This is exactly the phone my wife wants to upgrade from her showing-its-age, 5-year-old 6S. It'll fit into her existing case. It's not too big. It's affordable. It still has a home button.
She's hardly a power user, so this might be the one phone she gets for the next five year, too.
I stayed with the 6S because of the headphone port and Touch ID. It also was a testbed for the water-resistance for the 7, so it more-or-less is IP67 except for the headphone jack.
The SE seems a compelling upgrade because it doesn't have a notch, unlocks without requiring lighting and a camera, isn't a massive brick, and doesn't cost several fortunes.
Why is this a benefit? The removal of the home button might have been the best thing since the home button itself. The gesture that replaced is an order of magnitude better.
Similarly, it's annoying that you can't reach over to unlock the phone and read a notification if the phone is sitting flat on a table - you have to pick it up and angle it toward your face.
Other than that, I really liked Face ID until it became compulsory to wear a mask at all times while outside the house. My kingdom for a temporary Touch ID sensor.
Same, switched to Samsung A70. Every night at bedtime I swear at the FaceID not working nor (!) the under the screen Touch ID until the 8:th try. Even a headphone cable touching the screen will wake the screen up.
Having rounded sides is also something that just reeks of Windows XP blue theme to me. Playful but utter useless (for the grip). I have to remember to not squeeze the phone too hard every time because then it will hit the ground or clicking on the sides.
The old iPhone SE was amazing. I wish the new one had the same form-factor with better battery but put the touch id on the back to allow for a near edge to edge screen (but keep the steel border so I don't accidentally touch the screen).
While dreaming, I wish the reviewers would actually try living with the phones, because pretty much all the reviewers can be replaced with a spec-sheet at this point.
Hm.. have you tried the Face ID on iPhones or just the Samsung A70 and other single-camera style Face ID? My iPhone 11's Face ID works without issues even at night in bed, but I've used Honor 10 before and had a lot of issues with its face recog including night usability, so I rather disabled it..
Also headphone cable doesn't wake up my iPhone 11.
For a good chunk of the day I can’t unlock my iPhone with Face ID while wearing a mask. At night and in the morning I can’t unlock it because I’m horizontal, hair obscures part of my face and/or it’s too dark. Punching in the passphrase gets old quick.
I read about Apple’s patent on buttonless Touch ID underlying the screen and I’m holding off until next event to get either a phone with that technology, or SE 2.
Sure, nothing is stopping you from preferring inferior options. The button is objectively worse. It is more complicated mechanically, it is slower for all of its functions, and it wastes almost an inch of screen space to nothing. The redeeming aspect of it is Touch ID if the pros outweigh the cons for your preferred use case vs. Face ID.
"Objectively" is not the right word here. There's a reason I used the word taste, rather than looking at specs or technology or performance: it might be that a $0.99 McDonald's hamburger is "objectively" inferior to a $20 organic grass-fed medium-rare burger from a fancy restaurant; but if I prefer the McDonald's one, it's useless to tell me that my tastes are wrong.
Maybe I like the ritual of thumb-to-unlock, since it feels more under my control. Maybe there's instances in which I want to look at the phone without unlocking the device. Maybe I hate the stupid notch, and I want my screen to be a rectangle and not a rounded rectangle. Just because you don't value these things doesn't make your preference "objectively" correct.
> wastes almost an inch of screen space to nothing
(I also have a huge pet peeve with the bezels shrinking on recent iPads. However good the fancy touch-canceling algorithms get, they'll never compete with "I'm not touching the screen at all, so I'm 1000% sure this grip won't invoke an action.")
If you're already satisfied by your experience on the phone, and you don't have to relearn anything, that could be a pretty compelling reason to go with the SE.
I thought the same thing. Until I got an XS. Then was annoyed while I figured out the gestures.
Now anytime I have to use a phone with a home button, it’s painful. Things are a lot easier now in ways I didn’t realize until I got used to them.
I’m assuming you don’t use an iPhone without a home button. If you did and got used to it, I don’t think there’s any way you’d want to go back. (I’ve yet to hear anyone say they wish the home button would come back after getting used to not having one.)
> I’ve yet to hear anyone say they wish the home button would come back
Easier, harder, better are all relative preferences. I have iphone 7 and my partner has the iphone 11 max. I use both mechanisms everyday and hate the gestures, the weight, the loss of one hand operation.
It puts more strain on the tendon which is what ends up getting injured first. If you have both types of phones go do each one 1000 times in 20 minutes each on separate days. See how your hand feels after each one.
I can second the strain, quickly noticed after getting the new buttonless phone.
The most ergonomic way to press on the home button for me was by sliding the old SE closer to fingertips, so that the thumb can rest on the button while being extended and relaxed. From that position a swipe-up gesture isn’t possible.
I would also rotate my old SE upside-down for unlock occasionally while pulling it out, since it doesn’t affect the fingerprint reader and I don’t need to stare at my phone for it to work. It would be a little more precarious with a bigger phone, though.
You're doing the same motion for both cases, except with one you're pressing down tightening your hand, and the other you put your thumb back to where it was before with minimal pressure. I don't believe what you're claiming.
She's hardly a power user, so this might be the one phone she gets for the next five year, too.