It's easy to dismiss the iPhone SE as old wine in a new bottle. Actually, scratch that. Considering it has internals similar to the iPhone 6s and a design that's identical to the iPhone 5s, the iPhone SE is technically old wine in an older bottle. And while it's true that the iPhone SE does not bring any pathbreaking technical innovations, it does represent a shift in strategy from the Cupertino-based company.
The iPhone 5c aside, Apple's affordable iPhone strategy has been to sell older models at a discount. Whenever a new iPhone old launched, its predecessor moved to the $99 ( roughly Rs. 6, 500) tier - when phones were still sold at $199 ( roughly Rs. 13, 100) on contract in the US - while the two-year old model became 'free'. The company followed a similar strategy in other markets, with the addition that while three-year old iPhones would stop typically selling in US and other mature markets, they would continue to be sold in places like India in a bid to reach even lower price points. For example, the iPhone 5s continues to be sold in India even now, and it was going for as low as Rs. 17, 000 recently without any exchange offers.
Given that background, the $399 ( roughly Rs. 26, 300) iPhone SE, which costs a full $150 ( roughly Rs. 9, 900) less than the cheapest new iPhone before this - the cringeworthy 8GB edition doesn't count - represents brand new territory for Apple. With the lower price point, Apple can reach more users, which is significant for the company, what with the talk ofiPhone sales flattening out. From the end users' perspective, it's an important step as well, as unlike previous 'cheaper' iPhones, they no longer have to settle for previous generation's hardware ( for the most part, as you will discover during the course of this review) .
