New iPhone SE has a tiny 1,821 mAh battery, just 3 GB of RAM

Apple’s new iPhone SE has been listed on a Chinese carrier website with details about its specifications that can’t be found on the Apple website. According China Telecom, although the iPhone SE is packed with Apple’s state-of-the-art A13 SoC, it is mated to just 3 GB of RAM and a tiny 1,821 mAh. This is the same battery size as the now deprecated iPhone 8 and, in fact, Apple claims the iPhone SE delivers “about the same” battery life as the former model. The iPhone 8, however, only had 2 GB of RAM, making the new SE an upgrade in this regard.

As a point of comparison, the flagship iPhone 11 Pro features a 3,046 mAh battery and 4 GB of RAM. Admittedly, the iPhone 11 Pro also features a larger 5.8-inch OLED display and is also considerably more expensive than the US$399 4.7-inch iPhone SE starting at US$999 for the same 64 GB of storage. Realistically, it would have been too much to expect more RAM or even a larger battery on an iPhone priced as sharply as the new SE.

The new iPhone SE has been eagerly awaited by fans who have longed for a bang-for-your-buck replacement for the iPhone 5s-based 4-inch iPhone SE which launched in 2016. Given Apple’s iOS optimizations as well as the general efficiency and performance of the A13 SoC, it should prove to be an excellent device. It will certainly be a significant step up over the iPhone 8 which launched at US $699 and was powered by an A11 chipset.

[Updated to correct iPhone 8 RAM figure]