iPhone 11 Moved back to iPhone and it feels like a downgrade?

[Barbareren]

BlackBerry was the first mobile platform to successfully and reliably put your Outlook email in your pocket.

It really wasn’t, at least not worldwide. Symbian OS (the successor to EPOC) had that in the box way before BB. Symbian OS was open, while BB lived in its little walled garden for quite a while. I also don’t agree with your ‘stick to one platform’ shtick. All my contacts and calendars etc. are synced to Google and easily transferred to and from iOS and Android.

 

[ctjack]

In the US, maybe. In other countries like mine, Apple iPhone are marked up way above their supposed price segment.

We have the same pricing strategy in my country. At least we are not in Brazil, where you just multiply any apple product by 3 of US price.

Meanwhile, the base 128GB iPhone 12 Pro is priced at $1200.

Base 128GB 12 Pro is $1000+tax. Tax is tricky part of US purchases, so if i go to Apple store or any other techno store, then i would pay 11% tax. Most of the people do it that way and never look back here in US.
If i order online and mail it, then i pay 6.25% tax.
Which leads us to the final price of base 12 Pro to be 1000+110=$1110 (if purchase in person at the store), $1063 (order online and mail it).
As you can see the difference is only $90 which could be the subject of your strict customs rules.

The 128GB 12 Pro Max? That will cost you $1350.

12 PM here is 1100+121=$1221. Here markup is a little bit higher, but still doable.

And that's actually on sale as the launch price was $1440.

Well that is how it works in the countries without official Apple stores. Markup at launch is $220, which is quite annoying, but still cheaper than to import from US with shipping, unless you have a friends traveling from there.
At least you can enjoy indomie and nasi goreng for cheap on the streets, while in US the cheapest street food is $3-$5.

 

[KOTN91]

I’ve had an XR and a 12 and the 12 is a considerable jump. The 11 would be much closer to the XR than the 12

 

[rambo47]

It really wasn’t, at least not worldwide. Symbian OS (the successor to EPOC) had that in the box way before BB. Symbian OS was open, while BB lived in its little walled garden for quite a while. I also don’t agree with your ‘stick to one platform’ shtick. All my contacts and calendars etc. are synced to Google and easily transferred to and from iOS and Android.

Notice I said "reliably." I had email set up on my Nokia N95 and it was finicky at best. I was even a Symbian Brand Ambassador for a year. I had a couple Palm Treo Phones too, but the Garnett OS went from amazing to a disaster in less than a year. For me, BlackBerry was the best of 'em all.

As for contacts & calendar, Google + Android is great. But I have found formatting and duplicate errors when syncing Google and iOS contacts. However, I do like Google Calendar on iOS. The trick is using a Gmail account as a primary calendar instead of an iCloud account.

 

[Barbareren]

Notice I said "reliably." I had email set up on my Nokia N95 and it was finicky at best. I was even a Symbian Brand Ambassador for a year. I had a couple Palm Treo Phones too, but the Garnett OS went from amazing to a disaster in less than a year. For me, BlackBerry was the best of 'em all.

As for contacts & calendar, Google + Android is great. But I have found formatting and duplicate errors when syncing Google and iOS contacts. However, I do like Google Calendar on iOS. The trick is using a Gmail account as a primary calendar instead of an iCloud account.

The Nokia N95 wasn't meant to be a BB competitor by any means. It would be much fairer comparing BB to all the various physical QWERTY keyboard phones that were running Symbian OS (from Series 80 to UIQ to S60). Also, let's not forget that BB charged a pretty penny for its services, and it was limited to the U.S. only - granted that it did support push-email, while on Symbian you'd have to settle for setting up polling intervals (from every 5 mins onward), unless you wanted to subscribe to a service/server similar to the one BB offered (like Microsoft Exchange etc.). Sill, like I mentioned, BB used a tightly closed operating system while Symbian OS let you install native C++ applications (no Java crap). Did you ever own a Nokia Communicator, a Sony Ericsson P900 (or any of its UIQ successors) or even an E61(i) or E71?

"The trick is using a Gmail account as a primary calendar instead of an iCloud account." - Well, yes, that should be obvious unless one wants to be tied to Apple's ecosystem forever...

Anywho, this is all super off-topic... My apologies.

 

[Gunplay]

Throw the android in the bin and scrub yourself with turpentine and a wire brush.

 

[jay968]

Best phone I've ever owned is a Pixel 3a. Still have it.
They only reason my iphone 12 is my main phone is to justify having spent $800 on it. It's perfectly fine and usable (with some quirks) but the Pixel is a better phone.