in my personal opinion, you are much better off just going for a 16e at this point, especially coming from a first generation SE.
I understand it’s significantly more expensive, but it’s also a question of keeping a phone for 2-3 years before having to go through this all over again, or getting the 16e, which should reasonably get updates until 2032 at least, and likely security updates into 2035.
it’s also a question of battery, the new 16e has a bigger battery than even the base 16.
Meanwhile any SE3 you can buy at this point is likely going to have a battery manufactured years ago, if it’s used a degraded battery, and because of the smaller capacity, the batteries is likely to go through cycles significantly quicker.
and then there’s the smaller stuff that probably won’t matter as much right now, but could someday, the OS itself is clearly not optimized for home button packing products anymore, I’ve read complaints of just strange UIs in third-party applications that are clearly meant for newer, bigger phones that just come off as bizarre on the SE3.
TLDR: if all you are interested in is paying the smallest amount of money possible today, obviously the SE3 will get the job done, but you’ll likely be right back here in three years or less looking to spend even more money to upgrade that SE3. meanwhile, the 16e is significantly more expensive upfront, but you are likely to not have to think about replacing it at least until the early/mid 2030s.
