Apple iPhone SE Teardown Shows Exact Detail Of iPhone 8 Swappable Parts

Each time a new smartphone hits the market, we look forward to seeing the adventurous gang over at iFixit rip it apart so we can see what it looks like on the inside. Many people have been particularly interested to see a teardown of the new iPhone SE as it's essentially an iPhone 8 with a faster A13 Bionic SoC. Many have wondered precisely which components inside can be easily swapped between the two smartphones.

Backwards compatibility isn't common for iPhone models, but in the case of the iPhone SE and iPhone 8, several parts can swap between the two devices. Components such as the display assembly, cameras, and Taptic Engine are swappable. Since the display assembly is swappable between the new iPhone SE and the iPhone 8, it should mean that screen replacement for the new SE is among some of the cheapest we've ever seen for recent iPhone models.

One word of note for and iPhone SE owner who cracks the screen and needs replacement is that without a screen programmer, using a iPhone 8 part means that you will give up the True Tone functionality. One part that's not interchangeable between the two devices is the home button because of Touch ID security requirements. The teardown shows that the battery appears to be the same between the iPhone 8 the iPhone SE, but it's interestingly not swappable.

The reason the battery is not swappable has to do with different logic board connectors. Swapping batteries will also trigger a "not a genuine Apple battery" service warning even if swamped with a genuine iPhone SE 2020 battery. In the end, iFixit does praise the iPhone SE 2020 for backward compatibility with the iPhone 8. Apple debuted the new iPhone SE at $399 for the base 64 GB version on April 15, and the smartphone was available to purchase last Friday.