First impressions, coming from an SE1:
The mini is heavier than I expected. According to my scale it’s 133 g, consistent with the specs (European model), but that’s still a stark difference to the SE1’s 112 grams, subjectively. The mini is also slightly larger than I expected (I had made a paper mockup which now turns out wasn’t accurate). The chassis size is not as handy as the SE1, it’s a different size class IMO. The poll really needs a “bigger than what I was hoping for” option.
The camera bump makes the phone unstable when it lies on a flat surface; it tilts diagonally. You can't operate the screen without a lot of wobble in that position.
The white color (back side) is darker and more reddish (creamy) than on the white SE1 and on the white iPad mini that I own. I would have preferred a lighter and more neutral white. Maybe I should get a different color for the mini after all. The silver band is also a slightly warmer color than the silver on the two other devices, but still in the "neutral" ballpark.
No surprise: The display goes brighter than both the SE1 and the iPad mini. The maximum brightness is okay, but I wouldn’t mind for it to be somewhat brighter yet. (Yes, I turned auto-brightness and TT off.) It’s cloudy today so I don’t know yet how it performs in sunshine.
The display does have a slightly yellow tinge, unfortunately (with TT turned off; it’s very yellow with TT turned on). I’ll try to see what my colorimeter says, although it probably doesn’t have exactly the right profile for that OLED panel. I’ll be receiving another mini on Monday, we’ll see whether the display is the same.
Good news: I can’t reproduce the raised blacks issue. Unfortunately I am now able to reproduce the raised blacks (see
this post).
Good news #2: So far I don’t seem to be sensitive to OLED PWM flicker.
On the other hand, now that I have an OLED display, I noticed that the text color in Safari reader view isn’t 100% black, but a dark gray (#1a1a1a according to a screenshot). If anyone knows how to make it #000000, please drop me a note. This has nothing to do with the mini per se, just a random realization, and the OLED display makes it a bit more noticeable.
The bottom swipe is less obnoxious than I expected, but it’s still a bit annoying to have to do it twice to (a) dismiss the lock screen and then (b) to get to the home screen from the previous app. On the SE1 you can basically double-click on the home button, which is a quicker gesture. It would be nice if at least the app tray would appear on swiping, like on the iPad.
The control center is awkward to reach when holding the mini in the left hand, which I do quite often while multitasking doing something else with my right hand (no, not what you think). I know that you can assign Reachability to Back Tap, but then you still need to somewhat adjust your grip to perform the back-tap.
EDIT: Similar for scroll-to-top. I feel compelled to use my other hand to touch the top of the screen.
After transferring the data from the SE1, free storage on the mini is ~3GB less than on the SE1, but that may be due to iOS 13 vs. 14.
So, at this point I’m not sure yet I’ll keep the mini, vs. staying with the SE1 for another year. The yellow screen is my biggest issue to be honest.