It’s been more than two years since Apple released the original iPhone SE, a special edition phone with a 4 inch display for folks looking for a smaller, more affordable alternative to the company’s latest flagship phones.

Two years is an eternity in the smartphone world, so while Apple continues to sell the iPhone SE for $349 and up, its specs and design are starting to look dated.

This week a series of regulatory listings for previously unannounced Apple devices led to speculation that at least one of those new devices would be an iPhone SE 2. Now Japanese blog Mac Otakara is adding fuel to the flames with details allegedly obtained from “many iPhone case makers.”

iPhone SE (1st-gen)

According to the site, Apple is expected to launch an iPhone SE 2 in May and it’ll be about the same size as the first-gen model, but it’ll have a new design.

For one thing, the new phone is said to have no 3.5mm headphone jack, so you’ll either need to use wireless headphones, a 3.5mm to Lightning port dongle, or Lightning-compatible wired headphones.

The new model is also said to feature an Apple A10 Fusion processor (the same one used in the iPhone 7), a Touch ID fingerprint sensor (so it looks like the new phone won’t have a bezel-less, iPhone X-style display), and support for NFC and Apple Pay for mobile payments.

The phone may also support Qi wireless charging, although Mac Otakara seems less confident about that.

It’s probably best to take all of these details with a grain of salt. Apple hasn’t made an official announcement yet, and while the company may be releasing some details about upcoming products to case makers, it’s unclear why the company would reveal details about the new phone’s processor and other internal components.

Still, at a time when smartphone displays seem to get bigger every year, it’d be nice to see at least one company offering an option for folks who don’t think that bigger is always better.

Even Sony, which is one of the only Android phone makers still releasing “compact” versions of its devices, has inched up its screen size in recent years. The new Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact, for instance, has a 5 inch display… although since that screen has a 2:1 aspect ratio, it is still a little smaller than Google’s entry-level Pixel 2 which has a 5 inch, 16:9 display.

via MacRumors

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

4 replies on “Next-gen iPhone SE with 4 inch screen rumored to launch in May”

  1. Sounds like Apple is still going strong with minimal effort method by just reusing the same form factor (again), slap a newer chip but remove the audio jack (gotta keep driving the sales of overpriced accessoires).

  2. Great, this would be a better trend to follow than the stupid notches.
    Hope this will lead to more choice of reasonably small Android phones.

    1. I would love to break the correlation between small and missing features. I want all the features of a high end phone without the size. I don’t mind paying the same as for a larger phone but do want a decent camera, wireless charging and a back that isn’t made of a ridiculous material.

    2. Talk to phone users. If there was demand for small Android phones, the manufacturers wouldn’t be leaving all that money on the table.

Comments are closed.