Left to right: iPhone 4S (in a Mophie battery case), Romy’s iPhone SE, my iPhone SE 2020

I purchased my first smartphone – an Apple iPhone 4S – back in November, 2011. It replaced my trusty StarTAC flip phone, which I had purchased about a decade earlier.

I don’t rotate through phones like some folks do.

However, I recently took the plunge again and I am now running an Apple iPhone SE.

(As an aside – what’s the deal Apple? The original iPhone SE came out about four years ago, and only resembles the new version in ways the iPhone 8 resembles the iPhone 4 or 5. Why not the SE2? With the exception of phones, Apple is keeping most products unversioned: iPad Air, MacBook Pro, and now the iPhone SE. Come on….makes it confusing when buying a used version or accessories. It just seems lazy more than anything else.)

While the iPhone SE 2020 just came out, it is based in the iPhone 8 form factor, and does not have the fancier cameras or photo processing power of the iPhone Xs or iPhone 11s.

So why not “get the best”, especially since I may be with this one for a long time?

Pretty simple:

1. I like smaller phones – I want a phone I can slip in my jeans pocket and so on (see also No. 4, below).
2. I like the home button – Call me a Luddite or whatever, but I find it a highly functional mechanical feature.
3. The price is right – I still believe that the iPhone(s) that comes out either this or next fall will be a game-changer. Then I might be willing to do a quicker refresh – but not if my most recent phone was $1100 dollars. This one was $450 with the upgrade to 128G of storage (old phone had 32G).
4. I’m not a phone fanatic – I greatly appreciate my devices and all they can do, but I just don’t live on my devices as many do. I stream movies on my home TV, I still have a bitchin’ desktop computer with a large monitor, I read dead-tree books. And I do have an iPad to stream clips of this or that while we’re standing in the kitchen.

Add into the mix that the new iPhone SE runs the same chip (A13) that powers the very latest iPhones (11s), it’s a pretty good deal for someone like me, who needs a new phone but doesn’t need all the bells and whistles.

Do I wish it had a better camera (and more of them, like other models)? – of course.

Do I wish it had a sexy, full-front display (but somehow still have a home button)? Sure.

But remember – I had an iPhone 4S – I’m getting a way bigger screen, much better camera and vastly improved battery life and processing power.

I made the right choice, for me. No buyer’s remorse at all.

Postscript: This is the first time I’ve moved data from one phone to another. I’m good at doing backups, however. I was able to set up my new phone from a “last night” backup of my old phone with the greatest of ease. Everything, including app settings, were just sucked in auto-magically (not passwords, obviously – which is good). The most impressive part was the import pulled down the Google Chrome browser, and when I fired it up, it had the two tabs I had open on the old phone!

Well done, Apple!