iPhone SE 4 tipped to be a controversial but powerful upgrade that lands in early 2025

The end of small screens and home buttons?

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TheiPhone SE 4rumors went quiet for a while, but they’ve ramped again in a big way – with fresh speculation suggesting thatApple’siPhone SE 3successor could make some major changes when it lands early next year.

This latest leak from the largely reliableIce Universe on Weibo(viaMacRumors) could be interpreted as good or bad news, depending on what you want from a future iPhone SE model. It claims that the iPhone SE 4 will be the first in the series to include anOLEDscreen and that it will also get a “significant increase in size.”

The leak’s rumored specs table for the SE 4 suggests it’ll have a 6.06-inch screen, quite a leap from the 4.7-inch screen on the current iPhone SE. That would effectively push it intoiPhone 16territory, with the rumors suggesting it’ll similarly pack an A18 chip.

These rumors back up some similar rumors we saw just a few days ago fromFixed Focus Digitalon Weibo, which claimed that Apple’s most affordable model could use thesame rear-chassis manufacturing process as the iPhone 16. That could mean the phone is getting the same vertical dual-lens camera setup as Apple’s flagship phone for 2024.

Despite the similarities, what will almost certainly separate those two phones are their launch dates. It’d be a huge surprise if the iPhone 16 doesn’t land in September, but this latest iPhone SE 4 leak suggests that the model will arrive later between March and May 2025.

That would largely fit the series' previous launches, with the iPhone SE 3 landing in March 2022 and the iPhone SE 2 arriving in April 2020. Naturally, the iPhone SE 4 is expected to get a price bump – from $429 to somewhere between $499-$549, according to this latest leak – but perhaps not as significant an increase as you might imagine considering the upgrades.

A change for the SE series?

The iPhone SE series has largely been defined by its lower price tags and smaller screens, so if the rumors are true, this fourth-gen model would be quite a change.

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For some, it’d remove some of the iPhone SE’s main appeals. Alongside a small screen, the current model also has a Touch ID home button, which is a comfortably familiar feature for many people.

That feature would likely disappear from iPhones for good with an iPhone SE 4, with the latter instead getting Face ID, a USB-C port, and even potentially the Dynamic Island from higher-end iPhones.

With theiPhone mini almost certainly retired, Apple would no longer be offering a smaller-screen smartphone in its lineup. That’s a trend based entirely on demand, but it’d still make the iPhone series look a little more homogenous than today.

The arrival of a powerful iPhone SE 4 would undoubtedly be welcomed by many, though, particularly considering that the series' own existence has been called into question many times in recent months. And if you can resist the temptation of upgrading to an iPhone 16 in September, it could potentially offer a good-value alternative around six months later.

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Mark is TechRadar’s Senior news editor. Having worked in tech journalism for a ludicrous 17 years, Mark is now attempting to break the world record for the number of camera bags hoarded by one person. He was previously Cameras Editor at both TechRadar and Trusted Reviews, Acting editor on Stuff.tv, as well as Features editor and Reviews editor on Stuff magazine. As a freelancer, he’s contributed to titles including The Sunday Times, FourFourTwo and Arena. And in a former life, he also won The Daily Telegraph’s Young Sportswriter of the Year. But that was before he discovered the strange joys of getting up at 4am for a photo shoot in London’s Square Mile.

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