I'm surprised about 1100+ comments, since this is, you know: just another phone
The fact that this phone is bigger doesn't sit well with this vocal minority, because they want a small smartphone and now see that medium is the only available in stock.
Expectation, expectation, expectation. It's being shattered, that leads to emotions and that leads to comments.
I'm also not too happy about the new SE, if you search my comment history I don't think you see me talking about it, but I'm in the same camp. I think other phones are preposterously big, and the SE is the only normal one.
Alas, the new SE is not normal for me. Going back to a dumber phone is now something I have to consider more seriously. I don't want my pockets to bulge out and I want to handle my phone with one hand without straining it. The old iPhone SE was perfect for that. I have pretty tall hands but with the iPhone 8, it didn't strain but felt clumsy (and I use the device quite often in order to help my grandparents with their iPhone 8).
I hope I gave you some insight into the marketing persona of people who want the old iPhone SE to come back and how that persona is well represented on HN.
See also:
Search on HN Algolia for iPhone SE to see these sentiments repeated. Example: the top comment in the this thread [1].
2006: Smartphones were boring.
2007-2010: Smartphones become magical. The pinnacle, or close to, of the 3.5 inch phone is developed in the iPhone 4.
2010+: Phones smaller than 4.5 inches disappear; by the same magic that they used to appear.
For the people who want a 3.5 to 4 inch phone, such as myself, paradise was basically snatched away. I know they can make them, I know they run every app I care about, and they are no longer available for purchase. I want an iPhone 4. I'd settle for an iPhone 5 or similar form factor. Instead they've disappeared and best-case is maybe there is some Android phone that has the right dimensions and is probably poorly fabricated because it is targeting people on a budget.
The issue isn't even entitlement, it that the form factor situation is backsliding from where it was when I was happiest. It is infuriating.
I own a iPhone 8 plus now, thinking I could get used to the size. I can't, even after almost 2 years it's still annoying. I love the screen, I love the screen size for viewing videos and playing games, but I loathe the size of the thing itself. I wouldn't mind giving up screen real estate for a smaller form factor phone.
For what it's worth, I'm also a firm believer of "it should be useable with one hand without akwardness". 4.5" would be my perfect size; just slightly smaller than the current small offerings on the market. I currently have an iphone X and really dislike the form factor - it's just too large, and the rounded corners lend themselves to slipping out of the hand. The square edge design really was the easiest the grip - I hope it makes a return on the next iphone pro. The ipad pro has gone back to the square edge design already, so there's some small hope in this regard.
All this time you’ve been spending with phones slipping out of hands has been wasted.
My comments were downvoted a lot then... yet glad to see there's demand for iPhone 8 size(my current device since 2017) iPhones. It Looks like potentially many others weren't upgrading either.
The SE is a replacement for the iPhone 7/8, which is a huge seller as it's near zero cost for big corporate accounts. It's also cheap enough to undermine the resale market for many customers. Apple will setup a production line somewhere and churn these things out for years at low cost -- I wouldn't be surprised if this is also tied to a factory-in-a-can model where production can be ramped up in places like India.
(I can't edit the post anymore)
For as insightful as the HN crowd usually is, it's funny that we all just swarm a thread about a new phone that isn't terribly remarkable.
As for it being faster than all Android phones. Ok. And? I dont look at my Galaxy and say "if only this was 1 or 2 or 5 or 6.7% faster." We are kind of past the "it should be faster!" for basically ALL smartphones in my view.
Some of us continued to hold out in the hopes that there might be a new device announced that wouldn’t require spending $700+ on something that is effectively worse than what we already have.
Some of us are pretty disappointed that we now need to spend money to maintain a device that is unlikely to receive security updates past IOS 14, or spend money on something that is explicitly against what we want.
I’ll get over it myself, but it won’t stop me being frustrated in the immediate term, because you’re absolutely right. Instead of being anything new and useful (as price point isn’t a big differentiator on here, given average earnings), it is just another phone, and it’s just like all the other phones out on the market.
It’s too damn big.
It takes the “iPhone most people should buy” from $750 to $399.
It completely demolishes the Pixel 3A and makes that phone just about impossible to recommend. A load of Android OEMs selling at this price point should be terrified.
And much more than the original iPhone SE, expect this phone or a $399 phone to finally stick around for Apple. The iPhone SE seemed like an experiment or a way to squeeze out more use out of some remaining machinery. But, I don’t know, this feels different. Apple is selling a price point and they’re going to keep that permanently. Look how much fanfare is on the home page of their site. This thing might even be updated every year.
And honestly, the iPhone SE is too small for most people and had more downsides than this.
For a long time, Apple's 2 gen old phones were still faster (based on Geekbench) than the fastest android phone.
edit: iPhone year is actually 2017, not 2015.
But hey, it's Apple, so everyone is going nuts.
Apples to oranges.
(The regular model had 12GB which would suffice, but 128GB storage was a bit of a joke - I take a lot of pictures, and am familiar with Samsung slow downs unless plenty of free space.)
What I use? Slack, multiple email accounts, Discord, life 360, signal, WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, Hangouts, Instagram, .. nothing special, just a lot of different messaging platforms + apps. The extra memory allows them to stay loaded and ready when swapping.
I locked myself into a salary sacrificed tax free pre order in February (before realising just how bad C19 would get), so not paying the full sticker price. Also rotated my old S10 5G device to wife and sold her old for good coin.
I for one absolutely love the big display in these times of home iso; whether for videos or reading technical books on Kindle. Wife also embraces the nearly as big S10 5G - she wouldn't go back to a smaller phone now.
