Here's our first look at a teardown of the new iPhone SE (2020)

By Joe Wituschek
last updated

Jiang Teardown Iphone Se
Jiang Teardown Iphone Se (Image credit: 温州艾奥科技)

What you need to know

  • We've gotten eyes on a teardown of the new iPhone SE.
  • The teardown reveals major similarities between the new SE and iPhone 8.
  • Some parts are event swappable between the two devices.

Update: iFixit has confirmed that the camera is interchangable between the iPhone 8 and the new iPhone SE.

As soon as the new iPhone SE was announced, the comparisons to the iPhone 8 were rampant. The new SE takes on the form factor of the iPhone 8 in almost every way, including the glass back, single camera, and screen size.

Now, it appears that the new iPhone SE might share a lot of similarities with the iPhone 8 under the hood. Reported by 9to5Mac, a YouTube Channel called Wenzhou Ao Technology posted a video of a teardown of the new iPhone SE. The channel specializes "in mobile phone repair and technical training".

During the teardown, the team places an opened iPhone SE next to an opened iPhone 8 and the two phones are nearly identical on the inside. The only obvious differences between the internals of the two devices is, within the iPhone SE, the presence of the new A13 Bionic processor and the new wide camera.

The similarities in the rest of the components is so striking that those performing the teardown were able to swap the display hardware with an exact fit between the iPhone 8 and iPhone SE. Other pieces of hardware, such as the camera module, was not swappable.

The new iPhone SE is launching tomorrow, so this will be first of many teardowns of Apple's low-cost iPhone. You can check out the full teardown in the video below.

Joe Wituschek
Joe Wituschek
Contributor

Joe Wituschek is a Contributor at iMore. With over ten years in the technology industry, one of them being at Apple, Joe now covers the company for the website. In addition to covering breaking news, Joe also writes editorials and reviews for a range of products. He fell in love with Apple products when he got an iPod nano for Christmas almost twenty years ago. Despite being considered a "heavy" user, he has always preferred the consumer-focused products like the MacBook Air, iPad mini, and iPhone 13 mini. He will fight to the death to keep a mini iPhone in the lineup. In his free time, Joe enjoys video games, movies, photography, running, and basically everything outdoors.

3 Comments
  • Joe, the camera is in fact able to be swapped. Ifixit has confirmed.
  • Thanks for letting me know! I've added an update to the top of this article to correct it.
  • No problem. Either way the se is a killer phone. For those who don't care about the " ohhh my phone looks the same as the 6" it's actually the best iPhone available now. Apple nailed it. Looks at Lori's photo of red from fraggle rock comparing the 11 pro and the 8. Look closely at the fsce and see the detail from the se compared to the 11 pro. New tech don't always mean better.