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My mom had the 2020 SE. She basically used it for calls and that was it. So no complaints. Then Verizon turned stupid and gave her $800 for it so she got the 14 for free. So again, no complaints.

Just get a phone that works well for you.
 
Wrong. I had a first-gen SE that I took with me on a month-long trip to Japan in 2016 and it was quite excellent in terms of battery life; the third-gen SE was shockingly good on battery in the week-and-a-half I spent playing with one. The second-gen was a tragic embarrassment of a product, one of the worst misses by Apple because of absolutely inexcusably tragic battery life. It’s like they wanted to torture poor people or something. Sorry OP had to experience that.
Luckily your 13 mini does not make Apple look torturous to you. Good for you.
 
I assume people buy the SE for its dimensions rather than the price. If your platform agnostic then at that price range you can get much better Android devices with aren't feature starved to upsell to the next model.

For example if you want a big screen the Nothing Phone 1 is a steal at $400 and the Pixel 6a is pretty much the last word in cameras. What you can't get though is a small Android for the same money.
 
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That does not do anything on mine, I have the same device with the same shot battery. Battery life really is atrocious. And even if I turn that mode on, the iPhone keeps disabling it again and again, because I now need to put it on the charger constantly, 4-5 times a day, whenever I get a moment, and afterwards iOS has disabled the mode again.
Of course no setting can compensate for a battery with so little juice left that you have to charge it 4-5 times a day. Just replace the battery. My new SE has really good battery.

Low power mode is quite good actually. Here is a list of all features it reduces or disables:

 
I assume people buy the SE for its dimensions rather than the price. If your platform agnostic then at that price range you can get much better Android devices with aren't feature starved to upsell to the next model.

For example if you want a big screen the Nothing Phone 1 is a steal at $400 and the Pixel 6a is pretty much the last word in cameras. What you can't get though is a small Android for the same money.

12 mini and 13 mini are actually smaller and lighter, so not sure it is all about dimensions.
 
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the camera module is in the corner of the device. the battery is not. on what planet would fitting a better camera result in a smaller battery?


...what? wireless charging is slow and takes forever, cable is faster but i don't wanna charge my phone twice a day, sometimes 3 if i happen to need it for something heavier like navigation. that's insane to use as an argument.
If only there was an easy way to have the battery replaced or even cheaper do it yourself.
 
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@firelighter487, your remaining battery capacity is really bad. The battery should be replaced. Could you or a tech savy friend do the battery replacement yours? With the help of YouTube videos, I changed the battery myself on my iPhone 6 and 5c. Felt like getting a new phone and is much cheaper than at Apple.
 
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Of course no setting can compensate for a battery with so little juice left that you have to charge it 4-5 times a day. Just replace the battery.
Nowadays I merely need the iPhone to use my AW, so the battery life doesn't matter, my main phone is a Pixel. I just mentioned that the low power mode doesn't do anything, except of course inconvenience me, for example by forcing a ridiculously quick screen timeout. Obviously leaving the screen turned on longer uses more battery, I don't need a lower power mode for that. And the SE doesn't have a 120Hz screen where the refresh rate could be reduced in the first place.

And again, since I put the phone onto my wireless charger all the time, iOS keeps disabling low power mode on its own. I am not going to manually re-enable it every single time I take the phone off the pad for checking a notification.

Could you or a tech savy friend do the battery replacement yours?
On the 2nd gen SE the glued-in display needs to be removed first with a suction cup after heating up the glue with a hairdryer. Not a problem if done carefully, but there is a risk of destroying the display making the device a complete loss. I have done repairs like this in the past and I have destroyed a couple of devices as well due to inexperience and impatience. Most likely the required tools will be missing, and if you buy battery and tools you might end up saving 40-50 bucks, but that's not worth risking device destruction in my opinion.
 
I have the same phone. I had Apple replace the battery last month and it's going great. Never wireless charge btw. It kills the battery.
 
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All phone batteries will degrade significantly after two or three years of good use. The brand doesn’t really matter. Batteries need to be replaced!
I’ve never replaced a battery in my life, and I keep devices, always. This is something that can be avoided.

It’s very simple: update iOS and a new battery will still be awful eventually. Don’t update iOS and you’ll never need to replace anything.

I don’t mean to get into the topic of iOS updates, but this replacing batteries aspect is simply a massive myth. It is even a larger myth on iPads. It is extremely difficult to degrade an iPad’s battery on an efficient version of iOS. People replace batteries on iPads left and right! On iPads! It’s incredible, really. I’ve seen people replace the battery on the iPad Air 2, on the 1st-gen iPad Pros. I wish they could go back to iOS 8 and iOS 10 respectively. I can guarantee that they wouldn’t need to replace anything.


I’ve said that should a user keep an iPad on an efficient version of iOS (the original, for the sake of maximizing this argument), they’d probably be able to be extremely heavy users for a very long time without consequences on the battery. I’ve always wondered what the limit is. In terms of both health and cycles. I reckon it wouldn’t struggle too much even after something like 3000 cycles. Even if it has 60% health, like I said, that’s irrelevant.

People don’t try it, but for the sake of an example, I’d love to see one person do this. Grab, say, a 3rd-gen iPad Pro on iOS 12. The A12X should be a massively efficient powerhouse on iOS 12. Use it whilst being the heaviest user in the world. I am absolutely certain that battery life will not suffer.
 
Your phone is 2.5 years old and you used it every day. The battery will degrade. The Oppo phone was not even used for over a year. The Oppo phone is bigger and has a much larger battery. Anyway I hope you enjoy your new phone.
 
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I was using an Xperia XZ2 before I bought my SE2020/64.

The battery usage is worlds apart and I know the fact that they have different battery capacities.
But, looking at the capacity of iPhones like my SE2020, 1.8k mah? Should have been, at least, 2.5k mah. Less than 2k mah is too much.
I had to charge like 4~5x a day and turn off some features to maximize the SOT.

I just like the simplicity, camera, and dumbness of iPhones vs the complexity and power usage of Androids.
Now that I bought an M2 Mac Mini, I'll stick with my trusty SE2020 (because I don't need high-end phones) that's still on 83% capacity.

I even created Shortcuts where if you plug it in, it turns off WiFi, Bluetooth, Cellular Data, Turn Airplane mode on, volume down, and turns on Low Power mode
+ plays a sound at 85%, 90%, 95%, and 100% battery at increasing intervals when charging so no over charging and using while charging which kills the battery faster!
 
I was using an Xperia XZ2 before I bought my SE2020/64.

The battery usage is worlds apart and I know the fact that they have different battery capacities.
But, looking at the capacity of iPhones like my SE2020, 1.8k mah? Should have been, at least, 2.5k mah. Less than 2k mah is too much.
I had to charge like 4~5x a day and turn off some features to maximize the SOT.

I just like the simplicity, camera, and dumbness of iPhones vs the complexity and power usage of Androids.
Now that I bought an M2 Mac Mini, I'll stick with my trusty SE2020 (because I don't need high-end phones) that's still on 83% capacity.

I even created Shortcuts where if you plug it in, it turns off WiFi, Bluetooth, Cellular Data, Turn Airplane mode on, volume down, and turns on Low Power mode
+ plays a sound at 85%, 90%, 95%, and 100% battery at increasing intervals when charging so no over charging and using while charging which kills the battery faster!
Five times a day? The heaviest user ever? I’ve used 4.7-inch iPhones, I know that if you push them they aren’t great (I have my iPhone 6s, and even though it’s on iOS 10, if I push it heavily it won’t last the day), but I’d have to charge it one more time at most.
 
I’ve never replaced a battery in my life, and I keep devices, always. This is something that can be avoided.

It’s very simple: update iOS and a new battery will still be awful eventually. Don’t update iOS and you’ll never need to replace anything.

I don’t mean to get into the topic of iOS updates, but this replacing batteries aspect is simply a massive myth. It is even a larger myth on iPads. It is extremely difficult to degrade an iPad’s battery on an efficient version of iOS. People replace batteries on iPads left and right! On iPads! It’s incredible, really. I’ve seen people replace the battery on the iPad Air 2, on the 1st-gen iPad Pros. I wish they could go back to iOS 8 and iOS 10 respectively. I can guarantee that they wouldn’t need to replace anything.


I’ve said that should a user keep an iPad on an efficient version of iOS (the original, for the sake of maximizing this argument), they’d probably be able to be extremely heavy users for a very long time without consequences on the battery. I’ve always wondered what the limit is. In terms of both health and cycles. I reckon it wouldn’t struggle too much even after something like 3000 cycles. Even if it has 60% health, like I said, that’s irrelevant.

People don’t try it, but for the sake of an example, I’d love to see one person do this. Grab, say, a 3rd-gen iPad Pro on iOS 12. The A12X should be a massively efficient powerhouse on iOS 12. Use it whilst being the heaviest user in the world. I am absolutely certain that battery life will not suffer.
Just nonsense, sorry. https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/cp/d1cp00359c
 
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I’m aware of the science behind it. It chemically degrades, but with efficient software, it doesn’t have much impact in actual battery life.

If resistance increases and the battery cannot provide the same energy through power peaks, battery life decreases, right?
(See: https://batteryuniversity.com/article/how-does-internal-resistance-affect-performance#:~:text=The internal resistance of lithium,acid goes up with discharge.)

But what if I never ask for those peaks, anyway? What if the software is so efficient that I don’t need the same peaks that updated software does? Why do devices shutdown? Because they can’t match the voltage peaks required with their reduced capacity. What if I never require those peaks? It never shuts down.

I am surprised about the other effect: capacity drops, even if I don’t ask for those voltage peaks. If capacity drops, runtime drops. Undeniable scientific logic. Well... except that on iOS devices, for some reason which I don’t know, it doesn’t, if they aren’t updated. Well, it does, but the impact is so negligible that it is irrelevant anyway. Don’t ask me why. It doesn’t make scientific sense.

Why are people on older iPads with 32-bit processors able to get good battery life even 10-11 years after purchase? Because the software doesn’t require peaks that are untenable for the battery. Even degraded.

It is likely that iPhones suffer sooner. The reason is obvious, smaller batteries. I’m not saying that an iPhone will be able to withstand 4000 cycles of a normal user throughout 10 years and see no runtime loss. I’m not saying that this is limitless. There is a limit. But for the current smartphone landscape, that number is too high for it to be relevant.

Grab an iPhone 13 Pro Max with its nearly 4,000 mAh battery. Leave it on iOS 15 forever. Don’t increase the voltage requirements through those power peaks required by updated, inefficient iOS versions with higher power requirements on the same processors. Leave that static.

I am absolutely sure that even if it sees a runtime drop, it will be perfectly fine even 8 years later after moderately heavy usage. The battery is large enough to withstand capacity degradation without seeing any runtime loss. Why do users start complaining about severely reduced runtime some years after purchase? Because three iOS versions later, those requirements are too high. Extremely heavy users on original versions don’t report that decrease.
 
I sympathise with the OP, I had the 2nd gen SE and the battery life is woeful. In fairness, all the reviews say as much so it shouldn’t come as a surprise but still, barely a full days use off a single charge shouldn’t have been allowed to ship IMHO.

I switched up to the gen3 SE and it’s a dramatic improvement. Easily does a full day and wish spare juice. I’m not a big phone user, which is partly why I wanted the SE because I prefer the smaller form factor, but I’ve managed 2 full days on my current phone with minimal usage.
 
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I’m aware of the science behind it. It chemically degrades, but with efficient software, it doesn’t have much impact in actual battery life.

If resistance increases and the battery cannot provide the same energy through power peaks, battery life decreases, right?
(See: https://batteryuniversity.com/article/how-does-internal-resistance-affect-performance#:~:text=The internal resistance of lithium,acid goes up with discharge.)

But what if I never ask for those peaks, anyway? What if the software is so efficient that I don’t need the same peaks that updated software does? Why do devices shutdown? Because they can’t match the voltage peaks required with their reduced capacity. What if I never require those peaks? It never shuts down.

I am surprised about the other effect: capacity drops, even if I don’t ask for those voltage peaks. If capacity drops, runtime drops. Undeniable scientific logic. Well... except that on iOS devices, for some reason which I don’t know, it doesn’t, if they aren’t updated. Well, it does, but the impact is so negligible that it is irrelevant anyway. Don’t ask me why. It doesn’t make scientific sense.

Why are people on older iPads with 32-bit processors able to get good battery life even 10-11 years after purchase? Because the software doesn’t require peaks that are untenable for the battery. Even degraded.

It is likely that iPhones suffer sooner. The reason is obvious, smaller batteries. I’m not saying that an iPhone will be able to withstand 4000 cycles of a normal user throughout 10 years and see no runtime loss. I’m not saying that this is limitless. There is a limit. But for the current smartphone landscape, that number is too high for it to be relevant.

Grab an iPhone 13 Pro Max with its nearly 4,000 mAh battery. Leave it on iOS 15 forever. Don’t increase the voltage requirements through those power peaks required by updated, inefficient iOS versions with higher power requirements on the same processors. Leave that static.

I am absolutely sure that even if it sees a runtime drop, it will be perfectly fine even 8 years later after moderately heavy usage. The battery is large enough to withstand capacity degradation without seeing any runtime loss. Why do users start complaining about severely reduced runtime some years after purchase? Because three iOS versions later, those requirements are too high. Extremely heavy users on original versions don’t report that decrease.
What’s with the obsession of not wanting to just use your phone and change a battery every 3 or 4 years? Compared to the use you get out of it, the total cost of the phone, and the continued support for many years, a new battery comes awfully cheap. And that goes for Android phones as well.

Having said that, the early SE’s had small batteries that indeed did not last long. Even when staying with their release iOS (my in-laws had one).
 
What’s with the obsession of not wanting to just use your phone and change a battery every 3 or 4 years? Compared to the use you get out of it, the total cost of the phone, and the continued support for many years, a new battery comes awfully cheap. And that goes for Android phones as well.

Having said that, the early SE’s had small batteries that indeed did not last long. Even when staying with their release iOS (my in-laws had one).
Because replacing the battery doesn’t solve performance issues, it merely improves them (slightly). The battery life impact is more pronounced (degraded batteries on updated iOS devices are unusable. New batteries are better, but they’ll never match the original iOS version).

People on older iPhones have repeatedly stated that they are absolutely tired of replacing batteries. Updated iPhones see a dramatic runtime loss even with 85%, and those users have stated that it doesn’t take them long to degrade a battery on a severely updated iPhone back to 85% again. Result? People replacing 8, 9 batteries until they get absolutely exhausted and upgrade. Meanwhile, I’m here, never replacing a battery, and everything works fine. OP’s SE will probably have the same thing happen to it.

I can’t replace batteries on iPads: Apple replaces the entire iPad. Which means that I’d be able to replace the battery maybe once before the device is rendered obsolete. And when it degrades again? The device is useless. I use my iPads for content consumption, and any iOS version works for that. Have you seen the numbers on iPadOS 16 for the 10.5-inch iPad Pro’s battery life on iPadOS 16 with degraded batteries? The thing dies in one hour. And it is less than 6 years old, which is nothing. I replace the battery now… and then? It’ll degrade quickly on iPadOS 16. Then the device is gone. I have the 1st-gen, 9.7-inch iPad Pro on iOS 12 (after Apple forced it out of iOS 9, otherwise it’d be there). Battery life saw a runtime loss of 20-23% after it was forced, but battery life today is the same as it was in September 2019, immediately after it was forced. It’ll probably never see a decrease. It is over 80% health, but let’s assume Apple will replace the battery on iPadOS 16. Not only will it be at least 40% worse than it is now, what happens when it degrades like the 10.5-inch iPad Pro? I can’t replace a battery anymore. So the device is basically a paperweight. If I use it for content consumption and I don’t need anything from iPadOS 16, why not keep it here? Battery life will be good for many, many years.


It’s sad that OP’s iPhone was the worst iPhone in recent years in terms of battery life, and iOS 16 doesn’t help. There’s not much she can do, and the device isn’t even old. She said she can’t replace the battery, and the only reason for which the SE fails to meet her needs is iOS 16.
 
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