\u00a0<\/p>\n
So there I was, groggy and half-asleep in international business class on a Dreamliner somewhere between Miami and Santiago de Chile, trying to bring my seat up so I could force down some breakfast. And I tugged at my headphones to retrieve my trusty iPhone SE, my chosen travel phone for three years, so I could stop the music that I\u2019d been trying to lull myself into rest with. And it wouldn\u2019t come out, and that\u2019s when I realized I\u2019d pinned it in the seat. And crunched the battery case so badly that I\u2019d actually bent the side of the phone.<\/p>\n
On day one of a 17-day trip to the other end of the world.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the camera worked, and despite some weirdness with the screen (un-cracked, all hail Gorilla Glass) and the problems with satellite-backed WiFi in the wilds of Patagonia, I was more or less able to get by. But I was already resigning myself to the notion that at long last, the ungainly iPhone X from work was going to be my only smartphone, once and for all. And then, mirabilae dictu, what should appear on Apple\u2019s clearance website but the iPhone SE, in 128 GB size.<\/p>\n
So why spend $300 on a phone that comes pre-aged 3.5 years? Let\u2019s see:<\/p>\n
1. A 128 GB model means that for the first time ever, I could have literally all<\/em> my music on it with plenty of room for backup content, photography, movies to cast to AppleTV, etc. Now… how to re-arrange numbers again? This certainly buggers my streamlining plan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 So there I was, groggy and half-asleep in international business class on a Dreamliner somewhere between Miami and Santiago de Chile, trying to bring my seat up so I could force down some breakfast. And I tugged at my headphones to retrieve my trusty iPhone SE, my chosen travel phone for three years, so … <\/p>\n
2. Every leak around the current Apple roadmap indicates pretty adamantly that there is no smaller iPhone coming. Much like the Moto X mk 1 was my last chance at a US phone, this is probably my last opportunity to own a one-handed phone. The key thing being that with 2 GB of RAM, it\u2019s probably safe through iOS 13 and may<\/em> be OK for iOS 14 depending, so two more years for $300 is pretty good.
3. I don\u2019t have to use it right away. Indeed, it\u2019ll probably sit in the box for a couple weeks while I experiment with living full time on the iPhone X. It doesn\u2019t have<\/em> to be the main phone unless something goes wrong or I leave work.
4. It\u2019s insurance. For going abroad, against losing my work phone, in case shit generally. And it\u2019ll be nice to have one with less wear and tear on it generally, never mind having being pinched in the seat. The cosplay dream phone is alive and well, a talisman of the life I wish I led, and a vote in favor of the proven and reliable over the flashy and new.<\/p>\n