Apple is expected to launch the iPhone 16 lineup at its “Glowtime” event on September 9, and while we don’t know the prices yet, they’re already too expensive for many people. The iPhone SE is a great deal for its price, and next year’s iPhone SE looks to be an even more attractive choice.
On Tuesday, Nikkei reported that Apple plans to roll out all iPhones in Apple’s lineup next year with OLED displays. That includes the iPhone SE, which is rumored to get an upgrade in spring 2025. The current model, coming in 2022 (it’s the third generation, though Apple isn’t calling it the iPhone SE 3), has the same LCD display as the 2020 model — Apple is billing it as a Retina HD display. The move to OLED will bring better color quality and contrast to the iPhone SE. Apple already uses OLEDs in its high-end phones, both the non-Pro and Pro models.
Nikki doesn’t specify whether the change will impact the iPhone SE’s price, but given that LCD is an older technology that’s being phased out or used in budget phones by many phone makers, the new display tech likely won’t have much of an impact on the price. The current iPhone SE 3 with 64GB of storage costs $429; we could see Apple increase the base storage configuration to 128GB. Apple will likely offer a 128GB iPhone for under $500.
Other changes to the iPhone SE 4 include an increase in RAM to 8GB to accommodate Apple Intelligence, and it could feature Face ID instead of Touch ID. For more on what the iPhone SE 4 could look like when it releases next spring, check out our iPhone SE 4 superguide.
