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On Wednesday, Apple announced the release of its latest iPhone, the Phone SE. It happens to be both its cheapest phone yet and perhaps the most practical for soon to be travelers everywhere. Here’s everything you need to know — and everything we love — about the new, more compact, and sensible iPhone SE.

Image zoom Courtesy of Apple

It's smaller

The new iPhone SE is nearly the same size as the iPhone 8 and comes with a 4.7-inch Retina HD display that Apple says comes with “True Tone [that] adjusts the white balance to match the ambient light for a more natural, paper-like viewing experience.” Though it’s smaller, the new phone still comes with many of the same internal components as Apple’s second newest phone, the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro.

The iPhone SE has nearly the same photo power of the 11

The more compact iPhone SE comes with improved camera quality over the iPhone 8 and includes both HDR and portrait mode.

“iPhone SE features the industry-leading performance of A13 Bionic that enables great battery life, takes stunning Portrait mode and Smart HDR photos, [and] shoots amazing videos with stereo audio,” Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said in a statement. The improved HDR allows for better clarity in photos over older models, while the improved portrait mode offers improved blurring around a subject.

As for video, the iPhone SE comes with 4K video for ultra-rich quality, as well as smoother videos shot at 60 frames per second. The phone also comes with stereo recording for video, as well as a front-facing camera with stabilized video.

Super fast processing

As Apple noted in its release, the new iPhone SE is powered by the A13 Bionic, the fastest chip in any smartphone, to help it run multiple apps and tasks at once. This becomes rather important for travelers when out in the middle nowhere, having to pull up Google Maps, Instagram, FaceTime, and more all within seconds.

As Apple noted in its release, the A13 Bionic was built with a “focus on machine learning, with a dedicated 8-core Neural Engine capable of 5 trillion operations per second, two Machine Learning Accelerators on the CPU and a new Machine Learning Controller to balance performance and efficiency. Together, A13 Bionic and iOS 13 enable new intelligent apps that make use of machine learning and Core ML.” All this means is that it’s super fast and super smart.

The iPhone SE also comes with 64 GB of storage on the base model, which is just enough to store your current vacation photos before moving them to the cloud. However, for anyone who gets a little snap happy, Apple is also offering 128 GB of storage for $449, as well as a 256 GB option which costs $549.

Image zoom Courtesy of Apple

It can withstand the elements

The new iPhone is built to last, and that means through some of the harshest elements on earth. As Apple noted, it is designed to be water- and dust-resistant “with an IP67 rating for water resistance up to 1 meter for 30 minutes” thanks to its aerospace-grade aluminum and durable glass design.

And it looks good doing it too as the new iPhone SE comes in three colors: black, white, and (PRODUCT)RED.

It's cheaper