I eventually went for an iPhone SE (2016) in the last year, after it was discontinued and managed to get a boxed, new unit for less than even the low-end android market phones go for. Thus far it's the most enjoyable phone to use having moved from an S8 which was certainly "better" on paper.

The size is incredibly portable and easy to handle, the battery, despite only being 1500mAh, does a very good job lasting me the day (though I certainly expect it won't continue to do so) and the screen is acceptable but annoying enough that I don't want to be using it for long stretches. It's got the lastest iOS and I fully expect the lack of iOS 14 support will be the reason I have to swap it for a new model once software support falls away.

It seems like this new SE model is still the smallest phone you can get despite the increase in dimensions and weight that you mention. It's nice to see a comment that shares my view and I hope a market for the smaller phone will come back around similar to that odd stage in the early 00s where handsets suddenly became impossibly small.

And of course I can’t use headphones, I ordered a dongle from newegg and waited weeks and now it hasn’t come. I’ve mostly given up on using my phone for music because of this.

The water resistance is nice though, that’s probably the only feature I’ve actually enjoyed.

I have however had a smashed screen once, and the bigger a phone is, the harder it is to hold, the more likely the screen will smash

The old macbooks were great with the maglock power lead not pulling them off the desk. I believe new ones have downgraded the connector?

I have been using this Magnetic USB C Adapter and am very happy with it: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0816PV1YZ/

The risk is probably not worth it.

Then it's not for you. But given that phone manufacturers go to the expense of putting water-sensing strips inside phones, someone is going to put that water resistance to use.

I couldn't too, then I fell into a channel. No harms to me and my bicycle but I had to turn off the phone and let it dry for a day before I could use it again.

For what it’s worth, Apple last updated iOS 12 on March 24th, so they seem to be supporting not only the most recent major version of iOS: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222

Once _Settings - Battery_ indicates you need a new one, the $59 (or equivalent) that Apple charges is well worth it. You will also likely notice a performance increase as well!

I eventually bought the iphone 8 about 6 months ago. And my god, it is just as good if not better. The size that scared me so much? Turns out I like it even more. The speed has been great, and I never knew how much I'd appreciate the larger screen. Point is, I know where you're coming from. But trust me, the iphone 8 size still feels relatively easy to hold (I can still comfortably hold it with one hand 100% of the time), and I have 0 regrets whatsoever about the upgrade.

I don't get this criticism - I owned a 5 series iPhone and the anodized finish was anything but easy to grip. It looked nice but massively reduced the friction between your hand and the surface, making it the easiest phone to drop that I have ever held. Their lightness didn't help either.

Conversely the newer iPhones with glass backs stick to your skin almost like glue in comparison, and if anything I find the rounded corners increase the amount of the phone surface in contact with your skin.

This functionality degradation for the sake of design mania indicates utter madness and gross incompetence!

It would be like Mercedes suddenly deciding cars didn't need air conditioners any more and refusing to build cars with that option. "We're Mercedes. We know best. You don't need an A/C. Open the window if you're too warm."

The whole premise just sounds insulting, and if it happened you'd never buy a Mercedes again.

Personally, I would never want to go back to the crappy headphone connectors. The connector always wore out on me. So while I understand why you might want a headphone port (and some people likely want an in-built parallel or ADB2 port), it's hyperbolic to call it "utter madness and gross incompetence".

In reality, it's just someone having different values than you. Why is that so difficult to accept for some people?

I stand by the phrasing of 'utter madness and gross incompetence' when usability is degraded and things get unnecessarily complicated in an essential functionality. All of this for questionable changes (I wouldn't dare calling it improvement, I feel improper just to mention this word in this context, the whole thing is very far from improvement).

What I also need to add how strange is that certain groups of people get offended on strong and grounded opinion about some consumer product like if it was a central element of their life not a utility of an auxiliary topic.

There must be some sort of an internet rule one party intends a statement to be about the other, but it really applies to the author.

But the additional flexibility offered via software updates is the core power of software. Where we are able to replace hardware with software functionality, there's additional flexibility for improvement and iteration. That's a valuable add.

It is bad putting software into anything and everything, just because we do it frequently to other things. It should have much better reason for that. Complicating unnecessarily and many times introducing risks and troubles is a no good.

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

Sadly, we forget this simple fact.

Automatically that view is disqualified because we are talking about Bluetooth headphones; there must be software on them to communicate efficiently with paired devices.

AirPods receive firmware updates to make adjustments to the audio, and AirPods Pro receive further updates to make adjustments to balance audio quality and the way the noise cancellation works in order to make sure that the AirPods fit properly in peoples' ears.

I don't know that (A) connectivity, (B) audio quality, and (C) fitting in peoples' ears are contrived in any way.

Cheap phone with big screen and not much else - the "lowest common denominator"

Expensive phone with big screen - the "power user"

Expensive phone with small screen - the mobile user

Laptops tend to come in such groupings, why is the last group ignored when it comes to phones?

Presumably because there isn't actually that much demand for that category. Apple tried it out with the original SE and they have the sales data. If there were tons of people clamoring for a sequel, they would have made one instead of a refreshed iPhone 8.

A $1000 4" phone won't have the same capabilities as a $1000 6.5" phone, and reviewers somehow do not seem to understand it might be ok and will trash the smaller phone.

Do people really not use a case with their phones?

edit: Can anyone explain the downvotes? is this a bad question?

In fact, my partner's iPhone and my previous one both broke in independent incidents when both were in cases. My new phone, I don't use a case, drop it regularly on asphalt, concrete, and it's even taken a dive into hot dishwashing water — and it's just fine.

I know somebody will come along with a story about how theirs smashed into smithereens but, for my money, Apple builds their phones to last.

this isn't broken??

Fun fact: my phone took its dive after the crack. No water got in at all.

Calling it a crack when it's made with crack-resistant glass doesn't give the right impression of how undamaged it really is, compared to one's expectation that it shattered into a million pieces and embedded itself into my carpet like grenade shrapnel — it ain't like that.