How fast is the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) compared to the iPhone 11 and iPhone XR? How fast is it compared to earlier iPhone models?

The iPhone SE 2, iPhone XR, and iPhone 11 all have been discontinued. This Q&A is up-to-date and can be quite helpful for anyone buying or selling one of these devices on the used market.

In the company press release for the iPhone SE (2nd Gen), Apple boasts that the mobile is "powerful" in its title and subtitle and mentions performance four times.

Photo Credit: Apple, Inc. (iPhone SE 2)

More specifically, Apple proclaims:

iPhone SE features the industry-leading performance of A13 Bionic that enables great battery life, takes stunning Portrait mode and Smart HDR photos, shoots amazing videos with stereo audio, is great for games and super fast web surfing, and is built with the same industry-leading security features our customers expect.

With an official emphasis on speed, it is a safe bet that the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) performance is respectable, yet more details are needed.

The iPhone SE (2nd Gen) and iPhone 11 both use the same A13 Bionic processors, but technical analysis shows that the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) only has 3 GB of RAM compared to 4 GB of RAM in the iPhone 11. Like the iPhone SE (2nd Gen), the iPhone XR has 3 GB of RAM, but it uses an earlier A12 Bionic processor.

Given the technical specs, it would be reasonable to expect the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) to be similar in performance to the iPhone 11 -- or perhaps a little slower -- and faster than the iPhone XR, but how much faster requires testing. It also is worthwhile to compare the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) to earlier models. After all, most users do not upgrade to a new iPhone every year, so a comparison to iPhone devices from years past can be particularly useful, as well.

Benchmark Performance Overview

For a helpful general overview of the performance differences between the iPhone SE (2nd Gen), iPhone 11, and iPhone XR and earlier iPhone models as well as the iPad and iPod touch, Everyi.com's own Ultimate iComparison makes it quick to compare side-by-side Geekbench benchmark averages for hundreds of possible performance comparisons.

Compared to other recent iPhone models, the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) performs accordingly using the Geekbench 5 benchmark:

iPhone SE 2 Compared To:	Percent Faster (Single Core)	Percent Faster (Multicore)
iPhone 11/11 Pro/11 Pro Max	0%	0%
iPhone XS/iPhone XR	20%	12%
iPhone X/iPhone 8	44%	29%
iPhone 7	79%	119%
iPhone 6s	145%	191%
iPhone 6	331%	407%
iPhone SE (Original)	143%	187%

With a review of the above, you clearly can see that the Geekbench 5 benchmark shows the extra RAM in the iPhone 11 line does not result in greater performance than the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) -- the extra RAM likely is chewed up pushing more pixels to the larger, higher-resolution displays -- but the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) is notably faster than the iPhone XR first released two years earlier.

Performance gains for the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) are even more significant when compared to models from earlier years.

Real-World Performance Comparison

For how the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) compares to the iPhone 8 that it replaced in day-to-day use, this video from YouTuber Nick Ackerman also is quite useful:

As you can see, hands-on usage generally reflects the Geekbench benchmark results, but a substantial boost in benchmark results is not always as noticeable in the real-world.

Performance Summary

Ultimately, the iPhone SE (2nd Gen) is the same speed as the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max models, provide a bit of a speed boost compared to the more expensive iPhone XR, and a more significant performance increase compared to earlier models.

The iPhone SE (2nd Gen) is remarkably high performance for the price, although real-world results can vary depending on the task performed.

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