WhistleOut Awards 2020: Best Phone of the Year

Best phone of FY19/20 - Apple iPhone SE

The iPhone SE is the most sensible smartphone you can buy right now. At $749, it's a great phone for a great price. It's as simple as that. You get a fast processor, a good camera, water-resistance, wireless charging, and more. The battery could be better, but it's a hell of a lot of phone for the money.

The bottom line

The iPhone SE is easy to recommend if you're upgrading from an iPhone 8 or older, especially if you'd prefer to stick with something familiar rather than switching to the full screen display, facial recognition world offered by the iPhone 11 family. Or if you just don't want to spend over $1,000 on a smartphone, whether you're coming from an iPhone or Android.

The new iPhone SE is the best value smartphone on the market, and in a world where smartphone prices keep climbing, we’d argue that also makes it the best smartphone full stop. 

For more information about the Apple iPhone SE see our detailed review, or find out the other winners of the WhistleOut Awards 2020.

If you're interested in buying the Apple iPhone SE outright then perhaps pay eBay or Amazon a visit and see if any deals are on offer.

About the Awards

The WhistleOut Awards recognise the telco businesses that have consistently provided Australians with the best plans over the last year. The awards also highlight the best promotions and phone products released during that period.

WhistleOut’s mission is to help Australians find better phones and internet, and make better telco decisions. We know it can be a complicated and confusing industry with so many providers, plans and products that it’s easy to get lost and difficult to know who to trust.

That’s where the WhistleOut Awards come in. They aim to cover the different types of phone and internet use cases that apply to most Australians, and show which providers have most consistently offered the best plans over 12 months (July-June). The awards also acknowledge the best phones that have been brought onto the market over the year, and provide a great starting point for anyone looking to make a smart telco change.

Judging Criteria

The WhistleOut Awards are aimed at finding the best providers for different phone and internet needs on a national level.

We have reviewed the biggest cross section of providers possible, including the top 10 service providers in each category, many smaller providers, and the full range of phone manufacturers in available in Australia. The top ten service providers typically cover 80% or more of Australia’s phone and internet plans in.

The WhistleOut Award categories for phone and internet plans are judged by awarding 3, 2 and 1 points to the providers of the three best plans in each category on a monthly basis, (July 2019 - June 2020). The award winners are the providers with the highest number of points at the end of the 12-month period. In case of a tie, winners are chosen based on the number of 1st positions, then 2nd positions, then 3rd positions they achieved in that category over the course of the year. A provider can receive points for multiple plans in a category if their plans best match the award criteria.

The two exceptions to this judging process are the Best Promotion awards for Mobile and Internet. These awards are given to the single best promotion over the 12-month period as judged by WhistleOut’s in-house panel of experts.

The WhistleOut phone awards are judged by our team of editorial experts who have reviewed the majority of new phones brought out over the last 12 months. Key judging considerations include price, performance, battery, screen, camera, design and the overall user experience.