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Apple iPhone SE availability & pricing: preorders Mar. 24 starting at $399, free on contract

Screen Shot 2016-03-21 at 1.38.33 PM

Following the official unveiling of Apple’s new 4-inch iPhone SE today, we now have details on pricing and availability for the device.

As expected, the device will be available 16GB and 64B capacities with pricing starting at $399 (and $499 for the 64GB model), which Apple notes is its most affordable iPhone yet. The device will also be available for free on the usual two-year agreement with carriers or $17/month on installment plans. 

The iPhone SE will be available to preorder starting March 24, and will begin shipping to customers March 31. The device will first launch in a handful of countries, but Apple plans to bring it to a total of 110 countries by the end of May. 

The first wave launch later this month will include Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, United Kingdom, United States. And later in early April, users in the following countries will get the device:

Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Guernsey, Jersey, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Kosovo, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Maldives, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and UAE.

Get all the details including specs and images of the new iPhone here. And hit up our news hub for all of our coverage from today’s ‘Let us loop you in’ event.

Apple Introduces iPhone SE — The Most Powerful Phone with a Four-inch Display

Featuring A9 Chip, Advanced 12-Megapixel iSight Camera & Apple Pay

CUPERTINO, California — March 21, 2016 — Apple® today introduced iPhone® SE, the most powerful phone with a four-inch display, in a beloved compact aluminum design that has been updated with matte-chamfered edges, a color-matched stainless steel Apple logo, and four gorgeous metallic finishes, including rose gold. iPhone SE offers exceptional performance with the same 64-bit A9 chip offered in iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus for blazing fast speeds, longer battery life, faster wireless, a 12-megapixel iSight® camera featuring Live Photos™ and 4K video, and Touch ID® with Apple Pay®.

“iPhone SE is an exciting new idea — we started with a beloved, iconic design and reinvented it from the inside out. The result is the most beautiful and powerful phone with a four-inch display in the world,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “iPhone SE is packed with a stunning four-inch Retina display, advanced 64-bit A9 chip with M9 motion co-processor, longer battery life, 12-megapixel iSight camera with True Tone flash, Live Photos, 4K video, faster LTE and Wi-Fi, and Touch ID with Apple Pay. Everyone who wants a smaller phone is going to love iPhone SE.”

The Most Powerful Phone with a Four-inch Display
iPhone SE takes a beloved iPhone design and reinvents it from the inside out, giving customers a powerful, full-featured iPhone no matter which model they choose. The 64-bit A9 chip, introduced in iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, offers iPhone SE customers two times faster CPU and three times faster GPU performance compared to iPhone 5s, all with gains in energy efficiency for improved battery life. M9, Apple’s next-generation motion coprocessor, is integrated into A9 allowing more features to run all the time at lower power, including “Hey Siri” without having to pick up your iPhone, and a range of fitness tracking capabilities like measuring your steps and distance. iPhone SE users can browse, download and stream content even faster with Wi-Fi up to three times and LTE up to 50 percent faster than iPhone 5s.* iPhone SE also includes more LTE bands for better worldwide roaming and supports Voice over LTE and Wi-Fi calling for high-quality wideband calls.

With an easy-to-use interface, amazing features, and security at its core, iOS 9 is the foundation of iPhone SE and brings powerful built-in apps like Messages, FaceTime®, Photos, Music and Maps to iPhone users. iOS 9 also brings more intelligence to iPhone SE with proactive assistance, powerful search, improved Siri® features, and a new Night Shift™ feature that uses your iPhone SE’s clock and geolocation to automatically adjust the colors in the display to the warmer end of the spectrum after dark and may even help you get a better night’s sleep.

All of these innovations are packed into a light and compact phone designed to fit comfortably in your hand, crafted from bead-blasted aluminum for a satin-like finish, refined matte-chamfered edges, a new color-matched stainless steel inset Apple logo and a brilliant four-inch Retina® display.

The World’s Most Popular Camera
iPhone SE has an advanced 12-megapixel iSight camera featuring Focus Pixel technology for fast focusing, an Apple-designed image signal processor, advanced noise reduction, third-generation local tone mapping and better face detection, all resulting in sharper, more detailed photos like the ones shot on iPhone 6s. With Live Photos on iPhone SE, customers can go beyond snapshots to capture moments in motion and relive unforgettable memories with sound. Live Photos are beautiful 12-megapixel photos that, with just a touch, reveal the moments immediately before and after the shot was taken, so users can enjoy a living memory rather than an instant frozen in time.

Additional camera advancements include:

  • The ability to shoot HD video with support for 4K at a resolution of 3840 x 2160. After capturing 4K video, customers can edit on a Mac®, PC or iPad®, and with the latest version of iMovie® on iPhone, can even edit two simultaneous streams of 4K on iPhone SE.
  • Retina Flash, which momentarily makes the display three times brighter with True Tone® lighting technology, for wonderfully bright selfies in low light with the FaceTime HD camera.
  • Features introduced with iPhone 6s, including up to 63-megapixel panorama photos, video capture up to 60fps for 1080p video and 240fps for slo-mo, time-lapse with video stabilization and cinematic video stabilization.

Pricing & Availability

  • iPhone SE will be available in space gray, silver, gold and rose gold metallic finishes in 16GB and 64GB models starting at $399 (US) from Apple’s retail stores, Apple.com, Apple Authorized Resellers and select carriers, or for 24 monthly payments starting at $17 (US) exclusively at Apple’s retail stores in the US.** As part of the newly-announced Trade Up with Installments program at Apple stores in the US, customers can also purchase iPhone SE for as low as $10/month for 24 months.***
  • Customers in Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, the UK, US Virgin Islands and the US will be able to order iPhone SE beginning Thursday, March 24, with availability beginning Thursday, March 31.
  • iPhone SE will be available in early April in Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Guernsey, Jersey, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Kosovo, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Maldives, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey and UAE.
  • Apple-designed accessories including leather cases in black and midnight blue will be available for $39 (US), and Lightning® Docks in color-matched metallic finishes are currently available from Apple’s retail stores and Apple.com for $49 (US).
  • Every customer who buys iPhone SE from Apple will be offered free Personal Setup, in-store or online, to help them customize their iPhone by setting up email, showing them new apps from the App Store® and more.
  • Anyone who wants to learn more about iPhone SE or iOS 9 can register for the free workshops offered at every Apple Store®.

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Comments

  1. applegetridofsimandjack - 8 years ago

    I just broke my Macbook by throwing money at it while watching the Apple Event. Should’ve used bills inqtead of coins…

  2. jmiko2015 - 8 years ago

    Apple just gave me a reason to stay with iPhone

  3. ag80911 - 8 years ago

    So the only thing the SE doesn’t have is 3D-touch which it is hardly a lost – at 399 is great price – this model will do very well in China/India
    While everyone would prefer the ipad prod to start at 499 – this is an even more advance model than the 12.9 model.

  4. Brett O'Donnell - 8 years ago

    Wow, I must admit I was pretty sceptical about the rumours of a $400 starting price point, so I’m pretty surprised that that part is true!

    That said it seems a little odd that the iPhone SE is also significantly cheaper than the iPhone 6, despite being superior to it in every way except screen size.

    • iSRS - 8 years ago

      Well, the 6 will disappear in 6 months. It will be iPhone SE ($400/$500)/iPhone 6s ($550/$650)/iPhone 7 ($650/$750/$850)

      throw the plus models in for the 6s/7 @ $100+

      Looks like this will also fit the current 5/5s cases. Which is good. My kids are due for upgrades (a 4s and a 5). The 4s I may get her this SE, and she can take all the cases from my daughter with the 5. My daughter on a 5 is saving for a 6s. She should be there by the time August price drops on the 6s start to occur.

      • Brett O'Donnell - 8 years ago

        Yes, the iPhone line-up will make more sense in the fall if they go that route and I agree, it looks like they are setting it up to drop the 6 & 6 Plus in the fall when the 7 comes out.

        It’s great that consumers finally have an entry level iPhone option that doesn’t have 2+ year old hardware and I think this will drive upgrades for both 4″ iPhone lovers and price concious consumers alike.

  5. Greg Kaplan (@kaplag) - 8 years ago

    who the hell is buying that iphone 6 shaped turd in the middle???

    Also I’m so happy over the fact I’ve been right about it not being called anything to do with the iphone 6 or c even when rumors thought it might look like that.

    • iSRS - 8 years ago

      Hahaha! I have that question on iPads now. The iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 4 have the same specs and price.

  6. Emm Bee - 8 years ago

    How is it free on contract if the carriers killed contracts?

    • just-a-random-dude - 8 years ago

      They’ve replaced the two year contracts with installment plans, almost all carriers have this now, they will give you an iPhone with zero down payment and you can pay 10-30 a month for the next two years.

  7. AeronPeryton - 8 years ago

    I was really starting to regret my 6S until they showed that there is no 128GB model. I have already been in multiple situations where it was a good thing I had the space. Since I’m not buying a “tick” model (iPhone 7), I will wait and see if the SE gets refreshed next year. If it does, I might be able to convince myself to fall back to a 4″ screen and suffer whatever hardware reductions come with it (which might actually be none, if Apple treats it like the other iPhones).

  8. Tom (@TommieWho) - 8 years ago

    FINALLY! I’ve been holding out upgrading my 5S hoping Apple would come to its senses and re-release the 4″ iPhone. Today my wish came true. The smaller iPad Pro is also appealing. Not everyone wants everything bigger, glad Apple is finally realizing that.

  9. Kevin Labranche - 8 years ago

    Great to see the company coming back to smaller phones, but now the iPhone 6S feels even more overpriced. I love the 6S, but so much the price tag. I will most likely upgrade to this SPECed Up iPhone 5S in the near future as I hate bigger phones even if my hand are big enough and I do hope they keep a line like that.

  10. RP - 8 years ago

    This is a no-brainier upgrade. I can see this bring in A LOT of former Android and first time smart phone customers.
    No one can go wrong with either option, but the 64g is an awesome deal.

  11. icrew - 8 years ago

    Looking at http://www.apple.com/iphone-se/specs/, there are two models of the iPhoneSE: Model A1662 and Model A1723. Anyone know how that’s breaking down in terms of which carriers get which models, and how that all relates to the “SIM-free” version?

    I ask because my wife would like to get an SE now, but we’re hoping to switch from AT&T to Verizon once my iPhone 6 contract expires in September. I’m hoping that she might just be able to buy the SIM-free SE now, use it with her existing AT&T SIM (from her 5S), then swap her carrier over to Verizon when I get a 7+ this fall.

    Any insight would be most appreciated!

  12. Nick Peters - 8 years ago

    $399 US, $679 Australia. Was ready to purchase, not now!

  13. robertsm76 - 8 years ago

    Do any American Companies still use 2 year contracts? Thought no company still had two year contracts so what’s Apple referring to?

    • iSRS - 8 years ago

      Verizon does not offer contracts to new customers but existing customers can still buy that way.

  14. Mark K Simpson - 8 years ago

    Anyone heard definitively on the RAM size yet? It seems they are keeping that info close to the vest. I hope it is 2 Gig across the board or at least they add the 2 Gig to the 64 option.

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.