Apple is expected to announce a new iPhone SE as early as next week, marking a significant departure from the company's affordable iPhone design. According to rumors and leaks, the 2025 iPhone SE will ditch the classic home button, slim down the bezel, and introduce Face ID, similar to the iPhone 14. The result will be a phone that looks like the iPhone 14 from the front, complete with a notch housing the Face ID sensors.

The redesign will also bring a larger 6.1-inch OLED display, the same size as the standard iPhone 16, making the phone as a whole larger than any previous iPhone SE. The bigger screen means the phone will be 9mm taller than the 2022 SE and weigh about 25g more. Additionally, the phone will switch from Lightning to USB-C, allowing it to be sold in the EU again, where the previous SE model was discontinued due to EU regulations.

In terms of camera capabilities, the iPhone SE is expected to stick with a single rear camera, with rumors suggesting a 48-megapixel sensor on the rear and a 12-megapixel selfie camera on the front. The phone will also feature a customizable Action button, but not the Camera Control introduced on the iPhone 16.

Under the hood, the iPhone SE will be powered by the same A18 chip as the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro models, combined with an increase to 8GB of RAM. This will make it more powerful than the 2023 iPhone 15 and enable Apple's AI tools, including notification summaries. Furthermore, the phone will feature Apple's first in-house 5G modem, replacing Qualcomm components, although it will only support sub-6 GHz 5G and not mmWave 5G.

Bloomberg reports that Apple will announce the phone next week, with a predicted price of "roughly $500," higher than the 2022 model's starting price of $429. The phone is expected to come with a default storage spec of 128GB, eliminating the 64GB iPhone option. There is also a possibility that the phone won't be called the iPhone SE, with some leakers predicting it will be called the iPhone 16E instead.

The iPhone SE launch will be the first of several big iPhone announcements this year, with Apple tipped to reveal a slimmer iPhone 17 Air, as well as "major updates" to the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro. With the iPhone SE expected to be a major shakeup to Apple's affordable iPhone lineup, it will be interesting to see how the market responds to these changes.

Stay tuned for more updates on the iPhone SE launch, and be sure to check back for our in-depth review and analysis once the phone is released.