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The 2020 iPhone SE

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51–60 of 317 posts

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#51
post #17

Interesting point that iPhone SE might be hard for people used to iPhone X or later to downgrade to due to the swipe gestures.

I have been using Sailfish for years which uses swipe gestures similar to the iPhone X et al. I recently had to get an iPhone for work and all they had was the 8. Getting used to the button was really hard.

I have found myself reaching for the home button when using Sailfish though. I am completely convinced that the gesture UI is superior, but I couldn't relate to the whole not reaching for the home button thing mentioned in the article.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#52
The most annoying part of Apple is that they make excellent products but their "fandom" talks about the appearance of the computer for the first good chunk of the review.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#53
post #10

> a $400 iPhone SE bests a > $3,000 top-of-the-line > MacBook Pro in single-core > CPU performance. Whenever I see these sorts of benchmarks, it just makes me focus on how much iOS is the limiting factor of these devices.

There's an echo of early 2000s here. The PowerPC G5 and mobile G4s were humiliated by x86, but the faithful (myself included) clung on because of OS X's strengths over Windows. Now Apple's CPUs are humiliating Intel, and yet again I stick with a Mac because of macOS's strengths over iOS.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Taking it at face value, I assume that they sell more phones than laptops, and can put more resources into the phone. I mean, maybe you're suggesting they should just use the phone CPU for a laptop, but I guess it's not suitable?

It's baffling because top end x86 CPUs consume significantly more power and run at significantly higher clock speeds. If these benchmarks are actually valid it suggests that we might see ARM ousting x86 on the desktop too sooner rather than later, which would be massive considering PCs have been x86 based for about 4 decades.

But relatively few desktop computing applications are single threaded.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#55
post #50
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It still has a home button. Why is this a benefit? The removal of the home button might have been the best thing since the home button itself. The gesture that replaced is an order of magnitude better.

the gesture that replaced it is significantly more likely to cause repetitive stress injuries

Citation? This is bullshit.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#56

I don't think I can justify, no matter how good the hardware is, relative to the value of the phone compared to other leaders in the market, buying a phone in mid 2020 without 5G support. It lends its self I guess to my opposition to buying every 1 or 2 years.

I honestly don't understand what direct benefit that I, a consumer, get from 5G (mmwave or normal spectrum)? My 4G device already can stream 1080p video at high quality. For every use case that I have with my phone, 5G doesn't appear to offer any material improvement.

Sure, the carriers can make more out of their bandwidth, but that's not really something I'm willing to pay for.

And, it's not like 4G is going anywhere, it'll be continued to be supported for a long time.

Actually, considering the impact on battery life that 5G has on consumer devices... I don't think I actually want it, to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I won't resist a natural upgrade when I upgrade my iphone 8 in 2-3 years, but I'm not seeking it out either.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#57
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "It's cool that Apple made a cheap phone" It's only cheap relative to Apples other phones, it's still outside of the range I'd consider reasonable. Although it seems the reason most people spend so much on phones is to get better cameras? Which I'm not particularly bothered about - maybe it's worth it for that.

I've upgraded my iPhone five times, just recently to the SE, and each time it's been exclusively for the camera. Literally exclusively, since in many other respects the functionality is going in reverse (loss of home button, touch ID, headphone port, etc.) I swallow it all for a better camera.

You know you can get cameras now without a phone bundled with them.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#58
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's baffling because top end x86 CPUs consume significantly more power and run at significantly higher clock speeds. If these benchmarks are actually valid it suggests that we might see ARM ousting x86 on the desktop too sooner rather than later, which would be massive considering PCs have been x86 based for about 4 decades.

But relatively few desktop computing applications are single threaded.

With a higher power target I don't see why this architecture couldn't have more cores (but I also have no idea what I'm talking about) - looks like it currently has 2 "big" cores and 4 "small" cores.

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#59
post #7

Those benchmarks are impressive. iPhone SE beating the 2019 MBP in single core performance? That's fantastic! I wish I could comment on or know what he was talking about with the iPhone X vs "old iPhone" interaction paradigm. I personally thought the "single button" hardware interface was an incredible innovation that changed everything. Even Android relies on it. My Galaxy S9+ has a "software home button" (like most…

Fun fact: iPhone's buttons are not mechanical buttons starting with iPhone 7. The click you feel when you press it is just the taptic engine. If you have an iPhone 7 or 8, try turning it off and try to press the button.

I knew this was true, as you can't click it when battery is off, but I still don't get it: how does it work, and why?

Re: The 2020 iPhone SE

#60

> So, yes, a $400 iPhone SE bests a $3,000 top-of-the-line MacBook Pro in single-core CPU performance. This is baffling.

Apple is at least a node ahead and isn’t using a 5 year old µarch. Also, Geekbench is a relatively small test and is not be testing the systems to their fullest extent in terms of thermal capacity or memory depth.
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