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Other iPhone upgrade advice

M

MacCraig Pro

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 1, 2012
151
78
Manchester, UK
Hi all,

I am about to upgrade from my SE 2020 to a new phone. The main reason for changing is battery life and a better camera.

I've had my SE since mid-2020 and about 6 months ago it was replaced under Apple Care due to battery degradation. However, the battery doesn't last long even with it being near enough new.

I was thinking about abandoning Apple stuff, but I'm so engrained in the ecosystem that it seems silly!

So I am trying to decide between the iPhone 13 and the 15. And I really cannot decide, as the former is £200 cheaper here in the UK.

So my question for you lovely people is if you were in my situation, what would you decide on? 13 or 15?

I quite like the idea of having 1 USB-C charger to charge my MBA, iPhone and Beats rather than having to take several different chargers around with me, but lightning isn't a deal breaker.

TIA!

Craig
 
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MacCraig Pro said:
So my question for you lovely people is if you were in my situation, what would you decide on? 13 or 15?
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I have the same .. iPhone SE (2020).. I plan to update to iPhone 13 mini in the next year or so. I prefer the small form factor and don't need the latest greatest.
 
There hasn’t been a big leap in features from one iPhone year to the next in a very long time. Each year is incrementally better.
You can’t go wrong with the 13. It will cost less than the 15 and pretty much do everything the same.
I’ve never been a fan of buying whatever the current iPhone is that year.
 
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iPhone 13 two years closer to vintage and how much does £200 mean to you in your present situation? "now I see it" makes some good points.
 
My wife got a new iPhone 15 Pro Max because she pretty much runs our accomodation business from it. I got her old iPhone 13 Pro Max and passed my iPhone SE 2 to our granddaughter.
So, I can personally say, the iPhone 13 Pro Max is amazing, amazing camera, amazing battery life, huge screen (although you get used to it pretty quick), brighter display, I have increased the system font a little to take advantage of the increased real estate and zoom to 100% on my browser. Last but definitely not least "raise to wake" and Photo ID are brilliant, so much better than fingerprint ID and raise to wake is no strain on this device's battery.
 
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Bigwaff said:
I have the same .. iPhone SE (2020).. I plan to update to iPhone 13 mini in the next year or so. I prefer the small form factor and don't need the latest greatest.
Click to expand...

Did that a few months ago and got a used 13 mini. Battery running time is still not great but slightly better than on the SE. Apart from that, FaceID is nice, the UWB-chip works a treat for precision finding airtags and handoff to homepods, not having a home button takes some getting used to and the wide camera is mostly unnecessary and looks bad (distorts pretty heavily). Night mode is nice but that's essentially software the SE just didn't get. Apart from that, the camera is slightly better but still a tiny phone camera with all it's disadvantages. So, all in all an update that felt a little "meh" afterwards, but still a pretty phone.

Tried to convince myself to get a 13 pro, and played around with the one of my gf a lot - but it was just too heavy and big for my taste. Shame about the zoom camera, though. Imho infinitely more useful than the ultrawide.
 
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Just spend the extra and get the 15. I have a 13 and whilst it has served me well and is a great phone I would buy a 15 tomorrow if I had the cash. USB-C is a lovely upgrade and the camera are as good as you'll find. Its worth the extra £200 for a phone that will last you an extra 2 years of OS updates.
 
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What do you primarily use your device for out of interest?

I agree iPhone 13 is more than capable if you're not bothered about the 'latest and greatest' - is iPhone 14 out of the running due to the smaller difference in price out of interest?
 
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Go with the 15 and enjoy the USB-C connector that will be standard in the future.
If its not urgent to change it might be a good idea to wait till after the summer to see whats being released.

If you want to save money, go for 13. The price and feature difference to get the 14 is not worth it if you can't find a good deal imho.
 
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Sami13496 said:
May I ask why? Just curious :)
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I had issues when trying to get my phone repaired/replaced under AppleCare. To the extent I had an advisor over the phone telling me I had to pay extra money to get it replaced and that AC+ was just a membership so I could speak to her. It left a really bad taste in my mouth and at the time I'd got a second-hand Microsoft Surface Laptop with Windows 11 on it. I like Windows 11 and the integration it has with the Surface which is similar to the Mac in my opinion. Also, this wasn't the first time I'd had issues with Apple customer 'care'.

With that bad experience and the fact, that I also fancied a change after 20+ years of being in the ecosystem.

After doing research over the last few months I've decided against leaving the ecosystem as I'm just too invested. While there are workarounds to get stuff to work, it seems like a complete ballache plus significant cost unless I completely leave and get rid of all of my Apple devices.
 
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iGeek2019 said:
What do you primarily use your device for out of interest?

I agree iPhone 13 is more than capable if you're not bothered about the 'latest and greatest' - is iPhone 14 out of the running due to the smaller difference in price out of interest?
Click to expand...
I use my phone for camera, calls and texting mainly along with some video streaming, social media and Bible apps. Ideally, I want a phone that will last a full day without having to charge mid-evening to get me through to the late evening. Currently, my SE starts the day at 7am and with ~2 hours of SOT its on 20% by 6pm and dead by 9.

iPhone 14 is out of the running as for the £100 more it barely seems like any sort of upgrade from the 13 unless I am missing something obvious and I may as well spend £100 on top of that and get a 15.
 
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Since the camera is something you do want to upgrade there's no point waiting for a "new" SE that might be released. Either way the camera on the 13 and 15 are an upgrade.

Another aspect is that if you have loads of lightning kit laying around such as docking stations and so on it might be an idea to go for the 13, or why not a 13 mini if you fancy a smaller phone. Same camera as the regular 13.
 
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I would go for the 15. It has some quality of life upgrades which all together greatly improve the experience. Type C charging finally liberating you from having to use different cables, slightly rounded edges making easier to hold (could be important when coming from much smaller SE), and 48mp camera which can simulate proper 2x telephoto. Lastly it has 6gb of ram. Not that 4 gb in my 13 is insufficient, but it feels right on the edge of being enough.

That being said, if its not super urgent for you to upgrade it might be worth waiting for the 16. Rumours are apple will integrate GenAI into all the operating systems. Might be the most significant upgrade to the iphone experience in half a decade and will probably be available on 16s only.
 
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MacCraig Pro said:
I had issues when trying to get my phone repaired/replaced under AppleCare. To the extent I had an advisor over the phone telling me I had to pay extra money to get it replaced and that AC+ was just a membership so I could speak to her. It left a really bad taste in my mouth and at the time I'd got a second-hand Microsoft Surface Laptop with Windows 11 on it. I like Windows 11 and the integration it has with the Surface which is similar to the Mac in my opinion. Also, this wasn't the first time I'd had issues with Apple customer 'care'.

With that bad experience and the fact, that I also fancied a change after 20+ years of being in the ecosystem.

After doing research over the last few months I've decided against leaving the ecosystem as I'm just too invested. While there are workarounds to get stuff to work, it seems like a complete ballache plus significant cost unless I completely leave and get rid of all of my Apple devices.
Click to expand...
Its not just workarounds. It often feels like doing anything on Android (and for the record I like Android) is a bit of a compromise somewhere in the process.
 
Well I can tell you I did that with my se2 because of the bad battery life as well I went with the iPhone 14 because it met my needs and got a great deal on it too when I traded my se2 for it I just love having a oled display!
 
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13 is going to be supported for a long time, still super snappy and the difference between models now is negligible and differences are spotted mainly through spec sheets not actual day to day use. Go for the 13 for a massive upgrade from what you have now and the 15 for something that feels a bit newer and will last you just a bit longer. Can’t go wrong with both but the 13 does have incredible value (buy Apple refurbished it’s cheaper looks like new and you can get AppleCare+)
 
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Both 13 and 15 will be a good upgrade from your current SE 2020, but if you want to keep your new iPhone for as long as possible, 15 will probably be a better choice. You will have a better camera, better battery life, Dynamic Island, a USB-C connector and a satellite SOS if any of those are important for you. Also, I find the ability to limit the battery charge to 80% quite useful for preserving the battery health. My current 15 has 114 charge cycles (capped at 80%) and still shows a 100% battery health.
 
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You seem to keep your iPhones for a long time and the camera is important to you.

I’d go 15. You’ll get more iOS upgrades than on the 13 and the better camera.

Hope you enjoy whatever you decide on buying!
 
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