The iPhone SE is an apology to big-phone haters everywhere

The thing about the iPhone SE is that there’s basically nothing that’s new about it. It’s a four-year-old phone design filled with six-month-old parts, and it’s the rare product that amounts to exactly the sum of its parts. You could almost write a review of it without laying hands on it.

So we’ll spend a little time with the tech inside, but this review is going to focus primarily on the Big Questions: Who should buy this? Why should they buy it? Who shouldn’t buy it? And where does it fit into Apple’s Grand Plan for the iPhone?

The iPhone SE looks almost 100 percent identical to the iPhone 5S, which didn’t change much about the iPhone 5 design from 2012. It’s familiar; holding and using the SE is exactly like holding and using a 5S or a 5. There’s a little “SE” on the back, the regulatory logos have been tucked away inside the software, and there’s now a rose gold color option. Other than those, there are only a couple of giveaways.