I replaced my Pixel 2a with an SE3 when the pixel stopped getting security updates and have been pretty disappointed with the iPhone’s performance. The battery life out of the box was worse than the 5 year old Pixel, and I regularly notice apps getting killed and loosing my place when I tab away.

Maybe if you want to use all of the big mainstream apps the experience might be different, but I tend to have a fairly minimal setup on my phone. On android I would disable animations, use Nova launcher, Firefox with UBO, and a bunch of fdroid apps. This all added up to a very snappy and efficient system that I haven’t been able to replicate on iOS.

Less optimized, but for the same or less money you get 4-12GB more. Apple can't optimize away that gap.

Androids launched ≥2026 got a serious haircut in either memory or other features though. We'll see in 2028.

I'm really struggling to think of a time I've been disappointed in the performance of my Pixel 8 but I don't ask a ton of it