Consumers love the small iPhone SE in a big way

Apple iPhone SE

Despite the trend of smartphones with bigger screens, the diminutive iPhone SE wins the heart of consumers, according to the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

The conventionally small four-inch smartphone scored 87 out of 100 points to finish ahead of Samsung’s two-year-old flagship Galaxy S6 edge+ and Apple’s own iPhone 7 Plus.

iPhones and other flagship Galaxy devices dominated customer satisfaction scores, according to the published ACSI results. The two darkhorses are the LG G4 and Moto G.

ACSI Smartphone 2017

While the general trend for smartphones has been towards larger screens, there’s a segment of consumers who prefer smaller, less expensive phones such as the iPhone SE.

Apple unveiled the iPhone SE on 22 March 2016, inspired by the iPhone 5s. The device packs beefy internals including the Apple A9 chip (same as iPhone 6s/6s Plus), a 12MP shooter, NFC and up to 64GB of storage.

The pocket rocket blazes through AnTuTu with a score of 134,000, which shames even some top-of-the-line phones today.

Today, it’s one of the cheapest iPhones you can buy, alongside the “new” old iPhone 6 32GB. The iPhone SE 16GB retails at MYR1,699, while the iPhone 6 retails for MYR1,999.

Back to the ACSI results. The results are based on interviews with 36,194 customers in the United States, selected at random and contacted via email. This was a year-long campaign that happened between May 2016 and April 2017. The survey uses ACSI’s “cause-and-effect econometric model” which estimates customer satisfaction.

Apple has not introduced a second-generation iPhone SE although it has doubled the capacities of the current generation to 32GB and 128GB respectively. Analysts do not expect a refresh of the four-incher in the first half of 2017.

Source: Macrumors.com

 

 

Vernon
Vernon is the founder and chief editor of Vernonchan.com. A graphic designer by profession, he has a deep love for technology, cars, gadgets, food, and travel. He tweets too much and is also known as a caffeine bacterium ("life's too short for bad coffee"). Bleeds Blue (go Chelsea FC!) and considers BMW, Porsche, Alfa Romeo cars to have in the garage--hallmarks of a true petrolhead.