I was not expecting to be that impressed with the iPhone SE, but I ended up being more excited about it than anything else Apple released today. I'm definitely going to get one of those new Apple Watch bands, and that smaller iPad Pro is intriguing, but the new iPhone got me going more than I ever expected.

Walking into the event expecting to see a phone that looked like the iPhone 5S with iPhone 6 specs, and a $499 price point. I turned out to be right about just one of those things. Yes, the iPhone SE does look exactly like Apple's 2013 flagship¹, but it's a more aggressive phone release than I was amping up for in an off-season release.

I assumed the SE would feature lower end specs, specifically an A8 chip with and 8MP camera, but Apple surprised me and made this new mini-phone a first class citizen in the iPhone family. The iPhone SE has an A9 chip, has a 12MP camera, shoots 4K video, sports 2GB of RAM, and has basically all the bells and whistles as the top of the line iPhone 6S².

And then they got to the price. $399 is way more aggressive than I ever thought to see from Apple. That price puts it just $50 more than the Nexus 5X and the OnePlus Two two of the most beloved mid-range Android phones that are both known for their great prices. The iPhone SE is a high-end phone at a mid-range price. I'm not used to seeing this from Apple.

There's no way I'm going to get an iPhone SE, it's just too small, but I am wildly impressed with what Apple decided to put in this phone. The fact that you can get an essentially no compromises iPhone for $399 is still sinking in a bit. While this is not for me, I would imagine all those 4 inch-loving people out there will be extremely happy with this new phone.