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Comment by pwython | Hacker News Reader

I was saying the same thing a couple of years ago. I held on to my SE as long as possible because I didn't want an iPad phone. "There's no way I'm upgrading," I said. I thought those with iPhone Plus' and Galaxy Notes were either giants or hard of seeing.

However, I have the X now and I can't imagine going back to anything smaller. When I look at my buddy's SE now the screen looks so tiny. I guess the moral of the story is, "Don't knock it until you try it... at least for more than a few days."

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I have a 6, I'm planning on going to an SE just so I can actually reach the top of the screen with my thumb one handed.

I had a 5, then a 6, and my last two phones have been SE for that reason. It’s great. Really fits in the hand. No more double tapping to bring down the screen or awkwardly straining to reach buttons on the left hand side. Like, I will hit this reply button with one hand right now...

I upgraded to an X from an SE and I miss the small form factor a lot. I’ll definitely go back down in size the next time I upgrade assuming Apple make that phone.

Are you able to operate the X with one hand? If not, was the transition difficult?

Absolutely, I highly recommend trying the various sizes in person either at an Apple Store or at another retailer. The hands-on test was what sold me on the Apple Pen.

I went from a 5s to an X.

Typing this one-handed using the right-aligned keyboard.

There’s also an accessibility feature that allows for pulling down the display if you have trouble reaching the top-right.

Personally, I see those as software hacks for an ergonomic failure. I understand why people want big phones and I'm glad they have those options. But I don't want a software band-aid to be required to make a phone usable for me. I just want it to be the right size.

The problem is that “right size” is a tradeoff. A phone is a thing you hold, a thing you read, and a thing you carry around with you.

The X is actually usable with one hand for me without those features. But the keyboard alignment is very nice and a single hand motion away so why not use it? No phone is going to fit everyone’s hands, and making it 5s size means you miss out on the X’s big screen.

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