Ive not used an iphone since the 5c. I usually am pretty Samsung loyal, but during their last keynote, the latest "innovation" they had was higher prices and said "AI" so many times that if you took a shot everytime you would have blacked out during the show within the first 5 minutes.
Ive been seriously thinking of making the switch back to an iphone. I have tradionally been a "flagship" sort of guy, but if im being honest, phones have gotten pretty boring in the last 2-3 years to me. So ive been eyeing a 17e.
I guess my question is, for those of you who have the 17e or 16e, how is it? Ive tried to look up youtube reviews, but like every youtuber, unless its a flagship, they generally trash every product.
My other question is, how is ios these days? Any former switchers have anything tips on things/annoyances to look out for or that I will to adjust and get used to?
Thanks in advance.
Came from Samsung S25U (512GB).
Small learning curve, but iOS is a long way better than the 3GS. On my 17Pro Max (1TB), it's very fast and snappy and re-learning iOS from a custom Android launcher wasn't hard to learn, but it took a little while to find out where everything was - inevitable.
The iOS v27 beta is noticeable better with battery life (and IMHO it was phenomenal
before with the OG iOS v26). Did I mention yet that downloads occur behind the scenes? 3GS never did that from what I recall, and was my third-favorite surprise when switching.
There's no universal back button, but most apps have a button - or just swipe your hand across the screen and *bloop* it closes.
I
adore Liquid Glass. iOS 27 makes a few changes but, with the right background, it looks a lot more nuanced. Still miss a couple things, but with the slider to control opacity and other Liquid Glass features, it should keep most people in the happy zone.
Still getting used to bringing up open tasks by swiping from the lower-left corner, but that's a mild nitpick.
In using HandyPhoto image editor, the S25U is noticeably faster in saving PNG files, but is hardly a dealbreaker.
Various phone features for phone calls and other useless things a phone is meant for have other nifty nuances in iOS that did not exist in the S25, as you will discover. Very happy.
Integration with the Apple Watch and even syncing to a secondary phone blows me away with ease of use.
Finding iTunes with iTunes Match and iCloud storage (but downloaded to phone since phone plan isn't unlimited data) to be quite a blessing, especially as my PC's SSD snuffed it and am still working on which files got corrupted, but I have a backup but with iCloud there's no worries.
Screen isn't the same resolution as the S25U, it's a little lower, but looking at both simultaneously, maybe I hit the screen lottery as iPhone's looks crisper and sharper.
Only real gripes are the build-in keyboard (largely have gotten used to it), and the nighttime photography could keep the crosshairs used to show phone stability while photo is being taken to be shown constantly (not dim until exposure starts to show!)
