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iPhone SE: New phone, same old parts

Apple's new 4-inch iPhone gets the teardown treatment from iFixit and Chipworks. There aren't many surprises, but it's still fun to ogle the phone's shiny innards.

Carrie Mihalcik Former Managing Editor / News
Carrie was a managing editor at CNET focused on breaking and trending news. She'd been reporting and editing for more than a decade, including at the National Journal and Current TV.
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iFixit decided to crack open a rose gold iPhone SE.

iFixit

The first thing some people want to do with a brand new gadget is tear it open.

The good folks at iFixit and Chipworks did just that with the 4-inch iPhone SE, which went on sale today. They found the petite device looks like the iPhone 5S on the outside but packs the guts of the bigger iPhone 6S on the inside.

"Kinda like Taco Bell, same ingredients, new menu item," iFixit wrote in a teardown posted Thursday. "We're excited to see the perfect union of existing Apple tech in a new body."

Apple launched the iPhone SE alongside the new 9.7-inch iPad Pro with less fanfare than usual. There was no line of customers or horde of cheering employees outside of Apple's flagship Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan. The iPhone SE, which starts at $399, is Apple's latest attempt to build a phone that appeals to budget-conscious consumers.

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The iPhone SE sports a 1624 mAh battery.

iFixit

As promised, the new phone has the same speedy A9 processor found in the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. It also has the same RAM module, NFC chip and inertial sensor as the 6S, the teardowns show, as well as several of the same components -- like its Qualcomm modem and transceiver -- as the even earlier iPhone 6.

The display on the iPhone SE is nearly identical to the iPhone 5S. The tech gurus at iFixit were even able to plug a 5S display into the new phone and turn it on.

The iPhone SE also has a 1624 mAh battery, which is slightly more powerful than the iPhone 5S battery but less than the iPhone 6S. Apple says the SE battery offers up to 14 hours of talk time and will last for 10 days on standby.

Read the full teardowns from iFixit and Chipworks for more details on the inner workings of the iPhone SE.

Watch this: The iPhone SE family tree