I went and looked at the new SE today in the Apple store today and took the opportunity to compare it with the 13 Mini (in the new sludge green colour, as it happened), just in case I could persuade myself to give up TouchID for the better camera, etc. I'm definitely getting the SE! I found the lack of home button very annoying; perhaps I would get used to that, but I could barely reach the top corner to open control centre (or whatever it's called that accesses the camera, torch, etc), which I use all the time.
There is something that I keep forgetting that can mitigate some of the Touch ID woes: backtap. This is a feature not available on the SE; it's only available on the 12 and 13 generations. It's an Accessibility feature that enables you to assign actions to double-tapping or triple-tapping the back of the phone. You can, for example, assign "Home" to a double-tap and "Control Center" to a triple-tap. You can even assign a Shortcut to either, which means anything you can program into a Shortcut you can have a double- or triple-tap away.
This is a feature I usually forget, and when I did my whole comparison between Touch ID and Face ID earlier in this thread I DID forget it! I currently have "Home" assigned to double-tap, which means I no longer need to swipe up to get to home, even from the lock screen. This is not perfect: the target is the entire back of the phone (so, where my index finger is anyway), BUT it's more sensitive towards the middle of the phone than towards the edges. It takes a gentler tap in the middle than the edges. And it's not instantaneous like a swipe or button press is, there's a half second between the tap and the action. But it is something I can invoke without having to be very accurate or to reposition my hand or finger.
You only have two of these (double and triple), so you've got to use them wisely. I like the idea of using it to activate Control Center, but I'm a two-handed user anyway, so I'm going to work with the controls with my opposite hand, so I might as well swipe down with the opposite hand. But I can assign specific controls: I can invoke the camera, or the flashlight, or the TV Remote, for example.
You can also invoke Reachability. Reachability has been around since 2014 or so, whenever the iPhone 6 came out: it's a function that slides the content of the screen (including the title bar) downwards, more in reach of your thumb. On Touch ID phones I think it was a triple-press, or perhaps it was a double-tap. On Face ID phones it's a swipe DOWN off of the bottom edge of the phone (a swipe down anywhere else on the screen invokes Spotlight, it has to be off the bottom to do Reachability), which I find really uncomfortable. BUT I can also assign Reachability to a backtap. I checked it out this morning, and when Reachability brings the top down, it also brings the top swipes down with it: you can then access Control Center with a swipe much closer to your thumb. There is some accuracy involved, but the reach issue will have been at least helped.
Reachability is also available on the iPhone you have now, even on an SE 2016, if you want to play around with it.
Neither of these features is a replacement for Touch ID; both are limited. But both at least partially bridges the gap.
More superficial observations: the starlight colour is very pretty, and the 'naked' phone felt like a high quality, very solid, well made object, slightly different to the 2020 model. I guess that's the different glass.
I was going to counter the suggestion that the SE 2022 should feel more solid than the 2020: how can that be, if they're the same chassis? But the glass! You're right, I bet the glass would contribute to that!
