Like high school or college, there’s a glass roof to see through. Like junior year of college, there’s the new car smell coming from a black leather interior as I motor through warm air and a setting sun. The feedback from the graphic displays helps with the video game of trying to eke out the best possible mileage. Sometimes it’s around 38, sometimes it’s as high as 65. If I drive to work and stop at Starbucks on the way, the meter when I get out almost always says 47mpg, spot on what they pitch. I’ll be interested to see what the first full tank of gas measures out at, because we’ve had to fill up exactly once.
It feels like a car from the future, even more than the Rabbit did ten years ago. Which makes sense, because this is a hybrid drivetrain and a touch screen system that makes me wonder where to find the controls for the forward phaser array and a door that unlocks because I walked up to it. This is a Chevy sedan right out of Demolition Man, which came out just as I got that Saturn. The cars always feel like a leap forward.
Especially when the car finds the phone in my pocket via Bluetooth and starts playing without any intervention of mine. And that’s broadly feasible now, because the iPhone SE has proven its worth. In four straight days I’ve failed to drop it below 50% during the workday, despite things like downloading podcasts or adding stuff from the iCloud music library to the local storage or playing through my Bluetooth cans – or indeed through the car’s own Bluetooth. So far, so good, and the slightest top-up from a charger kicks the battery up fast. I’m interested to see how long it goes in low-power mode, especially in an all-day-out-and-about type setting – say, tooling around town in the new car.
Because the phone itself just feels right. The smaller size has stayed comfortable in the hand, and the smaller screen hasn’t been an impediment to reading – or to writing, as I’ve hammered out long and complex stuff on the built-in keyboard (the new Google iOS GBoard has its own issues; while it swipes pretty good it’s less good for pounding on the keys, and the swipe dictionary’s choices tend to err in favor of the longest possible wrong word). I haven’t compared the camera output on a bigger display yet, but it launches fast and shoots quick – it’s ready to go as soon as you flick up from the corner of the lock screen. With a little practice, the quick-draw is almost as fast as the Moto X.
But the biggest thing is this: in the first week of use, I haven’t felt compelled to go back to the old iPhone 6, nor to pull the Moto X out for a spin. The SE is completely serviceable as the One True Phone, maybe as the One True Device in a pinch (haven’t tried to read anything beyond RSS or Economist Espresso, but maybe Kindle later, and try pairing the Bluetooth keyboard for a really really long bout of typing). It was a good idea by Apple, well executed, and right in the sweet spot.
More like these, please.