[TwoFerMaggie]

I've been using one since 2016. The recent two years have been a bit tough because of the degraded battery. Swapped a new battery earlier this year, it was good for a while and now it's slow again and barely last a whole day. The last straw was the music player/spotify stuttering while I'm using Safari.

I have made up my mind that I won't buy another iPhone due to their design choices in the past years (mainly, removing headphone jack, but also in general undermining reparability while preaching sustainability).

So for me the must-have features are 3.5mm jack and relatively small form factor. I ended up getting a Asus Zenfone 9 (actually saw the post from HN first). Have been using it for about a couple weeks and I don't have too many complaints switching to Android. Only gripe I have was that the screen is still way too big. A bigger screen and very thin bezels are of course visually nice, but it's impossible to reach the upper and lower left corner when I use it with my right hand. Welp, I guess that's the compromise that I have to make in exchange for the features more important to me.

[m_st]

Funny while reading your text I wanted to write you about the Zenfone 9 and then you just mention it. I'm a heavy Apple / iPhone user so probably won't switch. But the specs and especially the backpack mount triggered my interest.

How happy are you with it? Especially the camera?

[TwoFerMaggie]

I'd say pretty happy. Do I think it's the perfect phone? Probably not. But I'm pretty sure it's the closest one I can get in 2022 for my desired features.

Regarding the camera, I have to say that I don't really know. Moving up from 1st gen SE camera, I don't really have an reasonable point of reference. All I can say is that, it's definitely better than the SE (duh), but not like mind-blowingly better. Well I'm not really into shooting photos so ymmv.

[avn2109]

>> "... and relatively small form factor..."

Small phones get a ton of love on HN, it's a perennial winner.

But as an anecdotal counterpoint, I am six foot seven with hands (and thumbs) to match, and never met a phone which seems even remotely too large. Even the most phablet-themed Androids with a reputation for cartoonishly giant screens strike me as pretty reasonable.

The trend towards ever-larger phones is great IMHO, I consider it compensation for a lifetime of airplane seats and whacking head on doorways etc.

[dublin]

I like small phones and still use a late 1st gen SE. When the battery died and the screen broke a little over a year ago, I spent $220 at the Apple store getting both replaced rather than upgrade - even ignoring the price of new phones, I didn't like any of the new phones (even the mini) as much as the old SE. (My wife has the 2nd Gen SE, which is the same size as the base 6-8.)

I'm coming to hate Apple more and more with each passing year. For one thing, I refuse to give iCloud my data, and iTunes, already one of the worst pieces of software in history, has declined into an unusable mass of fail. I would like to be able to play my own music on my next phone, something I've never been able to do with an iPhone, since iTunes insists on transcoding my entire music library and scrogging all my album covers if I let it touch my music. I will not live long enough to undo all the damage it did.

Also, I want an actual headphone jack, rather than having to spend another few hundred dollars on Bluetooth radios I'd rather not have in my ears.

If I have to live with a bigger phone, then I'm going to get something in return - I'm seriously thinking that I might be able to live with a Surface Duo - it is larger, but thin, powerful, and even has bezels(!) so touchscreen scrolling works properly. (The Samsung Z-fold is probably still too large and chunky, but interesting, if still lacking in the bezel department.)

Anyway, it appears that Apple no longer cares about those of us who only want phones that actually fit in a pocket, so I'm done with the bastards. Good riddance, but there are no good small phone options anymore, now that the manufacturers have decided to sell only phablets at $1000+ price points.

Maybe Purism or Pine will eventually not suck. Not holding my breath, though...

[slaw]

I replaced iPhone batteries in family and friends phones more than 20 times. It's only about $15 and 10-20 minutes of work. Some after market batteries don't last year even a year, some are good for 2 years.

[TwoFerMaggie]

I actually got it serviced at an apple store, and coincidentally they only had one 1st gen SE battery in stock at that time.

I don't think the battery was bad though, but instead the new iOS version being more power-hungry given the new models and chipsets coming out every year. The new battery was already at 92% health only 4 months after it was installed, which was a bit surprising for me.

At this point I just accepted that it was at the end of its lifespan.

[slaw]

Only once I bought original Apple battery, it didn't last even a year. I suspect it was made at the time iPhone 6S was in production so battery was waiting at the shelf for many years. It is probably the same case with you SE, Apple no longer makes batteries for 1st gen SE, only using what was made years ago. Old batteries, even not used, don't last long.