hello my name's tom and this is proper
honest tech
earlier this week apple announced its
range of phones for this year the iphone
13 the 13 mini and the two pro models
the internet is understandably awash
with videos right now talking about the
new phones and everything that they can
offer in fact it's about 1 30 p.m here
in the uk on pre-order day and about 20
minutes ago i was able to pre-order
myself a 13 pro but what you might find
interesting as someone who runs a
youtube tech channel is that my 13 pro
will be replacing not a 12 not even an
11 but this an iphone 10 s
and the fact that i've had this phone
for three years now got me thinking
because prior to this i would upgrade
usually each year maybe skipping a
particularly boring generation here and
there but three years with the same
phone this was new to me and it got me
thinking about why i've stuck it out
with the 10s for so long and why even
this year i was only about 80 certain
that i was going to be making the
upgrade
because not everyone has the ability to
spend more than a thousand pounds on a
phone these days in fact for many
spending half of that is still way too
much which is why the budget smartphone
market is as large as it is today albeit
populated almost entirely by android
devices
but what if you really want to get into
the apple ecosystem but stretching to
489 pounds the cheapest overall cost i
could find on the apple website for an
iphone 11 a two-year-old device is a
stretch too far you could opt for the
iphone se which comes in at around 389
but loses many of the more modern
features like face id and an all-body
display
so in my review of the device that i've
been using now for three years i'm
presenting the iphone 10s as a viable
alternative to anyone in that situation
looking for an iphone at the cheaper end
of the market the iphone 10s has of
course been discontinued by apple so any
device that you buy is going to be
either a very old item of new stock or
more likely a refurbished unit but there
are deals to be had with a base model 64
gig iphone 10s the exact model that i
own available for less than 300 pounds
but is it worth it or should you try and
find the extra cash to get a brand new
iphone se or 11. let's talk about it the
iphone 10s was launched in 2018 and was
the flagship model for iphone in that
particular year launched alongside the
10s max and the 10r a strange line of
slightly scaled down phones that apple
has kind of done away with ever since
it features a 5.8 inch retina display
which covers the entirety of the front
of the device save for the notch but
that notch is still present even today
with the 13s you've got face id on the
front and a two camera system on the
rear with both a wide and a telephoto
lens offering two times optical zoom
4g is supported which for many of us is
still the only really viable phone
service available newer models do of
course offer 5g if that's supported and
widely implemented in your country
on the inside is the a12 bionic chip
comprising of a six core cpu a four core
gpu and an eight core neural engine it
supports wireless charging hdr content
and has a one million to one contrast
ratio
these are of course all just specs
though and i won't add any more just now
you can head over to the apple website
and use their compare tool if you want
to see more because the issue with specs
is always that on paper they don't mean
much the proof is in the usage of the
device as even a moderate improvement in
chips can have a huge impact on a power
user of a device whilst having little to
no impact on the average user
so the question is is the iphone 10s
still good now in 2021
the answer in my opinion is yes
absolutely
obviously i don't have my 13 pro yet so
i can't do a side-by-side comparison of
the two i may do that when it arrives
although it feels like a bit of a
pointless comparison the 13 pro is of
course going to wipe the floor with the
10s in terms of performance but what
i've found after three years of usage is
that this is the first time where i've
not felt utterly compelled to upgrade
which is pretty impressive
you see in the past upgrades are usually
very necessary down to the phone that
i'm currently using beginning to show
its age in a couple of key ways the
first way is typically the device
slowing down overall struggling to open
apps quickly perhaps even struggling to
run some of the more processor heavy
apps altogether but overall that hasn't
been happening with the iphone 10s
thanks i believe to the processors in
these phones improving so much that they
stand the test of time much better and
far tighter integration with ios the
iphone 10s still feels pretty slick and
smooth in my mind at least
sure the occasional app does hang for a
second or two when you open it but this
is rare and the overall performance of
this phone is still really really good
the second key issue that usually forces
an upgrade is battery performance
degrading significantly for me this has
started to happen although a change in
my lifestyle has perhaps made this less
of an issue this time around i'm finding
that in general i can get around a full
working day of use for my iphone 10s
maybe six or eight hours of it being
used and picked up regularly before i
need to think about reaching for the
power cable or wireless charger that's
definitely the size of a battery that
isn't as healthy as it once was but it's
still not awful and thanks to things
like charger packs and the fact that my
work now means i stay home much more the
battery issue hasn't been such an issue
that has forced me into upgrading
oh and one other thing that i use my
iphone 10s for a lot is carplay both
wired and wireless we've got two cars
with a connection method each and i have
to say that the iphone 10s is utterly
flawless in either configuration
again a lot of that is probably down to
apple's implementation of carplay but
the fact that siri loads and responds
quickly maps open and refresh
immediately music and podcast plays away
wirelessly with no connection issues
ever is really impressive
so what are you not getting by choosing
the 10s compared to say the se or the
11. well you're not getting a new phone
you're getting a reconditioned one let's
get that clear first but beyond that
let's compare
you're not getting the largest display
this comes on the 11 but you're
definitely getting a larger screen than
the one you get on the now very aged
looking iphone se you're also not
getting an ultra wide camera but you are
getting a telephoto one compared to just
the wide camera on the se
you're getting an a12 bionic chip
compared to an a13 bionic chip on the
other two models which does mean less
overall power but as i've explained
already in the video i don't see this as
a massive issue and that a12 bionic is
still going to be able to keep up the
pace for the majority of apps that you
might want to run for the next couple of
years at least
if you're big into mobile gaming you're
going to notice the weak chip on some of
the newer games but that's going to be
the case for all of these devices
other than that you're getting a super
retina hd display rather than a retina
hd display on the se or a liquid retina
hd display on the 11. let's be real
iphone screens generally always look
very good and when you consider that all
three have the same p3 color range all
three have true tone and all three have
the same max brightness of 625 nits
we're comparing apples with apples for
the most part here excuse the pun
the rest of the comparison list honestly
reads much the same with many of the
same features being found across the
board or if anything the 10s having
features that the se simply doesn't have
the majority of the features that this
doesn't have are features that none of
these devices have
lidar variable screen refresh rate 5g
connectivity all that good stuff but in
fairness we're then back towards the
thousand pounds dollars or euros mark if
you want to enjoy those features and
that's not really what we're talking
about here
so honestly three years on my iphone 10s
is beginning to feel like a bit of a
perfect iphone in terms of price to
value ratio
yes you're going to have to buy
refurbished and you are of course going
to want to do this from a reputable
company who've done things like ensure
the screen is in good condition giving
it a thorough clean and service the
battery but i've seen a 64 gig version
of the iphone 10s refurbished selling
for about 260 pounds here in the uk
which is insanely cheap as a means of
getting into the iphone ecosystem
yes we'd all like to own the latest pro
model but if that's not achievable for
you i definitely recommend at least
exploring the iphone 10s before you
think about going for the 11 and
definitely before you consider the se
they might be new phones but are they
really the best value you can purchase
today in late 2021
what do you think about the iphone 10s
did you own one a year or two ago do you
still own one or would you consider
picking one up now in late 2021
drop me a comment and let's talk about
it and as ever i hope you found this
video useful if you did do please
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content like this in the future
see you on the next video