That's something I don't get... I believe there's an audience for "hand" form factor. Yet, companies make bigger phones and consider small phone audience as those who would pay less and get less. Why on earth they can't understand some people would actually pay for top notch hardware in smaller hardware?

Why plus/+/XL or whatever they name it usually gets beefier CPU/RAM/Storage? It's not like ultraportable laptops vs 15" ones. there are no real thermal limitations.

I think the limitation is volume. Scale a phone by 10% in all directions, and its volume goes up by 33% (-ish). Its display grows by only 21% in area, though.

So, roughly, you get 10% more power per pixel or square inch of screen.

And I think it’s even worse for the smaller phone. The faster CPU and GPU and more memory you need to drive 21% more pixels and to light 21% more screen area do not take up 33% more volume, and Bluetooth and cellular radios stay the same size, so you can scale the battery volume by over 33%, and, likely, its capacity even more, as the fraction of the battery’s volume that is lost to the battery housing can be lower for larger batteries.

Scale a phone by 30% in all dimensions, and the effect is a lot larger; 69% more screen area, but 120% more volume, so almost double the power/pixel.

The screen is the component that uses up the most energy though. By having a smaller screen, you can get by with a smaller battery.

People don't remember that when the SE was released it was state-of-the-art. It wasn't the slow iPhone, it wasn't the cheap iPhone. That's the 5C.

It wasn't the flagship of its era. It was always a side product, just not as cut down as side products usually are.

When the SE was released it had the same 2GB of RAM and A9 CPU as the 6s and 6s Plus, the latter of which was "the flagship". An iPhone with better internals wasn't released until 6 months later.

Maybe he means when the form factor was released originally as 5S.

The 4.87" x 2.31" x 0.30" envelope arose with the 5, a year before the 5S.

True, but there are some design differences (including the addition of TouchID), while the 5S and SE are almost identical. (You also mentioned the 5C, which was an alternative to the 5S.)

Sure. I mention the 5C because it was the real budget device. On the day it was released it had internals the same as the previous year's 5, instead of those of the 5S released on the same day as the 5C. The SE, by contrast, had the same guts as the 6s. People seem confused about this.