From XS Max to 6s for 3 months – old iPhones aren’t bad anymore.

My switch began unexpectedly when I listed my 1,5-year-old iPhone XS Max in a local sales site, just to check where it’s standing price-wise. After some time I got an offer that was higher than expected and it wasn’t later when I realised I have to say goodbye to my phone. Why would I even want to sell it? Well, the 6.5” form factor was not for me – I had difficulties carrying it around every day. I realised that during quarantine when suddenly I felt relieved not having to carry that heavy piece of chunk in my pocket. More cons than pros for me – I wasn’t making use of the extra screen real estate + the XS offers all the features in a more compact built. During the self-isolation times, I started to use my phone much, much less. Instead, I relied on my new addition to the Apple ecosystem, the 11” iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard(article coming soon!). Having that in mind, my “upgrade” to the 6s was seamless, except a few details I noticed later in the use… Here are my observations.

1. That screen is tiny! It’s a little bit small even for my use, where I’m sometimes in the need to get things done without having to scroll back and forth.
2. The speed of the A9 running iOS 13 still holds up for my needs – checking to-dos in Things 3, Shortcuts, replying to Messages, managing my Apple Watch. Could be faster but is good enough. The rest of my productivity work is done on my iPad and you have to keep that in mind. If I had to just rely on an iPhone, I would never have switched to it in the first place. iOS 13(haven’t tried the 14 beta yet, but tests say it’s similar) is surprisingly smooth for a nearly 5-year-old device. It works much better than older iPhones on their last filmware which were completely unusable and painfully slow like 4 iOS 7, 4s iOS 8/9, 5 iOS 10, 5s iOS 12. I think you know what I mean.
3. Camera, that is the feature I’m looking forward to the most when I’ll (finally) switch to a newer device in September – probably one of the iPhone 12 models or maybe I’ll get a good deal for the 11 Pro. I’m an amateur photographer so the camera is more than important for me. Here, I found the 6s to be way behind the current standards I’ve got used to so much.

Conclusion

I believe the 6s is still doing great in 2020 for basic tasks. The value for money is impressive. It’s not for me in the long term though, as I need a whole lot better camera than it offers. But you have to keep in mind that I’m not a heavy phone person anymore, thanks to having the iPad in my ecosystem which makes me much more productive than ever – where I appreciate not having to deal with smartphone limitations like the screen size, lack of physical keyboard and pure workspace. Even so, I can’t wait to get my hands on the newer device like the iPhone 12, it will be quite a jump for me.