
Apple resumes selling iPhone SE at lower $249 price on its clearance store - whitepoplar
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MP7X2LL/A/iphone-se-128gb-space-gray-unlocked
======
stanmancan
The only thing that could get me to upgrade from my iPhone 7 would be a
premium version of the iPhone SE. I want a smaller phone, not a bigger one,
but I want updated specs and possibly an OLED screen.

~~~
lostlogin
Not only is this something I’d love, it’s also a comment that gets a lot of
upvotes on Hackers News every time it’s made. Do HN readers have an unusual
like for ‘small’ phones or is it just an unserved market?

~~~
wodenokoto
Since no one here is rushing to get the small xperia phones I'm guessing it is
one of those things people want, but at the same time is the first feature
they are willing to give up.

another case in point: parent only wants to change to smaller phone if all
other specs are also improved.

~~~
jsgo
I bought the iPhone X because it was almost iPhone 8 Plus at iPhone 8 size.
But if there were a iPhone SE2 that followed the “all screen design” and was
almost an iPhone 8 in an iPhone 5s body? Sign me up.

I don’t think Xperia matters much here is it is sacrificing iOS and also to a
lesser degree, an Android manufacturer that isn’t known for great software on
that end.

~~~
paulie_a
I hate all screen design I also want a thicker phone. I want to be able to
actually hold the damn thing. I get a case because those are now design flaws.

~~~
jsgo
that's fair. I'm not saying get rid of other designs, just saying there is
interest in smaller devices. I personally don't have an issue holding mine
with or without a case, though I had a Samsung Galaxy Edge so I became
accustomed to not resting too much on the front. I could see where someone who
isn't accustomed to it or, fair enough, has no interest in becoming accustomed
to that disliking it and that's fine. I respect that.

~~~
paulie_a
I hated the Galaxy edge because the edge menu was pretty pointless. And it
came with Samsung shitware.

------
dklsafhjskljfl
The upcoming sony xz4 compact may be the only small phone with premium
components, and it's extremely frustrating. It's not even /that/ small.

You can find small phones but they have terrible cameras, sub HD resolutions,
and bargain basement SOCs.

Is the demand for a premium (or even mid range) small phone really that low?

~~~
twblalock
Yes, the demand really is that low. People who want a smaller phone in 2019
are a very small yet very vocal minority.

If there was a large untapped market for smaller phones, then the limited
number of small phones on the market would be selling a lot better than they
actually are. Somebody would notice and start making more of them.

Like phones with physical keyboards, phones with small screens have become a
niche product and they will probably disappear in the next few years.

~~~
kbrackbill
Do you have any insight as to why?

I'm part of that minority and small phones seem better in so many ways. My
hands are relatively big I think, but even with "small" phones now I can
barely use them with one hand. The smaller screen uses less battery. Larger
phones don't fit in pockets very well and result in a spot that wears through
on my jeans where the corner of the phone pokes out from my pocket.

I'm really struggling to think of advantages to larger phones. I guess if you
always carry around a purse/bag then the size doesn't matter as much, and if
you had smaller hands then maybe one-handed use is just impossible regardless
of the size. But what's the use case? It's not like a real computer where a
larger screen means you can multitask better, since you can barely multitask
anyway.

~~~
linuxftw
Clothing should have a certain amount of utility, IMO. Perhaps it's the jeans
that need to be updated.

I'm pretty happy with the size of my phone currently, not sure it qualifies as
small or large. Largest phone I had was for work, Iphone 6+, that thing was
unwieldy, essentially a tablet. I wouldn't own one that big personally.

~~~
Kaibeezy
Cargo pants, right? The modern variant is called “tactical”, and can be found
with flat sides rather than bulky pouches. In a dark color the pockets are
almost invisible.

Vertx Legacy are my favorite. The thigh pocket has an inner magazine pocket
that holds a phone perfectly. Or a backup battery. If you carry two phones, it
keeps them from clunking into each other.

[https://vertx.com/mens-legacy-pants](https://vertx.com/mens-legacy-pants)

~~~
linuxftw
flat side cargo pants, that's pretty neat, I hadn't seen those.

------
davej
I use iPhone SE as my daily driver because of the form factor. Give me a
premium SE with thinner bezels and I would probably pay close to iPhone X
prices. There are quite a few of us out there.

~~~
h1d
Don't try to motivate Apple to make everything more expensive as it will fail
them.

------
maz1b
I don't understand why Apple can't update the SE in its current design
iteration. Obviously if they can release a redesigned iPhone in a small form
factor, I'd hop on it.

I want a small one handed device that has the latest specs and TouchID, and a
headphone jack.

~~~
FreakyT
Back when I bought my SE, it was _cheaper_ than getting a 6, despite having
better specs. I also check for deals online a lot, and the SE was almost
_constantly_ being discounted. I think it's not unreasonable, based on these,
to assume that it never really sold particularly well.

Based on that, I'd say that they stopped making the SE simply because only a
very small, specific slice of the market actually wants to purchase such a
device, and it's not worth keeping a unique product in their portfolio if the
sales numbers just aren't there.

~~~
brohoolio
The 5s/SE is less than 5% of mobile traffic at our site.

~~~
sjwright
Five percent of iPhones is still an enormous number when Apple sells
~200,000,000 iPhones per year. (And that's despite Apple not catering for this
market for the past three product cycles. Imagine if they did!)

------
reaperducer
I guess it's time for all those HN people who were moaning about iPhones being
too big/expensive/lacking in home buttons/etc... to put their money where
their mouths are.

It's a 2016 model, so it should remain supported until at least 2021. Not far
off, but still better than some (many?) Android phones.

I'm not sure how $299/128GB compares to Android products, but it's cheaper
than its previous $449 price.

I'd pick one up myself, except that I have a 5 that keeps on chugging along.

~~~
dklsafhjskljfl
$250/32 is barely competitive. however, you cannot buy an android phone this
small that isn't complete garbage

~~~
droithomme
$250 isn't a good price. The SE/32 was advertised and sold for $79 at WalMart
on Black Friday 2018 and was advertised and sold for $99 at WalMart on Black
Friday 2017. Both times no-contract.

~~~
dklsafhjskljfl
Those are door buster sales.

Anyways, I looked it up - they were also carrier locked to walmart mobile, a
mvno in which the price of the phone is subsidized.

~~~
droithomme
> Those are door buster sales.

Not correct at all and why do you have to make a fake new account to post your
false troll?

WalMart for several years has been maintaining sufficient stock for advertised
black friday items. They had sufficient stock for everyone that wanted one,
and they _also_ were selling it online as well on Black Friday with free
shipping.

I bought FOUR and gave them to friends and family. I use mine as a camera, mp3
player, and portable web browser and have never paid an additional cent for
it.

~~~
dklsafhjskljfl
I googled it. Maybe the results were misleading.

So, you're saying that the phone you bought you didn't use as a phone?
Hmmm....

Also, this isn't a fake account. I don't think anything I've posted was
intended to troll.

------
hkmurakami
Wish this came before I refreshed to one of their newest models. The iPhone 5
form factor is still my favorite.

~~~
porphyrogene
I bought a brand new SE a few months ago for $180. It was from a third party
but Apple verified the serial as original and unused. It wasn't availability
or pricing that kept them from anyone who wanted one, it was the lack of name-
brand-new-thing validation.

~~~
w-ll
Mind sharing were you ordered it from?

~~~
porphyrogene
It was an Amazon third-party seller.

------
40acres
Hardware lends itself to a vertical business model, Apple has clearly been the
best example but even video game console manufacturers write their own games.

With AI assistants seemingly the 'next big thing', which lends itself to a
more horizontal model, will Apple change gears to accommodate? Their services
division has been growing rapidly.

Apple could leverage it's brand to create an awesome cell phone at a very
cheap price. Not a lot of low income people are buying the the XR, my sister
has had to replace her iPhone for at least six months but as a college student
she's not going to spend a grand on a phone. Maybe it's time for Apple to dial
down the luxury brand pricing and make a phone for the common man?

~~~
madeofpalk
> With AI assistants seemingly the 'next big thing'

Are 'AI Assistants' the 'next big thing' in the same way that 'chatbots' where
the 'next big thing' in 2015?

To me, it just seems that the market is mostly propped up by Medium articles
and vendors trying to force the next big thing to make payday.

------
JBReefer
Why does everyone love this phone so much? Clue me in?

~~~
jdietrich
The iPhone SE was the last stand of a dead philosophy - the one-handed phone.

To Steve Jobs, it was absolutely essential that all of the core functions of
the iPhone could be performed with one hand. That requirement dictated large
parts of the iPhone's design and the UX principles of iOS. One-handed
operation formed a key part of the marketing of the iPhone 5.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O99m7lebirE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O99m7lebirE)

The one-handed phone represents the phone as a means to an end rather than an
end itself. You make a quick call to your partner while holding the baby, you
check your shopping list while pushing a grocery cart, you send a text while
holding a beer. The one-handed phone does a job, then gets out of your way.
It's never the total focus of your attention.

Bigger phones are obviously better for intensive use. If you sit an iPhone SE
and an iPhone X side-by-side, the iPhone 5 seems comically tiny. It's lousy
for web browsing, it's lousy for reading e-books, it's lousy for watching
movies. It seems like a relic from a different age. That's because it is -
it's a relic from an age when a smartphone was a smart phone, rather than a
pocket computer. Rightly or wrongly, there's no turning back from here.

~~~
barbs
I recently bought an iPhone SE and you've articulated why I bought it far
better than I could. Well done!

I know a simple upvote would suffice but just wanted to tell you that, on my
iPhone SE, of course :)

~~~
aylmao
+1, this comment is spot on. I'd also add, it feels both more useful yet not
utilitarian.

When I first saw the iPhone 6 the design struck me as lousy. It feels great in
the hand and the hardware is top-notch, but it definitely felt like a phone
they could build easily, while knowing you're most likely going to put a case
on it-- quite utilitarian. On the other hand, after the iPhone 4 I had no idea
how Apple would outdo its hardware design, but the iPhone 5 with its chamfered
edges and unibody enclosure is, IMO one of if not the best Apple ever had. I'm
happy that design was inherited in the SE.

In the sense of usability though, in spite of the utilitarian design new
iPhones have lost both the headphone jack and TouchID! Moreover, they're too
big to use with one hand. In that sense, the SE still feels more "useful", and
it's why I keep mine around.

------
cpcallen
Aaand... they're gone.

~~~
zach43
theyre still available in other colors here:

[https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/clearance](https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/clearance)

i just ordered one, finally got the phone ive wanted!

~~~
city41
This will be my third gold Apple device. I don't mind the color but the world
in general seems to.

I'm excited, once my iPhone 6 kicks the bucket, I'll have a great backup
ready.

~~~
sjwright
It's not fair to call it a mere backup, it's an upgrade to the iPhone 6 in
every respect other than screen size. The SE is effectively a 6S logic board
shoved into the case of an 5S.

------
eschneider
My iPhone 4S is perfectly sized for me and seems indestructible but the
battery has been gradually getting worse and worse. I'd hoped that the SE form
factor would get an update with the last set of model refreshes and was sadly
disappointed when it was discontinued.

When I saw this post, I immediately ordered one.

------
starpilot
Got a new one in November when the battery replacement for my old one failed
at the Apple store. They just unboxed a new iPhone SE in front of me and I was
amazed they still had any left.

------
shykes
Too late for me, I already bought 3 of them at full price... I’m estimating
that’s the reserve I need to hold out until Apple changes their mind and bring
back this form factor.

------
yitchelle
Damn. Not available in Germany. I was going to grab two for my two kids. If
Apple price them to below 100$ price point, it would kill the low to mid level
phone market.

~~~
martin_a
Was looking for that, too. Seems like they just removed the SE from the German
store at all. Or did I look at the wrong place? :-D

------
burlesona
Like many others I wish they’d release one with fresh hardware. I’d buy one
immediately, for my wife, who hates all the phones since the 5s because she
can’t hold them well. There’s this whole ridiculous pop-socket thing she uses
so that she can hold an iPhone 7 without dropping it, she swears it’s the only
thing that makes it usable for her.

Wish this market was bigger since apparently there’s not enough demand.

~~~
tass
Those awkward things attached to the back? I guess she doesn’t have pockets
since it makes them a really awkward shape - such a weird usability trade off
yet many people seem to have them.

I hope this is a test of demand - I ordered one since my existing one is
falling apart after some big drops but I didn’t want something bigger.

I tried an LG v30 and it always felt like I was about to drop it (though the
audio sounds really nice!) I can’t find any phone besides the SE that I’d
rather buy even without price as a factor.

------
pfalke
Note that it’s a clearance sale within ‘certified refurbished’, so these are
not entirely new devices.

~~~
eugeniub
These look to be new. Refurbished listings clearly indicate that, for example,
the listing "Refurbished iPhone 7 128GB - Black (Unlocked)" [1], and it goes
on to describe details about what a refurbished phone from Apple entails — all
things that are missing from the iPhone SE page. My guess is Apple doesn't
normally sell new "clearance" products, so they decided to just add it to the
existing discount/refurbished store.

[1]: [https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FN8L2/Refurbished-
iPhone-...](https://www.apple.com/shop/product/FN8L2/Refurbished-
iPhone-7-128GB-Black)

------
EvanAnderson
I bought two to replace the iPhone 4 and 4S that my wife and I use. Does
anybody know if there is still a reasonable source for a battery case for this
model? (I'd like to prolong the life of the internal battery.) Everything I'm
seeing on Amazon is scaring the heck out of me-- tales of melting cases, dead
batteries after a month, etc. I assume that I've just come to the party too
late.

------
maxdo
That’s so wrong... you can have a borderless formfactor form redmi(sub brand
of xiaomi) for 160 usd , and 5 y.o. Design for much $200+. I’m ok that Apple
price is higher, but it should be decent. What Apple is doing is selling
expensive outdated tech and formfactors.

------
jostmey
I have an iPhone SE and I've been extremely disappointed in its quality. After
the warranty expired, the touch screen started giving out, a microphone
stopped working, and the LED backlight started fading. I don't recommend the
phone

~~~
sjwright
I know five people with iPhone SE devices (I recommend them to older family
members who aren't phone addicts and to anyone who baulks at the cost of a new
phone) and all of them are still working perfectly. I do recommend the phone.

Given the hundreds of millions of iPhones Apple sells, there inevitably going
to be some lemons.

------
TheSaaSGuy
I am holding on to my SE and has been buying phones in the private market to
keep a new SE available. I like the form factor size, but would be very keen
to get an update processor .

------
giancarlostoro
I wonder if they're going to discontinue production of them once they sell
them all out? It seems to already be sold out for some of the models
(depending on color chosen).

------
8bitsrule
Hmmm. From the comments, looks like it's time for modular phones. That way,
everyone could assemble what they need, and change when they need.

Whole new ecosystem follows.

------
saagarjha
This is cheap enough that I might consider buying one just to replace my
current SE with a phone that’s less beat up. Is Apple still making any money
at this price?

------
h1d
Now that they failed to make everything more expensive for no good reason,
they bring back old models like Mac mini, iPad mini and now iPhone SE. Truly
not a revolutionizing company anymore but just stares at the balance sheet to
figure out what to do next.

Apple was 5 years ahead of everyone while Jobs was around and now struggling
to just stay relevant. I still like most of Apple products and use them daily
but they should do better.

------
mvanbaak
Thank you!!!! Going to grab at least one!

------
DevKoala
I am an SE fan. I used mine until the XS was released. I wish the XS was just
a tad smaller.

------
cimmanom
Did they maybe finally realize that people love the phone for its size, not
its price?

------
drb91
It says “out of stock”, dammit.

------
aboutruby
If I knew about it I would have bought one and told everyone I know to buy
one.

------
lowlevel
Apparently you need to upgrade to ios11 to view the site. NO DEAL.

------
torgian
It’s too bad they won’t make a new one

------
KiDD
Of course it is sold out by now

------
moltar
Only US

------
cuban-frisbee
New hope for a refesh?

------
intopieces
The 128GB would make a great iPod. You can go to T-Mobile and get a data-only,
$20/month "DHH" plan that includes audio streaming zero-rated, meaning it
doesn't take up any of your data to stream Apple Music / Spotify etc.

------
holstvoogd
aaaand its gone (at least online)

------
retrac98
Needs a spec bump.

~~~
saagarjha
…there are four other iPhones with better specs that you can buy.

~~~
srgpqt
For many, those four are one notch too large.

------
anoother
Seems like it's $299 now...

~~~
ohnope
$ 249 / 32GB

$ 299 / 128GB

------
imjustsaying
a literal advertisement

~~~
reaperducer
Not really. The iPhone SE has been in a recurring topic here because it suits
the needs of a certain market segment, and there wasn't a suitable equivalent
after it went away.

~~~
imjustsaying
Yes really. It's a direct link to the actual product landing page to buy the
product, complete with price information in the HN headline to draw the
customer in.

------
tomcam
Thanks. Snatched up one of those bad boys up immediately.

------
nicebill8
They really are getting desperate.

------
albertgoeswoof
Beautiful design- but it’s effectively dead on arrival due to iOS being too
bloated for dated hardware, and it’s only going to get slower as newer iPhones
get faster.

~~~
knolan
It has the internals of a 6s. Most folks I know with either are happy with iOS
12.

