Yeah but your thumb could also hit every pixel you didn’t intend to hit 3 or 4 times before you hit the one you wanted. Fudging things was a lot more frequent. But yeah, the 12/13 mini is amazing and underrated.
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iPhone SE Reviews: Impressive Performance in a 'Tired Design'
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Yes, the design is old. But it is a very good iPhone with its much lower price and assurance that it will be getting software updates for many years.
In an ideal world, my wife would prefer the iPhone 5 design. Talk about a tired design! Truly though, this criticism of the iPhone SE is ridiculous. Some folks want stability in their smartphones.
Exchange your friends-circle for people who don't judge you based on their opinion of what phone you're carrying. Overall, your life will be better for it.
The "tired" design specifically fits into hundreds of existing MfI (Made-for-iOS) hardware designs (industrial scanners, medical devices, etc), and retiring it would throw all these third-party vendors and their customers under the bus. Sometimes mature design stability is a good thing.
Huge bonus: your old accessories fit. I carried the same battery case from my old 5S to the original SE, and later on a different case from my iPhone 8 to the later SE. If I hadn't been lured away by the 12 Mini, I'd theoretically be able to use that same case with the new SE.
They're not still marketing this form-factor because they have an unsold stash of five year old iPhone 8 chassis, they're marketing it at people who so far have not seen any point in changing their iPhone 8. That was abundantly clear from the stance of their keynote.
Well, the iPhone 12 series kinda went back to the iPhone 5 design except with FaceID notch and tiny bezels.
Who said they were my friends? They're my students, and I can't simply exchange them.... They're nice kids, and are just baffled by my antique looking phone.
Aha...fair enough. Had a few image-conscious people on here recently complaining their friends rib them about their tech, I always give them the same advice: if a 'friend' judges you by their perception of your choice of tech, change your friends.
Whilst we could accuse Apple of being cheapskates with the SE design the fact is they keep making new ones because the old ones are selling. I would argue the design is no more 'tired' than that of a 1967 Mini Cooper or a Tuxedo; its not tired, but classic.
Whilst I do prefer larger phones, especially as my iPhone is often my games console as well we could equally say that the SE fits in your pocket, has no notch or punch hole disturbing your screen, you can unlock it whilst its on a desk without having to look at it, you can reach the whole screen with one hand and it has all mod cons: IP67, wireless charging, cutting edge processor, great camera etc etc.
Whilst I do prefer larger phones, especially as my iPhone is often my games console as well we could equally say that the SE fits in your pocket, has no notch or punch hole disturbing your screen, you can unlock it whilst its on a desk without having to look at it, you can reach the whole screen with one hand and it has all mod cons: IP67, wireless charging, cutting edge processor, great camera etc etc.
I'm more techie than my friends, as it happens. I'll be honest and I'll admit I judge people when they have old and slow devices, especially when I'm the one that they come to in hopes of 'fixing' them... ?? (I'm judging by performance, not looks. I don't care what their device looks like.)
I don't judge. I drive a 10+ year old Toyota and the ones asking me for help with their old devices have much newer and nicer cars than me.
However, when they ask to me fix their old devices, I'm blunt and tell them they're not fixable and they simply need to upgrade.
It depends if the fixing involves trying to save files/photos... I'm sympathetic towards that, as I know it's insanely annoying to lose photos.
First time they lose data, sure.
After I've already advised them to make backups and recommended cloud services if they can't be bothered to do manual backups and they still don't do it, then I'm unsympathetic.
I really wonder for the iPhone SE 4, will a variant of the iPhone 13 mini design being considered?
I moved from the 8 Plus to the 11 Pro. It was quite the upgrade, plus I wanted to pair down screen size from the Plus. Over time, my 11 Pro was getting a bit weird in behavior and had to do some random hard restarts. Rarely did with my 8 Plus give me trouble, but my 7 Plus turned into a nightmare at the end and outpaced the the 6 as my worst phone.
After having some issues with the 11 Pro, I wound up taking advantage of the deal to upgrade to the 13 Pro Max, got $1000 for my 11 Pro and have been extremely happy with my exchange. Believe me, I hated the X, XR and XS, so I felt like you.
There are some things I miss about the Plus, but I don't think I'd go back having the benefits of the 13 Pro Max. The camera is beyond excellent and is a worthy replacement to my old 8 Plus. I hope Apple will reconsider the Plus for the SE line to give it some options in the future, but SE did mean "small edition" at one time.
Who knows... maybe there will be one some day. I'd like to hope so, just look at the line up:
iPhone SE, iPhone mini, iPhone, iPhone Pro and iPhone Pro Max
There's room for a budget bigger model with the home button. Unless they see the plain iPhone as the answer to it since the screen size is roughly the same. I wonder what the overall sales data was on the iPhone Plus model from 8 after they released the XR and XS.
You know what's tired? My thumb, from dealing with the iPhone 12 mini's convoluted gestures. Thought I'd get used to it, but no, the SE's design is just better. Constantly having to drag from the edges of the screen isn't ergonomic when that's also the edge of the device. FaceID doesn't work reliably; I'm always inputting my passcode, which is also cause Apple got rid of the option not to lock immediately. I'm not outraged or anything, just pointing out that the design has regressed.
Now give the SE the headphone jack like it deserves, and I will sell my phone for it.
Now give the SE the headphone jack like it deserves, and I will sell my phone for it.
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I think YouTubers and tech magazines give the worst advice on consumer technology cause they're nerds instead of regular users. They keep finding the latest obscure Android phone to recommend and would tell my grandma to install Arch on her PC. MR is the exception."Tired design..." from a group of YouTubers whose video thumbnails are virtually interchangeable.
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My 12 mini is definitely nicer than the bigger ones, but I still can't reach every pixel on it with one hand since they took out the bezels to make the screen larger. And it's awkward to be dragging from the edges of the screen when that's also the edge of the phone.
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I kept my 5 till AT&T stopped supporting it. Largest screen where it was still possible to reach everything.
Had this experience "fixing" a family member's iPad 2 to run Zoom. Technically it can run it. Had to update iOS. Needed to log in to download a free app for some reason. Of course she forgot her Apple ID password, so I tried my own. 2FA kicked in, which isn't compatible with the latest iOS it can run. Gave up.
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The og iPhone screen was definitely too small. The 5 / 5S / SE1 was just right.