Apple iPhone 16e

It's battery life. I was an iPhone 13 mini user for the last few years. I would buy a refurbished one off Amazon whenever my current one broke. I really prefer the smaller screen size. Recently, I broke my phone again and my wife happened to have a larger iPhone laying around unused (through some accident of e-commerce). I felt weird buying a new phone when we had a perfectly good one laying around, so I decided to give it a shot. I don't watch any video on my phone and most of my screentime is Kindle and Safari. My screentime is only like 2-3hrs per day. And yet, I still found myself chronically running out of batteries on the 13 mini. I actually now would prefer to keep my new annoyingly large 16e just to not have the battery anxiety. (A hidden assumption in the above is that larger screens make more room for battery.)

Because 7 years from now, my iPhone will still have the latest OS and security updates. I also have the budget iPhone 16e. I also haven't broken a phone since I was 16. Not like cheap androids that are often abandonware by the device maker before they even hit the shelves. It sucks. I wish that would change, but that is what made me switch from Android to iPhone after 12 years on Android. At the time, even flagship androids were lucky to get 2 years of OS updates and security fixes. Apparently Google and Samsung are going to support their devices longer, but I'll wait till they have a track record. But ultimately, an iPhone for me does come out cheaper over the lifetime of a device than cycling through cheap androids every 2 years.

Exactly this. Once the writing was on the wall that deGoogled / FOSS Android was on borrowed time (at best), a ton of the argument against iOS dissolved overnight. We can argue that Apple's anti-repair policies and anti-user-customization policies are their own evils, sure, but at least my phone works for its core tasks, and works phenomenally well at that. My deGoogled Android phones were mostly hobbled together piles of "it sometimes works, as long as I don't look at it too funny". This tradeoff was fine for fully owning my data and being able to install absolutely anything I wanted on my phone. With arbitrary APK installation disappearing, and unlocked bootloaders to install a less hostile fork of Android becoming such a rarity these days, I may as well at least not fear looking at my phone the wrong way when the moon is in alignment with the wrong star. Source: about 12 years of Android usage (11 of those on unlocked bootloaders and custom ROMs, ~6? of those deGoogled) -> iPhone 16e.

I use iPhones (paid for by work) as a tool for my agronomy job. I take a large amount of photos throughout the day to help document what I find in the field. Since at least the iPhone 12, holding the phone still and letting scene sit for a few seconds will result in a sharper photo. I’m not sure if it’s a subtle version focus stacking or a sharpening algorithm, but it’s definitely there. On my 16e, immediately looking at a photo just taken can result in the image noticeably sharpening after a second or 2, so this may be a post processing step as well.

I bought an 16e last week with the same chipset, just tested and it handles realtime recording of 4k at 60fps with HEVC (camera is "48mp" so the source is 8k camera source material). Pretty sure most of the encoding/decoding of video is handled with special circuits these days. Now, add enough layers and it'll probably falter, but with dedicated encoding/decoding circuits combined with a modern GPU it will definetly be a usable experience with some lower res quick pre-renders at worst but probably realtime for most content creator usages.

> On the other hand, a person who spends a load of time on public transit, streaming netflix the whole time? A person who listens to music all day while they work? That could be me. I am amazed at the battery life of my iPhone 16e. I have no need for daily battery swaps. (Apple claims something like 21 hours of video streaming on a full charge -- that's on Apple's own streaming service but it is still many hours on Netflix and Youtube.) The "fast charger" is a tiny 20W USB-C charger that I no longer remember if I bought separately or not. It's nice and fast. Modern phones are really good at not using much power. Modern batteries are remarkably energy dense. They also degrade slower than older batteries, among other reasons because we have better (and cheaper and greener) additives now. Thank you, Dalhousie and Tesla! This is legislation that would have made a lot of sense 10-15-20 years ago. It is symbolic now (and likely to be slightly worse for the environment).

Umm most people buy them for the hardware. On paper my 16e sounds really good but is crap compared to the 17 pros cameras plus photonic engine. Apple gimps software in non pros. I don't take alot of pics so I don't really care for the pro. Id rather get an old DSLR.

I believe it is the case that US (at least) iPhones work as IC cards in Japan Source - I’m sitting in Kyoto right now having travelled all over Tokyo and then on to Kyoto using only my phone to interact with Japan Rail. Verified with two 16Es and a 12. In fact we were able to add the Suica cards to our phones and charge them fromApplePay while still stateside. That let us skip the Welcome Suica line at Haneda and go straight to the monorail. Highly recommended

The size of the iPhone 16e is quite reasonable.

> The idea of spending $1,000 on a phone is just something she is unable to bring herself to do She wouldn’t need to spend that much. You can get a perfectly fine refurbished iPhone 16e for $400.

iPhone 16e is $599 and would have been the best phone on the market a few years ago.

You might want to check the 16e. It has 16 insides (without magsafe and uwb chip), with screen from 14 and not very protruding (although still) but good camera. Its also cheaper than base model iphone.

This might be an unpopular opinion but does anyone else think that phones are now targeted towards teenagers and young adults and not the general crowd anymore ? I feel Apple has completely made their phones a social tool and not a technology innovation product. Camera, colors and the ability to distinguish your phone from others in selfies (another social feature) and in public is what it seems to be about. Gaming on the phone is another aspect. The phones look different each year (on purpose) and they are increasingly targeted towards young adults who can spend 1000$ of their savings all year towards just looking cool on social media with better pictures and a social profile. I noticed this transition around iPhone X era where design language lost meaning as long as they could compete in the social media world. I feel Instagram and TikTok should thank apple for becoming more social. I really like the 15 camera I have and feels really good for a casual photo person. I feel that the 16e is more than enough for 99% of those not into social media. Like the phone without social media is just keeping in touch with close friends and family and occasionally taking pictures and making payments. And once in a while a few apps that help you track something like maps or health apps. The 16e feels like a really enough phone if you don't want to get into the rat race.

The limiting factor for that is currently the more recent iPhone SE 3 (2022), so that argument isn't convincing. Regarding screen size, the Display Zoom resolution of the Pro Max is the same as the iPhone mini resolution, and the Display Zoom resolution of the Pro is the same as the Display Zoom resolution of the mini [0], so dropping the mini didn't actually remove any supported resolution. What's true is that the hardware design and layout is more constrained for the mini size, mostly regarding battery capacity, but I don't really see a limitation for the software. Even regarding battery capacity, the 16e has really great battery life, so a mini using similar tech should still be acceptable. [0] https://www.ricsantos.net/2021/01/21/ios-device-resolution-g...