Dear Android Users…
– You may have seen a video I did recently on why I'm switching to Android.
Well, yes, that mightbe the right decision for me personally, there aretwo sides to every argument, and the iPhone SE 2020is one hell of a side.
In case you've been living under a rock, the iPhone SE takes thesame tried and true formula from the original SEwhich, of course, came out over four years ago, and simplytakes all of the most recent internals and puts it into amuch more affordable package because at 399, there's nodoubt that this is probably the best value iPhonethat has ever been made.
Also, that's very red.
At $399, you're not sacrificinga lot beyond, I guess, the fact that it still comeswith the tiny five watt charger in the box.
So you still get water resistance, something that is prettyrare on phones at this price.
You get wireless charging, and probably most importantly, you get the same Apple A13chip as in the full iPhone 11 and the 11 Pro range, whichmeans that this $399 phone is probably the most powerful phone that you can get regardless of price.
One small recommendationthough, while you can pick up the base modelwith 64 gigs of storage, for only $50 more, you canupgrade that to 128 gigs, and I would definitely recommend that.
It's certainly usable to spendtime with a 64-gig phone, but considering it's not thatmuch more, you're gonna get a lot more longevity, especiallyconsidering that this phone should be getting updatesfor years to come.
Apple delivered this witha very simple strategy, the parts bin.
So the design here is verysimilar to 2018's iPhone 8, which is an upgradedversion of the iPhone 7, which you could buy afterthe iPhone 6 came out.
Of course, that being theS model of the iPhone 6, so this design, I guess, isfive years old at this point, which to be fair, if itain't broke, don't fix it, and if you're broke, buy an iPhone SE.
I'll admit, I'm not amassive fan of this design.
While, yes, it is betterthan that original iPhone 6, I like the glass back, and they've done a couple of minor tweaks, but generally speaking, it lacks the specialness of that original SE, which had that awesome chamfereddesign, that really tiny size.
I was about to say it'snot an outdated design, but when you look at the front, you look at the giantsize of the bezels here, it does look a little bit dated.
Well yes, it is time for meto set up Apple Pay and Siri in the settings.
A lot of components have been lifted straight off of the iPhone8, including Touch ID, which makes sense consideringthat it is much more mask friendly than FaceID, and, of course, the screen itself, while itis only a 4.
7-inch display, and yeah, it's lowresolution, blah, blah, blah, the thing is, this isstill a very bright color accurate IPS panel, and ithas held up remarkably well considering that it's, well, a few years old at this point, but you know what doesn't feellike a five-year-old design? The sponsor of today'svideo, Rise of Kingdoms.
Rise of Kingdoms is a free toplay real-time strategy game.
You can choose one of 11 civilizations, and build your army, and have them be led by historical commanders.
One of the things that I appreciated about Rise of Kingdoms is justhow much there is to do.
After you focus on building your city, you can go fight barbarians, and it all takes placeon a seamless RTS map.
The battles happen in realtime, and there's so much detail in the game between the individual cities, as well as everything you wantto do to customize your army, and even stuff like daynight cycles, and weather.
There's always something to experience.
There's also a specialevent going on right now called the Osiris League, where you can earn even more in game rewards.
Governors can join alliancesof up to 170 players and band together to form vast empires.
Now, I've only been playingthe game for a few days.
What I found is that there'sa ton of depth there.
There's a lot that you can experience.
There's a lot that you cando without having to leave the confines of your own home.
If this sounds fun, youwant to give it a try and help support the channel, definitely be sure tocheck out Rise of Kingdoms at the link in the description.
Of course, huge shout outto them for sponsoring our iPhone SE video.
The most impressive part of the SE is absolutely the Apple A13 inside.
Let me be super clear.
This is the most powerfulphone you can buy, period.
I don't care what pricepoint you're playing in.
So it is pretty muchidentical to what you get on the iPhone 11 and the 11 Pro, even though it is downto three gigs of RAM compared to four, buttrust me, you won't notice, and when you put this thingside by side with a Pixel 3a, it is not even close.
You also have Wi-Fi 6, as well as Bluetooth 5 from the bigger iPhones.
It has support for NFC, as well as Apple Pay.
The SE camera is ahybrid of the iPhone 8 lens and sensor and the iPhone 11 processor.
What this means is it actuallyis a fairly decent step up, and it does get reallyclose to the iPhone 11.
When you look at a lot ofthese stills side by side, the dynamic range especiallyis very impressive.
The only place that you reallydo notice a deficiency here is in the sharpness of the image.
If you're looking at it onInstagram, you're totally fine, but as soon as you start to pixel peep, you notice that is a littlebit on the softer side.
Somewhere else the SE falls a bit short is in the Night Sight mode, or rather, the lack of because whileyes, the low light photos are fine on the iPhone, they're much much better on something like the Pixel 3a.
When you put it togetheras a whole though, it is a solid package, andit does have portrait mode for both the rear cameraas well as the front.
Now, as with all of thesethings, it always misses the side of my glasses, but beyond that, it does do a respectable job.
Where, I think, the iPhoneSE really shines is in video.
So this is 4K video, completely untouched, straight off of theiPhone SE, and while yes, it might not be quite asstable as something like what you get on the iPhone11, it's really impressive to see this level ofvideo quality on a phone at this price, right? I mean, generallyspeaking, iPhones have been ahead of the game on video for a while, and this really cementsthat even at a 399 budget.
While on paper, the 1, 800milliamp hour battery isn't particularly impressive, because of the efficientdisplay, processor and iOS, battery life actuallyisn't too bad on the SE.
Still not quite where I would like it.
It does feel a little bitof a generation behind, but it is certainly enoughto make it through a day.
So as someone who's beenstruggling with the decision between iOS and Android, there have been a lot of major advantages that I've seen on both sides, which makes it a very complicated decision because at its very root, both Android and iOS are very, very good these days.
So for example, with Android, one of the main advantages is, of course, the customization not only in the operating system, which, of course, gives you a much deeper level of control, but also, in the amount ofhardware that you can pick up.
Now, yes, the iPhone lineis probably the broadest that it's ever been, betweenthe SE on the low end, you have the iPhone 11, the Pro, the Pro Max, but even that pales in comparison to the hundreds oflegitimately very impressive Android options out there.
If you want folding phones, as I mentioned my previousvideo, if you care about 5G and high refresh rate, allthat stuff is available on the Android side of the fence.
When it comes to appsupport, at least for me, 95% of the apps thatI use on a daily basis are available not only on Android and iOS, but are very similar quality.
There aren't major differences.
Of course, what are phonesthese days beyond a camera, and just a portal towhatever app you want to use.
Now, there are certainly some exceptions.
Instagram would be a good one, which I do think issignificantly better on iOS and of course, there are some advantages on the Android side of the camp.
For example, if you wantto play some retro games via an emulator, goodluck trying to do that on iPhone unless you want todo some weird side loading.
When you talk about the Apple ecosystem, there is a negative connotation there, and I will certainly admit, I have perpetuated that with, I mean, even my last video.
Now, yes, it is very annoying once you get into the Apple ecosystem, and everyone has you on iMessage, and your grandma calls you on FaceTime, and you're charging with your Apple Card, and you have your AppleWatch, and your AirPods, and your Mac and your iPad.
I mean, there's so many thingsthat make it very difficult once you have that iPhone to get out, but by that same token, there are some advantages, of course, too, if you havea couple of Apple devices in your life, right? Having an iMessage popup on your Mac is great, or being able to take a callon your iPad or vice versa.
All this stuff is nice to see, but you don't have to go all in.
One thing I will say though, if you are coming from Android, all the Google apps work great on iOS with almost no exceptions, but if you're goingfrom iPhone to Android, well, you can listen to Apple Music, and probably another app.
I can't think of one, though.
Something I will give Appleprops for is the level of focus they put on not only security, but also privacy in iOS.
Not only does Apple havean excellent track record of continuously supporting devices, something I'll talkabout a little bit later, but on top of that, theyalso put a lot of emphasis on privacy, and we've donean entire video on this, so you can definitely find out more about my personal thoughts, but TL;DW, I definitely think Apple does a better job than pretty much anyoneelse in the industry for protecting your personal privacy.
Yes, if you look at apoll of random people, they might think that Google or Facebook are more trustworthy, which I find to be quite wrong, but generally speaking, when you look at just how muchthey've invested in things such as differential privacy, and when you look at thegeneral business model of Apple makes money when they sell you a phone, and Google makes moneywhen they sell you an ad using the data theyacquire using their phones, it kind of becomes fairly straightforward, in my opinion that while weall spend a lot of time online, but especially these dayswith all of us so invested in our digital lives, I thinkit really matters personally, that I have a device thatactually is looking out for my privacy.
Yes, that might be a little bit overblown.
Yes, I might be thatweirdo on the internet telling you about why privacy matters, but I do think this is alegitimate selling point for using iOS and Appleproducts in general.
If I had to give you a single pitch on why iOS might make more sense for you, compared to Android, it will be in the long-term software support.
Now, Android has certainly gotten better, but generally speaking, an Android phone may only get you aroundtwo years or so of updates, and that might not even be major updates.
Those might be securityupdates after you get one major release.
On the iOS side, you're pretty much, if you look at the lastfew years of phones, looking at somewherebetween five and six years of software support.
I mean, look at the iPhone 6S.
This is a flagship phonethat came out in 2015, and is still getting updates here in 2020, and very likely maycontinue to get updates through the next year, year and a half or so.
There's simply no other Android phone that can come close, regardless of the price.
Even if you look at somethinglike the Google Pixel line, the original Pixel 1 isalready stopped getting updates as of December of 2019, andthat's the best case scenario where it actually got more updates than Google originally promised.
Okay, so say you're consideringthis safe, practical choice of buying an iPhone this time around? Well, at that $400 pricepoint, the iPhone SE 2020 seems like the obvious choice, right? Well maybe, but there area couple of other things you may consider.
So for example, at aroundthat same $400 price point, you can buy a used orrefurbished iPhone XR.
Now the XR is a great phone.
It was my daily for prettymuch all of last year, and for good reason.
Not only does it have themodern swipey Face ID design, swipey, I'm gonna say thisis a swipey, swipey designs.
Yeah, it has to swipey design, but you also have a great camera, very solid battery life, but the downside is is that ifyou do pick up a used phone, as always, you have toconsider that that battery is probably going tobe not at 100% health, whereas, when you look atthe SE, it actually has a slightly newer processor, which means it will get updates for longer and you havethat security knowing that it has not been abused by Little Timmy with his 20-hour Fortnite gaming sessions.
You can also just buya brand new iPhone 11, which, at $700, is almostdouble the price of the SE, but for your extra $300, you're getting a better camera as well as an ultra wide, you're getting a bigger display with your swipey interface, as well as your Face ID, and you are also getting what should be at least somewhat better battery life.
The iPhone 11 does a pretty good job, whereas the SE, of course, is fine, but when you look at thealmost doubled price tag, a lot of those benefits, I would argue, probably aren't worth it for most people.
If you look at somethinglike the iPhone 11 Pro, stop.
There is no reason to spend$1, 000-plus on an iPhone 11 Pro right now, when not only couldyou get a lot of other phones that are, I would argue, just as good, if not better, but also, there's certainlygoing to be a major update later this year, which willbring higher refresh rate, and 5G, and all that stuff.
Don't spend $1, 000 on an iPhone right now.
Just don't do that.
So is it time to switch to iOS? If you are looking forsomething in the mid-range, then, iPhone SE 2020 is a no-brainer.
It really is a game-changer, and if you don't really careabout Android versus iOS, it is an incredibly compelling value.
If however, you were looking for something a little bit more exciting, a little bit more expensive, you want a brand new flagship, then, there are many, manyreasons why I personally think Android is the move right now.
So I am very curious, is the iPhone SE enough to tempt you away from Android? Definitely be sure to letme know, and of course, huge shout out to Rise of Kingdoms for sponsoring this video.
Don't forget to go download them at the link in the description.
Until next time, I'm going to go remember how to use the home button.
Is than an awkward way to end the frame? That's a little bit weird, isn't it?.
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