Apple’s Newest iPhone SE Is Still Cheaper Than the Original iPhone (When Adjusted for Inflation)

Earlier this week, during Apple’s Peek Performance event, the company surprised us with a bunch of different products, including a new third-generation iPhone SE. The new iPhone SE came with a lot of new features and surprises – but perhaps the thing that surprised everyone the most was its price. The iPhone SE 3 now starts at $429 and is more expensive than the 2020 model, which started at $399.

Despite the higher price, the iPhone SE remains one of the most affordable iPhones Apple offers. What’s more, if you adjust the price for inflation, the current iPhone SE is still cheaper than the original iPhone.

As reported by CNBC, the original 4GB iPhone, which was first released for $499 back in 2007, would be worth around $673 in 2022 based on the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator. If you’d wanted to buy the 8GB original iPhone—which was $599 back in the day— it’d cost you around $807 nowadays.

What About the iPhone 8?

As you can probably guess at first glance, the current third-generation iPhone SE is pretty much an iPhone 8 with the internal power of an iPhone 13. So, using the same CPI inflation calculator, we can easily calculate how much the iPhone 8 would cost today. 

The original iPhone 8 was first released in September 2017, with a base storage of 64GB. This iPhone’s retail price was $699 five years ago. Nowadays, adjusting the price for inflation, the iPhone 8 would cost around $803, a little more than the current iPhone 13.

And if you wanted a 64GB iPhone 8 Plus, which had a price of $799 back in 2017, you’d have to pay around $920, almost the same price as the iPhone 13 Pro.

Apple’s iPhone SE Is Still Its Most Affordable iPhone

Based on inflation, we can now understand why the iPhone has become increasingly more expensive throughout the last few years, which leaves the current iPhone SE as the least expensive iPhone you can get. 

With that said, $429 is still pretty expensive for a lot of us. The good news is that the new iPhone SE is poised to last many years. With the help of the A15, the iPhone SE is one of the most powerful smartphones in pretty much any price range. What’s more, the chip also helps it take even better photos with the same old iPhone 8 camera lens. Not only that, but it now also supports 5G, making it a truly future-proof smartphone. 

You can preorder the iPhone SE now, and it’ll be available next week on March 18.