The iPhone SE could be the most important Apple phone to come out this year

Apple's central event of the year is the launch of its flagship iPhones, typically in September. But every once in a while, the company spices things up with a slightly stripped down new iPhone.

This year, it's the iPhone SE, which Apple announced Wednesday. Not to be confused with the original iPhone SE, which was launched in 2016 and discontinued two years later, the new iPhone SE is a $399 device that looks similar to the iPhone 8, but with some important upgrades under the hood.

The iPhone SE. Not as modern as the other new iPhones, but in many ways the best value in Apple's current iPhone lineup. Credit: Apple

And it's this affordable phone with a familiar, somewhat outdated design, that could turn out to be Apple's killer product this year.

A very capable phone for a very decent price

You can find a detailed overview of the new iPhone SE's features over here. But let me list the most important bits.

It costs $399, which is $50 less than the phone it directly replaces, the iPhone 8 (which has been discontinued as of today).

Despite having the same form factor, with big bezels all around the LCD display, and the same old fingerprint scanner, the iPhone SE is a major upgrade over the iPhone 8. First of all, it has Apple's A13 Bionic processor — the same one you'll find in the company's iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max phones. It's an incredibly powerful processor that will likely be plenty fast for most users, even several years from now.

The storage options — 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB — are also exactly the same as on the iPhone 11, and upgrading to more storage costs the same: $50 and $150, respectively.

Apple is strongly positioning the iPhone SE as a gaming device, and since it has the company's new A13 Bionic processor, it should be able to cope with all modern mobile games. Credit: Apple SEE ALSO: Apple stops selling the iPhone 8 right after unveiling the new iPhone SE

At this point, the camera on the iPhone SE is still a big unknown. In terms of basic specs, it's the same as the iPhone XR's camera and the iPhone 11's main (wide) camera, but how it performs in real life remains to be seen. In its promotional materials, Apple is focusing on the camera's Portrait mode and Smart HDR capabilities, as well as 4K video, but there's no word on low-light performance. Obviously, there's no ultra-wide or telephoto lens either, and surely it won't be a match for the camera on the iPhone 11 — but it's also certainly an improvement over the iPhone 8's camera.

The battery, on paper, is nothing special. Apple officially says it lasts about as long as the iPhone 8's battery, with 13 hours of video playback and up to 40 hours of audio playback.

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We also don't know how much RAM memory the iPhone SE has, though Apple devices typically work well with far less RAM than Android phones.

Of course, no one expected the iPhone SE to have any breakthrough features or anything the most powerful iPhones don't have, such as 5G connectivity. And there's no getting around that the iPhone SE, with its 4.7-inch, LCD screen, looks dated compared to modern, nearly bezel-less phones. On the other hand, some users might prefer the fingerprint scanner over Face ID.

Real-world testing will be needed for the final verdict. But on paper, the iPhone SE sounds like a really good deal.

Affordable phone sales might surge due to the coronavirus outbreak

Over the past couple of years, Apple always had a fairly cheap phone in its official lineup. The iPhone SE is no exception. But 2020 isan exception.

As I write this, all of Apple's retail stores outside of China are closed due to the coronavirus outbreak, which looks particularly bad in parts of Europe as well as the U.S. Despite China's quick recovery from the epidemic, Apple's supply chain has been severely affected — and that could continue in unpredictable ways in the near future.

The company said its revenue for the March quarter will surely go down, but that was back in mid-February, when the coronavirus epidemic was mostly concentrated in China. Now, with more than 2 million people infected worldwide and more than 128,000 dead, the situation is far, far worse.

On the consumer side of things, things are equally grim. One needn't look any further than the jobless claims in the U.S., which have risen in an unprecedented way. Despite the pandemic, millions of people will still want to buy a new phone. But they'll likely be far more careful how they spend their money — and many simply won't be able to afford a very expensive flagship device. Apple did the right thing by pricing the iPhone 11 at $699 and positioning it as the main phone in the lineup, despite it being a sort of "lite" version of the iPhone 11 Pro. But even $699 sounds pretty steep when you're worried when your next paycheck will come, or you're out of work altogether.

The iPhone SE's camera is unknown, but Apple advertises it as "the best single-camera system in an iPhone". Credit: Apple

Again, let's look at what the iPhone SE has to offer. It has Apple's latest processor, making it future-proof for a couple of years. It has a decent amount of storage. It most likely has a very good camera. It's resistant to dust and water. And, most importantly, it's very affordable.

Uncertainty around iPhone 12 launch

Apple is potentially facing another issue: There are indications that, due to the coronavirus outbreak, the iPhone 12 might launch later than expected, possibly even as late as next year. That would make the iPhone SE literally the only new iPhone model to launch this year.

While the above sounds extreme — it would make 2020 the first year in which Apple didn't launch a new flagship phone, ever since the original iPhone came out in 2007 — it's not entirely far-fetched.

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The are conflicting reports about an iPhone 12 delay, and it's likely that Apple hasn't yet made a firm decision. A recent Bloomberg report says Apple expects to launch the iPhone 12 on time, or perhaps with just a slight delay of some models. But combine the supply chain constraints with potentially tepid demand for an expensive iPhone in the fall, and it might actually be prudent for Apple to wait a few months.

In any case, Apple will surely reshuffle its lineup and possibly modify the pricing of some models, such as the iPhone 11. But I bet the iPhone SE will still be the best deal in the lineup, thick bezels be damned.

2020 is going to be a very different year, perhaps the most challenging in the company's history. It's fairly certain Apple's sales and revenues figures will be a far cry from what the company planned just a few months ago. In such unusual conditions, the iPhone SE might turn out to be just the thing Apple needs to weather this crisis.