Keep in mind two significant caveats:

- phone batteries basically on last 2 years or less (iPhones are rated to 80% capacity after 500 cycles), which means your phone will last 4/5 as long as it did when new and possibly shut off prematurely in cold/hot temperatures unless you pay for a battery replacement ($50-100+)

- since we bring phones with us pretty much anywhere, a random fall in a pool, an unforseen rain storm, or butterfingers over a hard surface could end up destroying your phone well before those points.

While the SE (2020) certainly has more potential life than the 4a, both phones become fairly useless after 3 years due to the battery concern anyway and might not make it that far depending on who's using them. At that point, the 64GB larger storage, nicer screen, better camera, and $50 lower price of the 4a becomes a competitive advantage.

Batteries last more like five years, in my experience, although it does depend on your usage patterns. I'm about 300 cycles in and still at 98% capacity on my iPhone 8.

All these comparisons are misleading. I call "budget" the phone I bought for my mother for less than $100 (an Asus, for the matter) or the $150 Asus I bought for my father, you call "budget" phones in the $350-450 range that I would call mid-range. We may be both right, I guess.

Those budget phones are generally insecure from day one (many months out of date on security patches) and often never get security patches at all.

This changes absolutely nothing in the discussion about what is a budget phone.

Bought my son a Nokia 5.3 for 180 euros, completely surprised by how well it works. If I had to buy my own phone (currently have a company iPhone 11) I would seriously consider the Nokia 5.3 for myself.

Had a Nokia 7.1 for a few years now. Really nice phone, still very quick and the battery easily last 2 days (still). Cost £190 when new. Not sure why people pay more really.

Got my mother a Nokia 7.3 - it's a very good phone priced competitively, with a nearly pure Android experience and on time updates with Android one. Peace of mind!

The 5.3 is a great phone. The Pixel 4a has a better screen and better camera (kinda), but at $200 in the US it's a fantastic value for what you get.

How frequently do you get updates? My friends have gotten cheap Android phones in the past and updates were abysmal.

Nokia 5.3 is part of Android One, so security updates for 3 years are not a problem

so in Nokia-land, the major version is the "class" of phone, while the minor version is the date revision?

5.3 being newer than the 7.2, but down one class in "feature set"?

That is roughly correct, although the 6.X series exists for Nokia devices.