The new iPhone SE offers a bigger battery than the old one

Apple just introduced the third-generation iPhone SE, and it has some nice improvements, including sub-6GHz 5G support and an A15 processor. But Apple also claims it has a longer battery life, and it appears that's partly because the phone has a physically larger battery, a fact about the new iPhone SE that the company confirmed in a group briefing with reporters.

Apple hasn't shared the battery capacity, so we'll have to wait for teardowns to see exactly how much juice it has. But when comparing the new SE's tech specs page to the old one, Apple promises some decent improvements.

For the third-generation SE, Apple promises up to 15 hours of video playback, up to 10 hours of video playback (streamed), and up to 50 hours of audio playback. The old SE, on the other hand, got up to 13 hours of video playback, up to eight hours of streaming video, and up to 40 hours of audio playback.

Apple also saw some nice battery gains by putting larger batteries in the iPhone 13 lineup, it's not a great surprise to see the company repeat that decision with the new SE. But you'll still get better battery life by buying one of the iPhone 13 models.

The Mini, which has the weakest battery of the bunch, gets up to 17 hours of video playback, 13 hours of streaming video, and up to 55 hours of audio playback. They're all taller than the 3rd-gen SE, though the SE has the same chip, is a physically larger device, and doesn't support battery-hungry mmWave 5G. And Apple chose to keep the exact same dimensions from the second-generation iPhone SE to the third. If I had decided to make the phone a bit thicker, it could have improved the battery even more.