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Favorite iPhone era


  • Total voters
    93
I owned 3G, 4, 5, 5s, SE, 7, XS, 12 mini and thinking about 13 mini or even regular 13.

My most ‘loveable’ experience was with iPhone 5. It was the best for one-handed usage and it was also my first experience to try it out in Apple Store (as we don’t have any in our country). It brings me smile on my face with that memory every time. Also iOS 6 was one of the stable versions of all time.

Runnerup would be iPhone 7 because I loved very much ‘no-button’ Home button. No headphone jack made me fall in love with AirPods so much.

Third would be 12 mini. Despite I love it, my memories are about love&hate from time to time. Mostly hate is about battery and sometimes using it with both thumbs while writing. Weird is that this didn’t something I remember from iPhone 5 at all. Also 5 is much better than mini because it doesn’t have camera bump, as long as it is gorgeous with 12 and 13 series. Something I really miss from 5 series. If the battery is sorted out as so many people are saying about 13 mini, maybe in future I will update my list. I do stilll love one handed usage most of the time with mini.
 
I voted for the 13 just because this is most the refined iPhone I’ve ever used, and I really appreciate the difference from my XS Max.

I loved my XS Max a lot. I used it longer than any other phone. But I was tired of how big it was and the battery life got bad towards the end. The upgrades on the 13 Pro with the incredible battery life, smaller (but not too small) body size, ProMotion, MagSafe, smaller notch, better speakers, Qualcomm modem with efficient 5G, and significantly improved cameras from my XS Max all removed a lot of the small annoyances/frustrations I had with my XS Max. I made a thread about how I think the 13 Pro is the perfect phone.
 
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Every time I pick up my old white X with a cracked corner at the front, it brings me back to how much I loved it when it first came out - coming from the 6, the OLED screen, the dual camera, the speed of the thing... worth every penny

Maybe 4 as second place because it was stolen 3 months after I bought it as my first iPhone at launch.
 
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i’d say the first iphone was the best.. the cellular world was mostly dominated by blackberry, nokia, and motorola flip phones. i remember buying iphones off craigslist and jailbreaking them to work on other carriers then selling them for $100 more than i paid. i think i was 20 around that time, lots of parties and shenanigans going on.
 
There were many smartphones (Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, BlackBerry) on the market years before the iPhone… just saying. My first ‘real’ smartphone (touch screen, open OS, native 3rd party app support and a built in camera) was the Sony Ericsson P800. It was great at the time. That was around 5 years before the first iPhone, which didn’t even support third party apps at the time… I got the 3GS later, but found it boring because of all the limitations compared to Symbian OS.
 
Mine's the 6s Plus. I used it for 4 years (2015-2019) before switching to an 11 Pro Max. I would've kept on using it if it weren't for the 64 GB storage. I've never changed the battery, it's still using its original battery which, last I've checked in 2018, had over 900 cycles. My guess is that by now it would've around 1,500 cycles.
 
There were many smartphones (Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, BlackBerry) on the market years before the iPhone… just saying. My first ‘real’ smartphone (touch screen, open OS, native 3rd party app support and a built in camera) was the Sony Ericsson P800. It was great at the time. That was around 5 years before the first iPhone, which didn’t even support third party apps at the time… I got the 3GS later, but found it boring because of all the limitations compared to Symbian OS.
My first smartphone is a distant relative of your P800! Mine was the Sony Ericsson P1i. Loved Sony Ericsson back then.
 
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I miss my 256gb space grey XS. Had the forest green leather case that patina'd perfectly. Upgraded to the 12 last year and hated my 12. Upgraded to the 13PM this year and loving the battery life. Size is whatever I love not having to charge my phone 2-3 times a day. Hammer the 13pm all day and still have ~30% battery at 10pm. But I miss the XS form factor and size. Just a killer little phone.
 
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11 Pro/Max. This was pinnacle of the iPhone with curved sides. Midnight Green looks stunning.

6S Plus was my 2nd iPhone after the iPhone 3G (after many years of Android phones) and I almost picked that for my favorite iPhone of all time. It changed the way I viewed iPhones and Apple as a company, forever.
 
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There were many smartphones (Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Palm OS, BlackBerry) on the market years before the iPhone… just saying. My first ‘real’ smartphone (touch screen, open OS, native 3rd party app support and a built in camera) was the Sony Ericsson P800. It was great at the time. That was around 5 years before the first iPhone, which didn’t even support third party apps at the time… I got the 3GS later, but found it boring because of all the limitations compared to Symbian OS.
I also had a P800 and loved it at the time - and on paper the fact we were using touchscreen phones with music, internet browsing, email, camera, and third party apps like a full office suite five years before the iphone seems remarkable. But there again - as is often said, while Apple are rarely first to market with anything, they often are the best, and that’s what happened with the iPhone.

After the P800 I had a P910 and a M600, and then switched to Windows with an HTC Tytn II around the time of the first iPhone. I don’t mind admitting that thanks to the loose security on those platforms and the fact that most of the software for those phones was inherently niche and therefore ludicrously expensive to buy, all of my phones were stuffed full of pirated apps - the benefit of an open OS. Like you, I sneered at the first iPhone for its limitations in not having any means of installing any more apps or functionality, despite its high price.

Then along came the iPhone 3G, iPhone OS 2.0, and AppStore in 2008. That changed everything IMO. The phone itself was more affordable, it was a “true” smartphone in the sense that it ran apps, and because it was infinitely easier and nicer to use than any prior smartphone it ended up in many more pockets, and was a far larger and more lucrative market for those apps than anything which had gone before. That in turn meant the apps became far more varied and inventive, and due to the volumes involved they were affordable too. I never used another pirated app again after that, and I never missed Symbian or Windows Mobile either. They’re largely forgotten these days for a reason.
 
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My first iPhone was the 6S Plus. With that being said, my favorite iPhone is the 5S. All of my coworkers had one, and I used to stare at it whenever they took it out to use it. I like everything about the way it looks. Even the cases that came out for it looked nice, especially the Apple leather case. When the 12 series came out, I was hoping that the Apple leather cases would be the same (with the individual speaker holes) but was disappointed when they were just cutouts.
My favorite iPhone color is the green iPhone 5C. At the time of its release, I had a Samsung Galaxy S4, and I spent so much time and wasted so much money trying to find a case that was the same shade of green.
Out of the iPhones that I've actually owned, my favorite has to be the 13 Pro Max. If this question was asked before I got my 13 Pro Max, I would have probably said either the 8 Plus or the XS Max.
 
13 Pro Max does I need done well. I transitioned to iOS with my 12 Pro Max from the Galaxy S10 Plus. I no longer need to have custom launchers and icon packs. I do miss split screen multi-tasking, better notifications and the ability to close all apps instead of swiping them away one, two or three at a time.

Whenever new features are introduced, they are better than second or third generation Android implementation of the same features. IOS updates are immediate and don't have to go thru the manufacturer and the wireless provider. The updates last for several years versus android's two or three years of delayed updates. Apples focus on efficiency and performance clearly separates them from Samsung or Google phones.
 
I loved my iPhone 3GS in white. It was beautiful and hard to get so I liked that no everyone had one.

My second fav is definitely the 13 Pro Max. I have every model of iPhone (upgrade yearly) and this phone screen and the photo quality are just amazing.
 
the 5 series is underrated imo. It gets overlooked by the 4s big design change and the 6 introducing the first plus series. But the 5 design with the two tone back and thin boxy design was great.
Ahh but if you missed the 5S, you missed a great refinement of the 4 inch iPhone. 64 bit architecture and the highly in demand gold color.
For me I think it would be the 4S, 5S and Xs in that order. The 4S with its retina display and iOS 5(?) was the start of my addiction (my first iPhone was a 3GS). In between those I had a 5, 6+ and 7. The 7 was so slim and light.

The jury is still out on my new 13 Pro. If I keep it for 3 years it will be a contender.
 
I’ve had a 3GS, 4, 5, 5S, 6, 6S Plus, X, 11 Pro and now I’m on a 13 Pro Max. The latest one is definitely my favorite one. The 11 Pro was rock solid and I enjoyed it a lot. Also, I think the curved edges were better than the new flat edges.
 
My favorite by far was the jet black 7 Plus. Was a really nice phone in the hand and was so fast for the time. I traded mine in and to this day remember how perfect it was to me.
 
Definitely my white 8+. I just think it's the best looking iPhone, classic design and the screen is a joy to consume content and type on. It's held up very well over the past few years, it runs iOS 15 like a champ and is still just as fast as when I bought it. My newer phones are my daily drivers now mainly b/c of the improved cameras, but I still pop my sim into my 8+ for a few days sometimes.

If they make an SE+ with the same design I will be all over that.
 
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Of course the newest iPhone is always the best, but regarding favorites there will never be anything better than my first iPhone. It was a black iPhone 5. Had to save money for nearly a year and the moment when the UPS-Driver ringed, it was like Christmas. After unpacking I tried to insert the SIMCard, but failed for ten minutes because of shaking hands.
When I sold it after two years the buyer was pretty sure that I have exchanged it in the last days of Apple Care. No scratch, no damage at all beside the rumours and pics of scratched black phones. I really loved that thing.
 
The iPhone 4 and 5 were definitely iconic and are the source of the current iPhone design language change from the iPhone 11 series on but they seem a bit anachronistic in light of today's screen sizes and technology as exemplified by the 13 Pro Max with a 6.7 in OLED 120hz 1000 nit screen and Apple silica and camera improvements.
 
My favorite iPhone has always been the one I have at the moment. It's hard to compare the 3G, 4 or 5 against the 13 Pro when so many technological advances have been made in that span. I can't think of any one particular model that I particularly liked or disliked more than the others.

I can't really speak to aesthetics because I've never been one to admire a phone as an exquisite art object - I throw them in a case and use them. Mine have all been black/space gray/graphite except for the 6 Plus, which I got in white because it was immediately available and I would've had to wait weeks for a space gray one.
 
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