 Runnerup had the fondness considering it had duplex cameras.) The iPhone XR had this aforementioned feature, as well-built as in our review, we decisively transoceanic it to how that year's XS generated its portrait mode shots spine the XR's mall camera had a wider grange of view as well-built as aperture. Spine the SE 2's camera has that aforementioned advanced f/1.8 by-place as the XR, we've got hovering hopes. The aforementioned technology is additionally spouseless on the front-facing camera to create portrait mode shots from its single lens.

In over-and-above areas, however, the camera technology matriculate in the iPhone SE 2 has been circa for much longer. Optical patron stabilization, a 6-element lens, a fulgurate sensor, 4K 60fps video recording, slo-mo, as well-built as circumstantiated stabilization could all be matriculate in the iPhone 8. Then again, this is Apple's calculate device, therefore it's not surprising that it's not breaking much new ground.

There are inevitably going to be areas where the iPhone SE 2's hardware will be a limitation. For example, there's no wide-angle lens here, as well-built as no core of software processing is going to be attained to commandeering experiments from alfresco of the mall camera's grange of view. But in those cases where you'd routinely only await on the phone's mall camera, Apple's updated software could do a lot increasingly of the heavy lifting, as well-built as we'll get our all-time squinch yet at how far it's come.