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Other Rank Your Favorite iPhones of All Time

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Simmias

macrumors 6502
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The original iPhone launched over 18 years ago. How would you rank your experience with the iPhones you’ve owned and why?

Here’s my ranking:

  1. iPhone Air - simply delightful. I find myself doing more on my phone (reading, work, videos) because of how nice it is to hold and use. Picked up my sister’s 16 Pro the other day and nearly burst out laughing at how chunky it felt.
  2. iPhone 7 (jet black) - the refined design, haptic home button, light weight, glossy jet black finish all made this phone a joy to use. Felt like the pinnacle of the home button phones (never had the 8)
  3. iPhone 15 Pro Max - enjoyed the large screen and fast performance in relatively lightweight titanium body. 5X zoom very useful. Like having a laptop in my pocket. Let down by battery degradation.
  4. iPhone 4S - my first iPhone. Felt like the best consumer device I’d ever owned at the time. Great size in hand and nice refinement of legendary iPhone 4 design.
  5. iPhone 14 Pro/ iPhone 12 Pro - I liked the flat sided design much better than the original bulging and bulky feeling steel iPhone X/XS. Good cameras, decent battery life, cool colors (pacific blue & deep purple) but never really fell in love with either.
  6. iPhone 12 Mini - I loved the concept of a big screen in a small body, after the bulky XS, but battery life was poor and I returned for 12 Pro.
  7. iPhone XS - while I was excited for the all-screen design and new UI, I disliked how much of a tank this felt like after the iPhone 7. A great big steel brick. Returned once and then caved and bought it again.
  8. iPhone 6 - Apple’s concession to the market’s craving for phablet. Design felt relatively crude (e.g. bendgate) and probably the least attractive iPhone I’ve owned with the matte aluminum back, antenna lines, and camera bump/pimple.
 
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Black iPhone 5
Nothing else
 

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I’ve had my fair share of iPhones, but it’s hard to top the 3GS for the radical difference it made in comparison to the old Nokias I used to use, so I can’t put it in the same ranks.

1: iPhone 14. My current phone, and I still love it despite the fact I’ve badly cracked the screen. My intent when I got it was to keep it for 5 years as I upgraded from an 8 Plus which held up really well. 3 years in my plans haven’t changed. I just need to fix the screen.

2: iPhone 5. It was such a great design, it remains one of my favourites. I still have it. The screen has started yellowing around the edges, but it still works. It’s in a quad-lock case because I used it as a GPS Speedo, and satnav for my motorbike. Now I find it too small, but it’ll forever be a great little phone.

3: iPhone 8 Plus. I grew to dislike the rounded edges, which make it feel like trying to hold a bar of soap, and it took me a while to get used to the size, but once I did it was a good, reliable phone. I still have it as well. I set it up for my wife for Find My Friends when I was still on the motorbike. It’s feeling its age now, but was still doing ok when I upgraded to my 14.

4: iPhone 6, & 4S
Good phones that I loved, but didn’t have the impact of the top 3
 
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I’m still using a 6s plus for work and I prefer it over my 16 pro max in terms of how it feels in hand.. I also have some old iPhone 5’s which feel ancient, even compared to the 6.

I think my fav from memory is the iPhone 11.. I preferred the rounded edges more as was more comfortable to hold
 
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iPhone X, iPhone 13 Pro Max, iPhone 6s Plus

Everything prior to the 6s got way too slow, way too quickly.

The iPhone X was amazing. I loved the design, the camera, the screen, and the form factor.
The iPhone 13 PM had a great camera, screen, and amazing battery life. I just didn't like the weight and the sharpness of the frame much.
The iPhone 6s Plus was a huge improvement over my 6 Plus and I loved 3D Touch.
 
jerry78 said:
Phone 5 is the first iPhone I owned.
Click to expand...
The 3GS is the first I owned, a used one, my sister's old phone after she upgraded.

But the iPhone 5 is the first iPhone I ever bought new and that year (2012) I engaged in the whole pre-order deal, so my iPhone 5 arrived on launch day. Aside from the perfect design of this phone, that fact has a lot to do with my liking the phone.
 
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1) iPhone 4. It was so damn good, it made me get service with ATT 🤮 just to get an iPhone.
2) iPhone 6+! Finally, a big screen and big battery. Touch ID and Apple Pay were awesome too.
3) iPhone 8+. Touch ID 2, and it had no notch. I kept it until the 15 Pro Max

I had the iPhone 5, but buying the 5 was more about going back to Sprint and getting 4G LTE. I really wasn't excited about the 5, and it was a half ass attempt to give us a bigger screen.
 
Simmias said:
The original iPhone launched over 18 years ago. How would you rank your experience with the iPhones you’ve owned and why?

Here’s my ranking:

  1. iPhone Air - simply delightful. I find myself doing more on my phone (reading, work, videos) because of how nice it is to hold and use. Picked up my sister’s 16 Pro the other day and nearly burst out laughing at how chunky it felt.
  2. iPhone 7 (jet black) - the refined design, haptic home button, light weight, glossy jet black finish all made this phone a joy to use. Felt like the pinnacle of the home button phones (never had the 8)
  3. iPhone 15 Pro Max - enjoyed the large screen and fast performance in relatively lightweight titanium body. 5X zoom very useful. Like having a laptop in my pocket. Let down by battery degradation.
  4. iPhone 4S - my first iPhone. Felt like the best consumer device I’d ever owned at the time. Great size in hand and nice refinement of legendary iPhone 4 design.
  5. iPhone 14 Pro/ iPhone 12 Pro - I liked the flat sided design much better than the original bulging and bulky feeling steel iPhone X/XS. Good cameras, decent battery life, cool colors (pacific blue & deep purple) but never really fell in love with either.
  6. iPhone 12 Mini - I loved the concept of a big screen in a small body, after the bulky XS, but battery life was poor and I returned for 12 Pro.
  7. iPhone XS - while I was excited for the all-screen design and new UI, I disliked how much of a tank this felt like after the iPhone 7. A great big steel brick. Returned once and then caved and bought it again.
  8. iPhone 6 - Apple’s concession to the market’s craving for phablet. Design felt relatively crude (e.g. bendgate) and probably the least attractive iPhone I’ve owned with the matte aluminum back, antenna lines, and camera bump/pimple.
Click to expand...
Sorry but this OP makes no sense to me. I started with the v1 iPhone and liked each new iPhone I purchased better than the previous one or I would not have bought it. And my protocol is to hold on to the old iPhone for a few weeks just to make sure.

IMO every year the iPhones have improved. On years when I did not upgrade I still spent substantial time testing friends' iPhones, because back then cell service was particularly problematic and if a phone improved connectivity it was a big deal. The 4s was the quantum jump for me as the first year that I found the iPhone camera good enough to be really useful.
 
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6s was my favorite. Just had a good look and feel to it. I had the white one and it looked really well with the silver aluminum.
 
For me, it is always my latest iPhone. Currently I have the iPhone Air Blue Sky 512GB. Technology keeps advancing. I don’t know how I can say the original iPhone was the best when the data connection was edge. The phone only worked with WI-FI. I had to download everything for it to work outside my home. Basically it was still an iPod. All the models kept getting better until the current version I have now.
 
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