Thread | Brutkey

My smartphone will be nine years old this fall so I really should plan to replace it with a new model for various reasons (including that there are an increasing amount of apps that won't run on it because it's too old, most recently uBlock for Safari). But I don't really want to. It's a perfectly fine phone and it would be excellent with the latest OS and maybe a refreshed battery.

(Also, increasingly all smartphone sources suck in various ways.)

Ewen McNeill
@ewenmcneill@cloudisland.nz

@cks@mastodon.social if you’re quick you might still find an iPhone SE 3 (2022) for sale from leftover stock. They’re an iPhone 8 case with a newer logic board, and current OS support.

I discovered recently, checking for someone else, that the SE 3 (2022) went end of sale earlier this year. But I guess some still sit on shelves in stores.

(Everything after that is quite a form factor change. I believe 7 to 8 / SE 2 / SE 3 is a tiny form factor change, only just enough to want a new case.)

Chris Siebenmann
@cks@mastodon.social

@ewenmcneill@cloudisland.nz For my sins I have a 7+, because I wanted (and still want) the bigger screen size, so any of the SE models would be a shrink I don't want. Also awkwardly, the 7 → 8 transition is one I'd like to avoid because that's the Touch ID to facial recognition switch, and I expect to like Touch ID much better for idiosyncratic reasons.

(Having looked at this last year I think I don't want the current giant models; the current 'smaller' ones are basically 7+ size now, esp for the screen.)

Ewen McNeill
@ewenmcneill@cloudisland.nz

@cks@mastodon.social the iPhone 8 / SE 2 / SE 3 is still Touch ID. It’s the reason I’ve stuck with that range too. (IIRC the 8 / 10 split, which both came the same year, was the Touch ID vs Face ID change, with the 10 as Face ID.)

But yeah if you want “larger than base 7/8 and Touch ID” then I don’t think there’s any phone models in the last 5 years that have both features. So you’d be into “least bad” choices.

(I ended up sticking with smaller phones and using smaller tablets for extended reading.)