OnePlus 8 vs iPhone SE (2020) - The Battle of Budget Flagships

OnePlus and Apple have launched their budget flagships in the midst of the terror of COVID-19. And they are the OnePlus 8 and iPhone SE (2020). Today we are going to see which one is better for you. I won’t surely pick a clear winner but I will tell which phone I prefer more.

UNBOXING

OnePlus 8 comes in a red box which is quite big. At the top, you get the handset. Then there is a mini-box that has the paperwork, SIM Ejector Pin, some OnePlus stickers, and a transparent silicone case with a ‘Never Settle’ Branding. In the end, there is a Warp Charger 30T and a USB A to USB C cable about which I will talk more in the battery section. But there is no headphone jack adaptor. 

OnePlus 8 Unboxing (Courtesy:- GSMArena)

Now the iPhone SE comes in a small white box like the other iPhones. At the top is a mini-box with the paperwork and Apple stickers. There is no case in the box like OnePlus which is a bummer. Below it is a 5W charger and I think that Apple should stop giving this charger in 2020. There is a USB A to Lightning Cable and Earpods with a Lightning Port which is missing in the OnePlus. You don’t get a Headphone Jack adaptor here too. 

iPhone SE Unboxing (Courtesy:- GSMArena)

DESIGN

OnePlus 8 has a much more modern design (Courtesy:- Gadgets Now) 

I can say that the OnePlus 8 is way more modern than the iPhone SE when it comes to design. But the iPhone SE has IP-67 Water Resistance which is better than the regular water resistance in OnePlus 8. So this can survive a drop in a bucket. But I don’t suggest taking it at the pool or bringing it in contact with water for long.

But the design on OnePlus 8 is much more modern when compared to iPhone SE. OnePlus 8 has a bezel-less screen with a Punch-Hole which is the latest trend. It is also a curved display which makes the phone look even more modern. The iPhone has a traditional 16:9 display with thick bezels and this looks like a phone from 2016. The OnePlus 8 has Gorilla Glass 6 and iPhone relies on Toughened Glass which they claim to be the strongest glass ever. But the glass on both phones is very fragile and I recommend a strong case. Do note that the OnePlus repair costs are much lower than Apple's, just in case your break your phone.

The iPhone SE resorts to the plain back and OnePlus has a gradient back. Everyone has a different taste but I prefer the gradient in OnePlus. The iPhone is a light and compact phone which is quite difficult to find in 2020. But most would prefer the large design of the OnePlus. Also, OnePlus 8 has a bigger camera bump when compared to iPhone SE. OnePlus has the noise-cancellation mic at the top frame and iPhone has that at the back. OnePlus has the Type-C port and iPhone has the Lightning Port. Both miss the 3.5 mm Headphone Jack but you can buy an adaptor for plugging in your favorite pair of wired earphones.

DISPLAY

OnePlus has a better display

This is the place where the OnePlus has a landslide victory. Firstly OnePlus has the phone with thinner bezels and a punch-hole notch while the iPhone has the thick bezels. The OnePlus also has a curved screen. Apple made the bezels black to hide them, but the truth cannot be hidden. The iPhone SE has 65.4% Screen to body ratio while the OnePlus 8 has 88.7% Screen to Body Ratio.  

Also, OnePlus has the edge when it comes to quality. OnePlus has a 6.55” FHD+ Fluid AMOLED Display with 20:9 aspect ratio and 90 Hz Refresh Rate. iPhone SE has a 4.7” Liquid Retina Display which is basically an LCD Panel. The resolution is 750x1334 and this has the 16:9 Aspect Ratio. The pixel density on the OnePlus is 402ppi which is much higher than 324ppi on the iPhone SE. iPhone SE has no 90Hz Refresh Rate which is another bummer.

No matter, how advanced LCDs can get, AMOLEDs will always be better. The OnePlus’ display has much better contrast and viewing angles. You get deep blacks which the iPhone can’t. But both panels are bright enough. The AMOLED on the OnePlus also enables features like In-Display Fingerprint Scanner and Always-On Display. Also, the 90Hz Display on the OnePlus makes the touch response much smoother on it. But the touch on the iPhone is great too.

HARDWARE & SOFTWARE

The OnePlus 8 uses the new Snapdragon 865 that comes with 1x 2.86 GHz Kryo 585 Prime + 3x 2.42 GHz Kryo 585 Gold + 4x 1.8GHz Kryo 585. It has the Adreno 650 GPU and is based on 7nm architecture. It currently runs Oxygen OS 10 based on Android 10. It has 6GB 128GB, 8GB 128GB, 12GB 256GB variants.

The iPhone SE uses the A13 Bionic that has 2x 2.65GHz Lightning Cores + 4x1.8GHz Thunder Cores. It has the 4 Core Apple Graphics. It is based on the 7nm+ architecture which is better than regular 7nm on SD865. It currently runs the latest iOS 13. It has 3GB RAM with 64GB, 128GB and 256GB options.

Benchmark Scores

Seeing the benchmark scores, I think that Apple underclocked the A13 chip on iPhone SE. But these are just numbers, so let’s come to practical life performance. Both are very similar and you won’t notice any major difference. Both the phones would load apps at about the same time. The OnePlus has a 90Hz refresh rate which makes it seem overall smoother but I am sure that you won't notice any difference until both phones are compared side-by-side. The multi-tasking is better on OnePlus 8. iPhone SE has 3GB RAM which is enough for iOS. But the iPhone SE kills all the big apps in the background to save battery. I can call the memory management of iPhone SE average at best. When it comes to gaming, both have no problems playing all the games in the highest settings. But OnePlus has some special gaming features. Also, the small screen on the iPhone SE is not the best for gamers. And the battery life is also not that great. 

When it comes to software, one is iOS and the other is Android. They are very different from each other. iOS doesn’t have as many features as the Oxygen OS. It is plain and responsive. Oxygen OS is very close to stock Android, but it has a lot of customizations. Even with it, it is very fluid and responsive. But iOS provides updates for more than four years which is a great thing. But I think that at one point, they are just to degrade the phone’s performance by which you buy a new phone. OnePlus is fast with updates too and gives updates for over three years. You can also read our Android vs iOS comparison and I'll give a link for that in the end. At the end,  it’s your choice when it comes to software but I prefer Oxygen OS.

CAMERA

OnePlus 8 has a triple camera

The OnePlus 8 flaunts a triple camera with 48MP (f/1.75) Sony IMX 586 Camera Sensor. It has a 16MP Wide-Angle Lens and a 2MP Macro Lens to accompany it. Though I would have liked a telephoto lens but it is not there. The iPhone has a 12MP (f/1.8) single rear camera. I thought that it is the sensor from iPhone 11. But with research, I got to know that it is the same sensor as the iPhone XR. It isn’t a bad thing as the XR’s camera was great too.

In daylight, the OnePlus produces more vibrant images while iPhone handles the dynamic range better because of its Smart HDR. OnePlus chooses the warmer tones while the iPhone SE moves towards cooler tones. When it comes to details, OnePlus is way better than iPhone SE even in 12MP Mode. In 48MP mode, you can extract even more details. But for daily photography, I suggest the 12MP mode as it requires much less storage.

When it comes to macro photography, OnePlus again has the clear edge as it has a dedicated macro lens. So you can get as close as 2.5cm to the subject. But I wish it was more than 2MP. The sharpness of the photos is decent  but I suggest the use of the macro lens only when the main camera can’t focus on the subject.  When it comes to landscape shots, OnePlus also has a Wide-Angle Lens which the iPhone lacks. The wide-angle lens captures good images but the quality and the dynamic range is not as good as the main camera.

When it comes to portrait shots, both the phones capture excellent portrait images with amazing skin tones and great edge detection. iPhone has Portrait Lighting Effects if you like that feature. I found the skin tones on the OnePlus 8 a bit dull (it's not a major issue) but I am not a fan of iPhone's skin tones either. It does a lot of beautification which many would like but I don't. This beauty mode even leads to bad dynamic range. The front camera is a 16MP (f/2.0) IMX 471 unit on OnePlus 8 and a 7MP (f/2.2) unit on the iPhone SE. The iPhone SE has details which is good. But this again beautifies the image, thus killing the dynamic range. The OnePlus 8 also has a great quality but I found this better when it comes to dynamic range and details are also slightly better on this in some cases. The portrait mode on the front camera and the edge detection is good on both. 

For low-light, OnePlus has a dedicated Nightscape mode which the iPhone SE lacks. Nightscape works quite well and gives tough competition to Google’s Night Sight and is better in some situations too. The noise is very less but that leads to loss in details. But the Wide-Angle lens doesn’t work that well in low-light but still, you can use them for social media. The iPhone SE’s photos may not be as great as OnePlus 8 but still it good and you can surely use it for social media.

When it comes to videos, the iPhone SE is much better than OnePlus 8 and Apple is best for video recording. The iPhone SE also get 4K 60fps on the front cam but it misses out on slow-motion selfies from the iPhone 11. But the OnePlus 8 is a great phone for video too, if not the best. 

Both are great camera phones and you won’t be disappointed by any of the phones. But I want One Plus to fix the dull skin tones. I would also ask Apple to add a seperate mode for beautification and keep the skin tones natural in normal mode. Another thing is that you can use Google Camera Port easily on OnePlus if you want. 

BATTERY

OnePlus 8 has the beefier cell and faster charging 

The OnePlus 8 has a big 4300 mAh battery with a 30W Warp Charger. It can easily last a full day without any issues. The Warp Charger charges the phone in less than an hour. The iPhone has an 1821 mAh battery that comes with a 5W charger in the box. But it supports fast charging of 18W. The battery life is poor on this phone. No matter how power-efficient the chipset or the OS is, 1821 mAh is low in 2020 standards. I am not even sure if it's enough even for a light user. After an hour of PUBG gaming at highest settings, the battery drops 35-50%. And YouTube playback drops 15-20% in an hour. The 5W charger takes more tgan 2 hours 30 minutes for a full charge. But the 18W charger would take around 1 hour 45 minutes for a full charge. This is quite slower than the competition. Inexpensive phones charge a lot faster nowadays. But the iPhone SE has wireless charging which I didn't expect at this price. So Apple did a great job here. 

EXTRAS

Both the phones are Dual-SIM but the OnePlus 8 has a proper second SIM slot while the iPhone has an E-SIM. And E-SIMs are not that popular in India. Airtel and Jio provide those in India. Another thing is that neither of them has an SD Card Slot. But the base model of OnePlus 8 has 128GB while iPhone SE has 64GB. The biggest problem in iPhones is that their apps are insanely larger than Android. For example, WhatsApp is 27MB on Play Store and 137MB on Apple Store. The heavy user can always go for the higher variants but it would cost much more.

Also, the iPhone has the Lightning Connector (Gen 2) and OnePlus has USB 3.1. If you had read my older article (link in the end), you know that Lightning Connector has data transfer speeds up to 5 GBPS and USB 3.1 has a speed of 10 GBPS. It is twice that of iPhone’s data transfer speed. Both have NFC but the OnePlus 8 has Bluetooth 5.1 while the iPhone has the older Bluetooth 5.0. The Snapdragon 865 has a 5G Modem baked into it and so the OnePlus 8 also has 5G. Though it is not there in India right now, it will come soon. And when it comes, you won’t have to buy a new device to experience 5G.  Another thing is that OnePlus has UFS 3.0 while the iPhone has NVMe storage.

OnePlus has the newer technology

OnePlus 8 has an In-Display Fingerprint Scanner and software-based face unlock. The fingerprint scanner is fast enough but not as fast as Galaxy S20 but it is quite accurate. The Face Unlock works well too and you can’t fool it by a picture. iPhone SE just has a fingerprint scanner and no Face ID. The fingerprint scanner works well and it is quite fast and accurate. The security on iOS is also much better than Android but honestly, Android is not far behind and in my experience with Android, it is secure enough even for banking.

PRICING

I am glad to see that the OnePlus 8 is launched at a cheaper price than the US even after the GST Hike in India and the Indian Rupee devaluating. It’s launched at an aggressive price of ₹41,999 for the 6GB 128GB variant which is available only in Glacial Green colour. The middle 8GB 128GB variant costs ₹44,999 which is available in Glacial Green and Oynx Black colour. The highest 12GB 256GB variant costs ₹49,999 and will be available in all three colours – Glacial Green, Oynx Black, and Interstellar Blue.

The iPhone SE is as always way costlier in India when compared to the US. iPhone SE (2020) starts at ₹42,500 for the 3GB 64GB base model. The middle 3GB 128GB variant costs ₹47,800 and the highest 3GB 256GB variant costs ₹58,300. The highest variant doesn’t make any sense as the OnePlus 8 Pro’s 8GB 128GB variant costs ₹54,999 and the 12GB 256GB variant costs ₹59,999. Tell me if you want a review of OnePlus 8 Pro.

Pricing Chart

I think that it's time for Apple to change something. Apple charges a lot for different accessories. If you buy a Headphone Jack Adaptor, OnePlus charges ₹400 while Apple charges ₹900. Apple charges ₹2900 for its 18W charger and ₹1700 for their Lightning to USB-C cable. So it costs ₹4600 in total and you have to note that it is not available in the box and you would need to buy it for fast charging after you buy the phone. And you can’t use the cable from the box and would need to get both.

Earpods and AirPods

OnePlus Headphones

You get a fast charger with OnePlus 8 but if it gets damaged, the charger costs ₹1500 and the cable costs ₹900. Apple comes with their Earpods which is a great thing and they cost ₹2200. OnePlus Bullets Wired cost ₹1500. Also, the Airpods cost ₹15,000 while OnePlus Bullets 2 Wireless cost ₹6000. And OnePlus has launched Bullets Z Wireless that will just cost ₹2000. You would have to buy a cover with the iPhone too. And the repair costs of Apple are very high in India too.

CONCLUSION

I prefer the OnePlus 8 but your choice may be different. OnePlus 8 gives better cameras, battery life, and has the edge in benchmark scores too. I also love the colours of the OnePlus 8. I recommend it to those who love to flash Custom ROMs on their phone. With this, you would have to spend much less on accessories too.

Apple launched the iPhone SE for those who want an iPhone on a budget. If you have many Apple products, I recommend the iPhone SE. It will give you much better security, videography, water-resistance, and wireless charging. Also, the people who want a compact phone can surely buy iPhone SE.

Tell me what should I bring next. And be sure to share this as I spent almost 10 hours on this. Goodbye for now.

Must Read:- Android vs iOS: War of the Century

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