Battery replacements are priced <100 CAD for for all supported Apple phones. In my opinion, it's a pretty good option given the support period these devices enjoy now.
I preferred touchid over faceid. Sure, there was always the SE option, but if I was buying a newer phone then it was going to be new one, damn it.
What pushed the needle in the upgrade vs repair decision for me was wear concerns on the nand flash. I've encountered plenty of stories of flash failures after the 4th, 3rd or even 2nd battery replacement. I never found a way to get a meaningful health check for iphone flash lifetime but I really didn't want to find out the hard way.
That was in addition to 5G vs LTE. LTE in our area is a quagmire.
But yeah overall it’s bonkers how similar the two devices are for purportedly between four generations apart.
neither does face ID
What I found out though is that it's because in such lighting conditions I don't blink, compounded by the fact that if it doesn't unlock I unconsciously keep on not blinking to... see it hopefully unlock! So when this happens I consciously blink and it unlocks immediately, which is kind of cognitively dissonant.
Unknown if that would apply to your situation, YMMV but I thought I'd throw this one out.
There's also a kind of annoying recurring situation where I want to look at stuff on the lock screen but don't want to actually unlock...
I do wish they'd have reintroduced Touch ID in the camera control button sensor (or just in the power button, as for the iPad Air) but I guess cases would cause a problem.
Touch ID was reliable for me.
Apple is working hard to add all kinds of "missing" features and complexity all over the place, all while raising the price of the device as much as possible. But in the end, what kind of client will be satisfied with this approach but noy with an Android? Not a whole lot I believe.
I feel the same way. If there’s one feature I miss, it’s toichid.
On the other hand, my parents, who are older, find Face ID to be a lifesaver since their fingerprints have mostly worn out.
I used to think I wanted FaceID over TouchID, because TouchID would regularly fail to recognise my thumb if I'd recently washed my hands, or was a little dehydrated. Anything that affected my skin tension.
In practice, FaceID fails way more often, and also "resets" (the phone decides it wants a passcode before it'll trust my face again) multiple times a day. TouchID almost never did that.
If you have an Apple Watch, you can also configure it to unlock your phone automatically when an obstruction prevents Face ID from recognizing your face.
I'd never go back to Touch ID. Face ID works in the dark, at pretty much any angle, and requires zero interaction.
I have had it in this mode for years. It's still very fragile and/or skittish regarding making me use my passcode. Intuitively, it feels like about 10-15% of logins require the code rather than my face.
> If you have an Apple Watch, you can also configure it to unlock your phone automatically when an obstruction prevents Face ID from recognizing your face.
That's a very expensive solution.
> Face ID works in the dark, at pretty much any angle, and requires zero interaction.
All of which apply to TouchID too.
Especially since it makes many operations a 2-step process when it was much smoother before; like for example Apple Pay where you find yourself looking at your phone like an idiot instead of doing it all in a single movement.
Works great. Original battery.
Again, it might not be the right decision for you, but I thought you might like to be aware of the option.
We do get them a nice new phone when they graduate high school.