Teardown describes iPhone SE as a mix of prior components

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  X-rays. From left to right: the previous iPhone SE, the iPhone 8, and the 2020 iPhone SE. [credit: iFixit ]

As has become a regular custom, iFixit has done a visual teardown of the latest Apple hardware. In this case, it's the iPhone SE, Apple's lower-cost handset that appears to cram the latest-gen A13 processor into the chassis of 2017's iPhone 8.

That relationship was the focus of the teardown. iFixit went in seeking to confirm whether this really is the iPhone 8 with just a few changes, and it even opened up the two devices side by side. The answer appears to mostly be "yes." When first inspecting the SE via X-ray, iFixit found it to be close to identical inside to the iPhone 8 "apart from some very subtle antenna rework and moving a few chips around the logic board."

The two phones are so similar that many components, such as the main speaker or the Taptic Engine, are interchangeable between them. The iPhone SE also has exactly the same size battery as the 8, at 6.9Wh, but the battery connector is different, so the batteries are unfortunately not interchangeable.

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